Study of the heterogeneity of the Russian economic space at the level of macro-regions

Introduction. This article examines the problem of differentiation of the economic space of Russia. This problem originates during the collapse of the Soviet Union, when, during the transition from a command economy to a market economy, the state was faced with an uneven distribution of natural, territorial, demographic and other resources across the country's regions. The destruction of industrial, financial and social ties of the regions occurred as a result of the policy pursued by Yeltsin B., who pursued a course of strengthening the sovereignty of the subjects of Russia. In the Decree of the President of the Russian Federation No. 803 dated 06/03/1996 "On the main provisions of regional policy in the Russian Federation", the task was set to smooth out significant imbalances in the socio-economic development of the regions. In this paper, the question is considered: has the task regulated by the decree of the President of the Russian Federation been achieved? The purpose of the work is to assess the differences in the socio-economic development of Russian regions grouped into federal districts. Materials and methods. The information base of this study consists of the works of domestic authors and data from the State Statistics Service (Rosstat). The Thale index, its structural decomposition, and the Atkinson index were used to analyze the socio-economic inequality of the regions. Results. The article provides a structural analysis of the socio-economic development of Russia (at the level of macro-regions) from 2000-2020 using the above indices. The results of the study showed significant intergroup differences in the macro-regions of Russia, as well as increased regional inequality in most of the considered indicators. An analysis of the regions within the federal districts showed that the regions of the Central Federal District differ significantly in terms of socio-economic development. In other federal districts, there is a low level of regional inequality Conclusions. As a result of the study, proposals were developed to reduce the socio-economic differentiation of the regions. The conclusions of this work can be used to improve the state regional policy in the field of balanced development of territories.