Interregional Inequality of Population Incomes: Problems of Methodology and Estimation in the Russian Federation

¹ Saratov Social-Economic Institute of the Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, Saratov, Russia
² Povolzhsky Institute of Management named after P.A. Stolypin, the branch of Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Saratov, Russia

^* Corresponding author: tolmachev-mike@yandex.ru

Abstract

Currently, the priority of the Russian Federation socio-economic development is to achieve sustainable economic growth. A significant obstacle to the achievement of this goal is the unevenness and disproportionality in the socio-economic development of the Russian regions. This circumstance makes the problem of an objective and adequate assessment of Russian regions the interregional differentiation particularly relevant. The study notes that the nominal monetary income of the population does not take into account regional differences in price level. This work discusses methodological approaches of reliable determination, advantages of weighted and unweighted estimates in the interregional inequality, special attention is paid to weighing the average per capita indicators of the subject of the Russia for the proportion of the region’s population in the country’s population. To assess the purchasing power of the population at the regional level, the authors propose to use a modified cost of living index. As a result of the study, the dynamics of the variation coefficient of the average per capita monetary incomes of the population and adjusted for the modified cost-of-living index were determined, on the basis of which the regions of Russia were divided into three groups. The efficiency of the transition to the analysis of incomes comparable in purchasing power, as comparison of weighted and unweighted variation coefficients, has been proved. The trend towards smoothing interregional inequality, which is caused by the accelerated growth of real incomes of the population in the low-income group of Russian regions.