Economic Growth of Municipalities in Russia: Assessment of Unevenness in Time and Space

The unevenness of economic development is revealed at all levels of administrative-territorial administration and is an integral feature of the economic space as a whole. The relevance of the study is determined by the unresolved issues of ensuring long-term sustainable growth, determining the optimal level of unevenness that contributes to the effective growth of the entire economic system of the country. The purpose of the work is to identify the conditions for variation in the economic growth of Russian municipalities in space and time. The hypothesis of the study is that the uneven economic growth of municipalities is determined simultaneously by the contextual characteristics of the regions in which they are included, and the characteristics of individual time periods. The emphasis is on intergroup and intragroup differences determined by the determinants of time and the hierarchical relationship of administrative territorial units of management within a hierarchical linear model with cross-classified random effects. The study was conducted on the data of 2,016 municipalities in the context of 75 constituent entities of the Russian Federation in the period 2015-2019. The results of the study show that 68.4% of the total variation of municipalities in terms of the volume of shipped goods, works, services for 2015-2019. due to differences in municipalities, 18.9% - the characteristics of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation, 0.1% - the determinants of time. The new results of the study are the concretization of the influence of well-known growth factors in relation to individual levels of the territorial hierarchy, as well as the rationale for the inter-level interaction of factors. It is shown that the relationship between investment and production at the municipal level should be considered in conjunction with the share of the extractive industry, and the relationship between wages and production, taking into account the share of agriculture in the constituent entities of the Russian Federation. The results obtained indicate the presence of regional features, manifested in intermunicipal and interregional spatio-temporal variation, and emphasize the importance of both municipal and regional factors for ensuring the growth of the economy of municipalities. They can be used in the development of recommendations for improving state policy in the field of municipal and regional government.