Federal Districts and Macroregions: Risks of Spatial Development Heterogeneity

The article presents a study of Russia's economic discretization from the point of view of ensuring the unity of its economic space. Within the framework of this study it is intended to test the hypothesis that when comparing two grids of zoning according to the risk of spatial development heterogeneity, the more optimal territorial division of Russia that would make it possible to reduce the differentiation of regions in terms of the level and pace of socio-economic development is the federal districts as they retain the established systems of interregional ties, coordination through the plenipotentiary representatives of the President of the Russian Federation and statistical accounting for monitoring the situation. To compare two variants of the country's district grid (federal districts and macroregions) the study proposes an approach to estimating the risks of heterogeneity of spatial development of territories. Two types of risks are considered: the risks of reducing the level of socio-economic development and the risks of uneven spatial development. The first of them is defined as the probability of a decrease in the level of socio-economic development of the territory, the second - as the probability of an increase in the coefficient of variation of socio-economic development level of federal districts and macroregions within the country. The constructed model of multidimensional risk takes into account a system of risk factors in the form of a random vector with correlated (dependent) components. Socio-economic indicators of Russia's regions taken from the Rosstat statistical database are used as risk factors. To estimate the risks, the area of unfavourable outcomes for each of the factors is calculated. On the basis of the proposed approach, we calculated the probability of an unfavourable outcome - a decrease in the level of socio-economic development and increase in inter-regional differentiation of Russia in the context of federal districts and macroregions for the period 2000-2022. According to the obtained results, federal districts and macroregions do not differ significantly in terms of ensuring a common economic space. The significant factors of heterogeneity risks of Russia's spatial development in the context of federal districts and macroregions throughout the considered period are the budgetary potential that ensures sustainable development of the territory and improvement of the population's quality of life, and regional specialisation that determines the structure of the regional economy.