The role of municipalities in ensuring economic security of the Russian regions

Starovoitov Vladimir Gavrilovich ORCID: 0000-0002-7595-6379 Doctor of Economics Director of the Center for Monitoring and Assessment of Economic Security of the Institute of Economic Policy and Economic Security Issues, Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation 125993, Russia, g. Moscow, ul. Leningradskii pr-Kt, 49, of. s pometkoi – Institut ekonomicheskoi politiki i problem ekonomicheskoi bezopasnosti vladstar1953@yahoo.com Other publications by this author

1.Introduction

The Strategy of Economic Security of the Russian Federation defines the levels of the management system for which the state policy in the field of economic security is formed and implemented.^[1].

Among them, special attention is paid to the regional and municipal levels. This is explained by the fact that it is on the territory of regions and municipalities that the most important socio-economic processes related to human economic activity and phenomena that determine the quality of his life take place.

In post-Soviet Russia, many regions and their constituent municipalities found themselves in an extremely difficult socio-economic situation and had to independently look for ways to overcome crisis situations in the economic and social spheres. This determined the relevance of scientific research and the development of strategies and plans for crisis management, ensuring economic and national security.

2. On the research of the processes of ensuring regional economic security.

Since the mid-1990s, there have been many noteworthy studies on ensuring regional economic security, among them, developments carried out in the Sverdlovsk, Kirov, Nizhny Novgorod, Voronezh, Ulyanovsk regions, Perm, Krasnodar Territories, etc.

It is necessary to highlight the works carried out by the team of scientists of the Nizhny Novgorod State Technical University named after R.E. Alekseev and the Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

 This team of scientists has carried out a significant amount of work on the formation of a system of indicators (indicators) of economic security of regions and the determination of their thresholds, summarizing the available research results from several Russian regions, as well as their own experience.

 Indicators of economic security of Russian regions include eleven projections characterizing the most important aspects of economic security: macroeconomic development; industrial security; food security; energy security; budgetary and financial security; personnel security; innovative development; social development; environmental development; foreign economic development; criminogenic situation. ^[2].

Each of the projections contains three indicators. A threshold value was also selected for these indicators. The threshold values were determined for various reasons (in accordance with all-Russian thresholds, international comparisons, expert opinions, etc.).^[3]. Methods were used to conduct a comparative analysis of the subjects of the Russian Federation using normative indicators, generalized indices, as well as multi-criteria analysis.

Mathematical methods of information analysis and visualization (petal diagrams) were widely used in the research, which makes it possible to analyze a large amount of information in relation to all subjects of the Russian Federation and identify the most pressing problems in the field of economic security for them.^[4]. This makes it possible to develop and implement measures to overcome existing problems in a timely manner.

 The results of research by scientists of the NSTU and the Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 2018 were reported at the Scientific Council of the Security Council of the Russian Federation. They have received support and are recommended for use in solving problems of ensuring the economic security of Russian regions.

In order to improve the regional system of ensuring economic security, it is necessary to conduct further scientific research in expanding its indicative system, updating the theory of threshold values of indicators, developing a "zone theory" that allows positioning indicators according to the degree of risk, depending on their distance from the threshold values. Research is also required to expand the use of the multi-criteria analysis method for ranking Russian regions according to a set of economic security indicators.

3. Russian municipalities: problems, existing potential and directions of ensuring economic security.

The analysis of the state and problems of economic security in Russian regions shows that today the potential of Russian municipalities is not fully used in the field of economic security.

Currently, there are 87 regions in the Russian Federation consisting of more than 20,000 municipalities. Two cities of federal significance, Moscow and St. Petersburg, also consist of municipalities, in which local self-government is carried out on inner-city territories, on special principles of organization.

The main problems of Russian municipalities should include:

1. Low competitiveness of the economy, lack of places of employment, unemployment.

2. High level of depreciation of fixed assets, technological and innovative backwardness of most industrial enterprises. ^[5]

3. The presence of municipalities (single-industry towns) with a predominance of one industry, which means their complete dependence on the city-forming enterprise. There are currently 319 such single-industry towns in 61 Russian regions in Russia, with a population of 14 million.

4. Insufficient development of the municipal economy.

5. Low level of budget security. About 12,000 (60%) municipalities have meager annual budgets from 1 to 10 million rubles. Insufficient own revenue base, inconsistency of the scope of powers of local self-government bodies with the material and financial resources at their disposal.

6. Difficult demographic situation - migration of young people and specialists to larger cities.

7. High wear of main engineering communications

8. Insufficient human resources of municipalities.

9. Low quality of housing stock.

10. The growth of the illegal economy, including the corruption of government and business.

11. Poor quality of the social sphere - education, healthcare, culture, sports.

12. Low level of condition of highways, landscaping.

13. Low level of trust in the authorities.

And others .

Due to the above-mentioned problems, in recent years there has been an alarming trend in the concentration of economic entities and the population in large metropolitan agglomerations and a reduction in the number of municipalities formed on the basis of medium-sized, small towns and rural settlements, which can lead to a loss of connectivity and integrity of the country. ^[6]

At the same time, about 1000 municipalities have budgets of over 1 billion rubles, among them: Novosibirsk - 54, 351 billion rubles. (2021) ^[7]; Nizhny Novgorod 38.1billion rubles. (2021) ^[8] and others.

Such municipalities, in addition to financial resources, as a rule, have sufficient scientific, industrial, human resources capable of conducting an effective policy in the field of ensuring economic security and socio-economic development.

The elements of an effective policy in the field of economic security of municipalities include:

development and implementation of municipal development strategies;

successful competition for investments;

the emergence of a new, modern economy on the territory of municipalities and the development of auxiliary industries;

creating attractive, modern, high-paying jobs;

increase in the tax base and the local budget;

increasing investment attractiveness;

development of engineering infrastructure, arrangement of investment sites;

efficient use of land resources;

high-quality territorial planning;

training and improvement of personnel.

Et al .

       4. Economic security indicators for municipalities

When implementing measures aimed at ensuring the economic security of municipalities, it is necessary to form and use a system for monitoring the state of economic security.

Indicators of the state of economic security of municipalities should be determined for the monitoring system. Such a list can be formed on the basis of the developments of the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation carried out to monitor the socio-economic situation of single-industry towns in Russia. In this monitoring, monitoring is carried out on 19 indicators based on macroeconomic indicators and 17 indicators based on information about the state of single-industry towns.

 As mentioned above, the economic security of Russian regions, as well as the economic and national security of the country, largely depends on the state of economic security of Russian municipalities and their activities in the socio-economic sphere. Taking into account the available scientific research and practical experience in ensuring the economic security of Russian regions and municipalities, it is advisable to identify the most significant scientific approaches, methodologies, organizational practices and distribute them throughout Russia.

5. Identification the best practices of organizing the economic security of municipalities.

As one of the best organizational practices, it is necessary to study and disseminate the experience of the Ulyanovsk region, which, after the emergence of the Economic Security Strategy of the Russian Federation until 2030, has formed and uses its own regional system for ensuring economic security.

This system, created on the basis of the order of the Governor of the Ulyanovsk region dated 09.06.2017 No. 469-r "On measures to ensure the economic security of municipalities of the Ulyanovsk region" allows: to assess the level of economic security of municipalities of the Ulyanovsk region; to regulate the procedures of economic recovery (rehabilitation) of municipalities; to develop a plan for economic recovery of municipalities. ^[9]

The regional system of economic security makes it possible to rank municipalities based on certain criteria and indicators into special zones: risk, stability, leaders.  

Special rehabilitation procedures are applied to municipalities that fall into the risk zone, which provide for the development and implementation of a Plan to restore the economic potential of the municipality.

The development and implementation of the above-mentioned methodological approaches and the procedure for ensuring economic security has intensified the activities of municipalities in socio-economic development, which allows the region to develop at a pace higher than the Russian average in recent years.

As a result, the Ulyanovsk region became the first subject in Russia, which has developed and has already received the first results of testing two unique tools — a methodology for assessing the level of economic security of municipalities and a Mechanism for conducting the procedure of economic rehabilitation (rehabilitation) of municipalities classified as a so-called risk zone.^[10].

This Methodology was presented to the management of the Agency for Strategic Initiatives (ASI Director General A.S. Nikitin), as well as a report was presented at the Analytical Center under the Government of the Russian Federation within the framework of the conference "The Practice of project Management in the public Sector" and was highly appreciated. ^[11].

6. Conclusions

Identification and use of the most significant scientific approaches, methodologies and best organizational practices to ensure the economic security of municipalities, allows you to clarify threats, threshold values of economic security indicators, improve the quality of assessment of the level of their economic security.

This makes it possible to mobilize municipalities in activities to ensure their economic security and socio-economic development.

As practice shows, in the regions of Russia, where municipalities successfully solve issues of ensuring their economic security, the level of economic activity increases and the quality of life of the population increases.

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