Economic Dynamics of Russian Regions: Crises and Ways to Restore Growth

The article considers the main features of the economic crises of 1998, 2009, and 2015; analyzes the dynamics of the main indicators of regional socioeconomic development in crisis conditions and at its terminal stage. It is shown that all crises are caused by structural factors: imbalances in the sectoral structure, weak financial sector, and weak institutions. An export-oriented model of the economy has proved unstable to external shocks. In all cases, the crisis-related decline began with the regions that most dependent on the external economic situation, with metropolitan areas and oil and gas producing regions. However, a deeper decline in production and slow economic recovery were observed in regions oriented toward domestic Russian demand. After the 2009 crisis, the range of fluctuations in growth rates decreased in all federal districts. The decline in production during the crisis has become smaller; however, the subsequent rise has not been high. The article assesses the impact of national trends and regional features of the production structure on regional economic dynamics. It is shown that crisis conditions amplify interregional differentiation of growth rates and the value of regional factors increases. The contribution of regional factors determines the stability of the economy to crisis-related shocks. The shares of the distribution of income between households and businesses are considered, since a change in these determines consumer and investment demand dynamics. It is shown that revenue redistribution in favor of business is not a factor in investment growth. The regional structure of investment demand is not directly related to the regional structure of business revenue. A peculiarity of the 2015 crisis is that adaptation of final demand to external shocks and depreciation of the ruble after devaluation occurred by contraction of both investment and consumer demand. The real sector of the economy shows the greatest resilience to the crisis; precrisis industrial indicators in 2018 were exceeded in all federal districts.