Technological differentiation in the development of the Ural macroregion’s subjects

Abstract

At the local level, regions are the entities that have to grapple with the problem of Russia’s technological breakthrough directly. The paper aims to uncover the reasons behind the differences in technological development of the subjects of the Ural macroregion. The econom ics of complexity and new Schumpeterian theory of economic growth constitute the methodo logical basis of the research. The author applies economic mathematical methods of analysis, as well as analytical tools of the ecosystem approach to examine the sample of 3,436 manufactur ing companies from the seven subjects of the Ural macroregion in the period of 2007–2019. The researcher specifies separate technologies by disagregating industries using All-Russian Classification of Economic Activities (OKVED-2). Companies are divided into three groups depending on the type of the main implemented technology: system, component or basic. The findings reveal that leading regions feature high degree of technological complexity determined on the basis of technological diversity and localisation of the system integrator companies. Ad ditionally, leaders significantly outperform other regions in total factor productivity of compa nies employing different groups of technologies. The research demonstrates that the presence of a system technology in a region stimulates the development of a family of related compo nent technologies, which may be located not only in the region of operation, but in also in the neighboring less technologically developed regions. This gives rise to the assumption that in the macroregion a separate technological ecosystem may form. The empirical data show that the domination of separate technologies in a region may slow down the technological development. The results of the research can be helpful while devising the plans for technological and spatial development of territories.