Spatial Development of Russia in XXI Century

Abstract

This paper studies the spatial proportions of Russian development and their change since the beginning of the XXI century. A number of indicators of economic activity is used: population, employment, fixed assets, and GRP. Several directions of transformation are considered: West-East, ‘center’ – ‘periphery’, regions specializing in mining and processing industies. The methods of research are the Theil index and estimates of regression equations. The analysis showed that there is a movement of economic activity from the East to the West, from the ‘periphery’ to the ‘center’, and from the resource-rich to the manufacturing regions. The rates of these changes are slow and can be viewed as evolutionary dynamics. However, the continuation and combination of these processes leads to higher concentration and growth of pre-existing interregional differences in the country. Spatial changes in modern Russia are influenced by factors of market and agglomeration nature, such as the capacity and availability of markets, the presence of large cities, acting as centers of development. The estimates show that the share of resource spheres of economy, federal investments, and urban population share aren’t statistically significant to the GRP, while production assets, market potential and relative size of the closest urban center are

Keywords

• spatial proportions
• economic development
• empirical analysis
• russia