Growth Centres in Polarized Macro-Regional Space: An Example From Russia’s Central Black Earth Macro-Region

. The paper deals with polarized growth theory and growth centre (pole) theory. We examine competing theoretical approaches to economic space polarization and its consequences. Then we classify recent methods of its evaluation according to the object of the study, socio-economic indicators and polarization indices. We also summarize different approaches to growth poles (centres) detection. The object of our study is the Central Black Earth macro-region (CBEMR). We measure, using the coefficient of variation, the polarization of macro-regional socio-economic space (and also that of socio-economic spaces of regions, forming the CBEMR) according to a set of indicators. We discover that levels of polarization in CBEMR and in regions forming it are rather high with regards to almost every indicator. Highly polarized macro-regional socio-economic space is regarded in the paper as an appropriate basis for growth centres detection. We propose a «four filters» model, with filters being questions examining crucial characteristics of municipalities aiming at being called growth centres. Municipalities are being «filtered» through each question, leaving us with a hierarchy of growth centres (that of regional and macro-regional importance, potential growth centres etc.). The authors suppose that investment in those centres may become a driving force of regional and macro-regional economies. dis. ... cand. econ. sciences. [ Economic