Inequality of Russian regions
newsletter 07/05/2015
Russian regions are quite unequal by the area, population, resources potential, scientific-industrial and trade resources, and social-economic development level. For their comparison various methods and rankings using the set of assessments and the specific feature for ranking were created. Therefore it is interesting to study the territorial entities of Russia in term of ratio of the expenditure regional budget to the population.
Most of the territory of the Russian Federation has the dotation status and treasuries more or less depend on inter-budget transfers from the federal center. The government policy is aimed at fiscal equalization of regional development inequality, which remains to be very high. By far, first spots of the ranking of the regions in terms of budget sufficiency belong to the High North regions rich with natural resources being our export base, as well as economic and political centers – Moscow and Saint-Petersburg.
The Nenets Autonomous District with the population of just over 40 th. people is on top. The expenditure budget of the district is compared with the budget of the Mari El Republic with almost 700 th. people. The district has 425 th. RUB account for head per year, while it is less in the Mari El Republic with its 32 th. RUB for head per year.
Despite of such a high level of the expenditure budget per head, life is very expensive in the Nenets Autonomous District. Moreover, extremely sever climatic conditions and underdeveloped infrastructure are resulted in high migration outflow of the most mobile citizens groups and natural population reduction (except autonomous districts of the Tyumen region). For example, the population of the Magadan region (5th in the ranking) has reduced by 3,7 in the period of 1989 – 2015 (from 542,9 th. to 148,1 th. people). In spite of the quite high living standard, the living attraction of this territory remains extremely low.
Among all regions of Russia, Moscow is reasonably the most attractive place for living both by climatic and social-economic conditions. The capital of Russia with the expenditure budget of 134 th. RUB per head is the 8th in the ranking, having at the same time the largest population among all 85 regions (12,2 mln. people).
Migratory pressure in the Moscow region will remain until neighboring regions approach the city by development. As a comparison, the expenditure budget per head in the Kaluga region is less than in Moscow by 2,9 times. Leveling the imbalance have to be conducted not only by manufacturing and service sector development, but also by changing the rules of business registration - at the place of main activity carrying out. The example is that almost all major fuel and energy companies of Russia are registered in Moscow and Saint-Petersburg, but operate far beyond them. The number of legal entities in both cities is an indirect proof: according to the Information and analytical system Globas®-i of the Credinform information agency, 1102,2 th. legal entities operate in Moscow and 357,6 th. in Saint-Petersburg; that is about 31% of all active enterprises in the country.
Whereas Saint-Petersburg closes the top 10 of the ranking – 91 th. RUB per head. Despite a slight growth of the expenditure budget in 2015, the positive population changes have resulted in spending reduction per head (-0,6%).
The lowest indicators were traditionally recorded in the regions of North Caucasus: the Republics of Dagestan and North Ossetia-Alania with 28 th. RUB per head.
Budgets of the Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol have shown the most impressive growth of the expenditure part due to the federal subsidies: by 230% and 102% respectively (this can be explained by the low base of the previous period, when the treasury was formed as a part of the Ukraine). Sevastopol is 35th and the Republic of Crimea is 57th in the ranking, which is higher than the Krasnodar Territory.
Rang | Territorial entity | The expenditure budget 2015 (at the time of adoption), th. RUB | The expenditure budget for head per year, тыс. руб. | Growth (reduction) of the expenditure budget indicator per head to 2014, % |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | The Nenets Autonomous District | 18 438 763 | 425 | 49,8 |
2 | The Chukotka Autonomous District | 21 031 142 | 416 | 15,8 |
3 | The Sakhalin region | 129 900 383 | 266 | 13,5 |
4 | The Yamal-Nenets Autonomous District | 117 249 240 | 217 | 8,3 |
5 | The Magadan region | 27 736 321 | 187 | -2,0 |
6 | The Kamchatka Territory | 58 231 357 | 184 | 7,9 |
7 | The Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) | 151 011 095 | 158 | 4,7 |
8 | Moscow | 1 632 990 305 | 134 | -1,8 |
9 | The Khanty-Mansi Autonomous District - Yugra | 195 136 808 | 121 | 3,1 |
10 | Saint-Petersburg | 474 419 941 | 91 | -0,6 |
11 | The Tyumen region | 118 207 252 | 83 | -6,9 |
12 | The Republic of Komi | 70 815 726 | 82 | 6,1 |
13 | The Murmansk region | 53 074 446 | 69 | 3,7 |
14 | The Krasnoyarsk Territory | 184 933 505 | 65 | 7,9 |
15 | The Republic of Tyva | 19 254 054 | 61 | 3,2 |
16 | The Khabarovsk Territory | 81 683 693 | 61 | 4,8 |
17 | The Republic of Altai | 12 162 211 | 57 | 2,8 |
18 | The Moscow region | 406 999 920 | 56 | 6,5 |
19 | The Arkhangelsk region | 63 058 651 | 55 | 0,7 |
20 | The Jewish Autonomous Region | 9 285 026 | 55 | 6,0 |
21 | The Republic of Ingushetia | 24 261 319 | 52 | 20,1 |
22 | The Chechen Republic | 68 751 332 | 50 | 4,5 |
23 | The Tomsk region | 53 464 354 | 50 | 4,7 |
24 | The Kaliningrad region | 47 794 008 | 49 | 0,2 |
25 | The Amur region | 39 904 448 | 49 | -1,5 |
26 | The Leningrad region | 83 051 065 | 47 | 7,7 |
27 | The Republic of Karelia | 29 349 555 | 46 | 2,9 |
28 | The Kaluga region | 46 853 156 | 46 | -4,3 |
29 | The Sverdlovsk region | 200 266 585 | 46 | 5,0 |
30 | The Yaroslavl region | 58 150 419 | 46 | -0,7 |
31 | The Primorye Territory | 88 052 356 | 46 | 10,7 |
32 | The Irkutsk region | 109 003 667 | 45 | 2,7 |
33 | The Republic of Buryatia | 43 474 979 | 44 | -4,9 |
34 | The Samara region | 138 249 602 | 43 | 2,7 |
35 | Sevastopol (before joining the RF, converted to the official rate of the CB RF as of 01.01.14) | 16 795 315 | 42 | 102,8 |
36 | The Zabaikalye Territory | 45 683 616 | 42 | 3,9 |
37 | The Perm Territory | 109 657 203 | 42 | -0,9 |
38 | The Kurgan region | 36 004 281 | 41 | 6,3 |
39 | The Republic of Khakassia | 22 005 329 | 41 | 7,8 |
40 | The Novgorod region | 25 213 933 | 41 | 2,2 |
41 | The Republic of Mordovia | 32 871 605 | 41 | 13,9 |
42 | The Novosibirsk region | 111 328 940 | 41 | 5,4 |
43 | The Republic of Tatarstan | 154 792 184 | 40 | 1,5 |
44 | The Nizhniy Novgorod region | 128 519 238 | 39 | 3,2 |
45 | The Orenburg region | 77 658 296 | 39 | 16,1 |
46 | The Tula region | 57 902 186 | 38 | -5,9 |
47 | The Astrakhan region | 38 236 957 | 37 | 0,2 |
48 | The Republic of Udmurtia | 56 640 873 | 37 | 2,1 |
49 | The Omsk region | 73 602 205 | 37 | 9,9 |
50 | The Lipetsk region | 43 030 405 | 37 | 4,7 |
51 | The Tver region | 48 722 683 | 37 | -0,7 |
52 | The Kemerovo region | 99 339 599 | 36 | 0,0 |
53 | The Belgorod region | 56 188 257 | 36 | 4,3 |
54 | The Pskov region | 23 622 717 | 36 | -11,2 |
55 | The Vologda region | 43 005 401 | 36 | -2,3 |
56 | The Tambov region | 37 979 960 | 36 | 18,0 |
57 | The Republic of Crimea (before joining the RF, converted to the official rate of the CB RF as of 01.01.14) | 66 526 574 | 35 | 230,1 |
58 | The Orel region | 26 826 101 | 35 | -7,2 |
59 | The Smolensk region | 33 661 011 | 35 | 3,9 |
60 | The Ryazan region | 38 905 520 | 34 | -1,5 |
61 | The Krasnodar Territory | 186 377 279 | 34 | -0,9 |
62 | The Bryansk region | 42 102 571 | 34 | 38,5 |
63 | The Voronezh region | 77 398 732 | 33 | -2,6 |
64 | The Republic of Bashkortostan | 134 823 734 | 33 | -3,0 |
65 | The Vladimir region | 46 476 980 | 33 | 2,5 |
66 | The Ivanovo region | 34 190 083 | 33 | 3,7 |
67 | The Kostroma region | 21 427 713 | 33 | -1,0 |
68 | The Chelyabinsk region | 113 386 802 | 32 | 1,7 |
69 | The Republic of Mari El | 22 205 981 | 32 | 0,2 |
70 | The Kirov region | 41 454 831 | 32 | -8,6 |
71 | The Rostov region | 132 050 266 | 31 | 2,9 |
72 | The Kursk region | 34 605 515 | 31 | -0,7 |
73 | The Volgograd region | 79 182 089 | 31 | -0,2 |
74 | The Kabardino-Balkarian Republic | 26 378 515 | 31 | 9,0 |
75 | The Republic of Adygea | 13 373 983 | 30 | 7,0 |
76 | The Republic of Chuvashia | 36 795 035 | 30 | 3,6 |
77 | The Penza region | 40 224 160 | 30 | -1,9 |
78 | The Stavropol Territory | 82 371 957 | 29 | 10,9 |
79 | The Ulyanovsk region | 37 104 794 | 29 | 14,7 |
80 | The Altai Territory | 69 959 611 | 29 | 2,3 |
81 | The Karachayevo-Cherkessian Republic | 13 731 547 | 29 | -1,2 |
82 | The Republic of Kalmykia | 8 129 643 | 29 | 3,9 |
83 | The Saratov region | 72 063 925 | 29 | 1,2 |
84 | The Republic of North Ossetia-Alania | 19 928 645 | 28 | -2,5 |
85 | The Republic of Dagestan | 84 346 884 | 28 | 4,0 |
Significant inequality in regional development remains in Russia: the difference of the expenditure budget per head among the territories is 15 times. The existing tax allocation system has led to the appearance of several donator regions, while the majority of territories annually obtain donations from the federal budget to flow balance; that results in the reduction of economic growth initiative.