Interregional Differentiation and Donating and Recipient Regions: Diversity of Assessments and Conclusions

A comprehensive analysis of the causes, extent, and consequences of interregional differences in production and consumption indicators cannot be carried out based on a limited range of the most readily accessible statistical indicators. The most common of them—per capita GRP, average wages, and per capita cash incomes—are insufficient for obtaining objective conclusions and identifying all the factors that determine interregional differentiation; moreover, they lead to an overestimated scale of this differentiation. In addition, to estimate the extent of donor and receiver, it is also clearly insufficient to compare data on the volume of revenues in the budget system and expenditures of regional consolidated budgets. The article shows how drastic differences in interregional differentiation indicators can be when they are determined by diverse approaches.