Вызовы региональной социально-экономической поляризации в России: успешна ли государственная политика?

Политическая наука. 2024. № 1. С. 14–50.

Turovsky R. F., Sukhova M.

The article focuses on the topic of regional inequality in Russia. It considers two types of inequality – economic and social – and analyzes the impact of government policy on their dynamics. The results of the study show that, according to theoretical assumptions characterizing developing countries, economic growth in Russia does not lead to a reduction in regional economic inequality, and governmental policy in this area is of limited effectiveness. One can speak about regional polarization as a consequence of certain types of state policy (investment policy, distribution of non-discretionary transfers), while the equalization policy (equalizing transfers) has low impact on reducing inequality. Thus, in the economic sphere, the achievement of the state policy can be recognized as the containment of the growth of regional inequality, which, however, is not constantly manifested. In terms of social policy, contradictory trends have been recorded in recent years. On the one hand, in some spheres the government policy does have a more obvious impact on the reduction of regional inequality, but on the other in many cases this equalization occurs against the background of stagnation or deterioration of the indicators themselves. In particular, the reduction of inequality between regions is characteristic of infrastructure and human resources indicators in the spheres of education and health care. In several examples, in contrast, there is an increase in inequality, which is characteristic of wages policy. In some cases, the growth of inequality becomes the reverse side of the improvement of the overall level of indicators, as demonstrated by the indicator of doctors’ salaries.

Keywords: инвестиции, региональная политика, государственная политика, public policy, social policy, investment, межбюджетные трансферты, regional policy, региональное неравенство, regional inequality, inter-budget transfers, economic polarization, экономическая поляризация