Regionary effect: problematic issues of the ory and practice

Abstract

The article draws attention to the regionary effect which is pronounced on the territories of Russia. During the 1990s–2000s there was a pause in the studies on the regionary effect after significant works of Soviet economic geographers, because the main attention was paid to the agglomeration effect. Meanwhile, the industrial region and associated economic effects continue to exist, but are primarily considered by large corporate structures. According to the authors’ estimates, the regionary effect could cost billions of roubles, not received by the state and society. The modern industrial region of Russia, in which the main regionary effects are formed, differs from both the classical economic region of N.N. Kolosovsky, and its foreign analogues, i. e. the Marshall-Becattini’s industrial areas. It has lost its complex nature and acquired microspecialization, directed not only to the national, but often to the global market. It is now consolidated by both "land" transport infrastructure, air, information and communication networks and technological proximity, based on temporary geographic proximity. The diameter of such a region varies from 300 to 600+ km, depending on the degree of concentration of a particular industry. The task is to ensure a smart economic mergence of various parts of Russian space into unified industrial areas providing economic effects in the interests of the state and society. Measures of active state policy should, on the one hand, create infrastructural and other prerequisites for the complete realization of the regionary effect within the territories of Russia; and, on the other hand, to withdraw a part of the profit of corporations created on the basis of the regionary effect in the interests of the balanced development of the country and its regions. Synergy of the joint use of the agglomeration effect in urban spaces of the main settlement zone where the leading centers of Russian engineering are located, and the regionary effect received by resource corporations in the northern and Arctic regions could be particularly constructive if the government encourages the interfirm contracting of enterprises of the north and the center.