Moscow Budget Policy: Opportunities for Responding to the Challenges of the New Reality

Abstract

At present in Russia there is a need to improve the quality of budget policy as the most important element of state policy, and Moscow is undoubtedly the leading region for its implementation. The purpose of the study is to determine whether Moscow's budget policy can respond to the challenges of the new reality through the instrument of state programs. To achieve this goal, the article considers the retrospective of Moscow budget execution in terms of expenditures, paying special attention to the program structure of expenditures. With the help of statistical and analytical methods the authors analyze the dynamics of budget expenditures distribution within the framework of Moscow state programs, and examine the approved and executed budgets and the percentage of deviation of the executed expenditures from the initially approved ones by subprograms. It is concluded that the Moscow budget is quite adaptive. The dynamics of budget expenditures shows that the distribution of budget allocations has been adjusted due to the need of the megapolis to respond to various challenges. If earlier such challenges included the need to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, now it is a tense foreign policy situation and sanctions from unfriendly states.