Methodological and practical aspects of assessing the export competitiveness of a region (on the example of the Yaroslavl region)
Abstract. Scientific approaches to understanding the export competitiveness at the level of the country and a separate firm have been developed and formed in the modern economic thinking. According to the authors, it is necessary to strengthen the regional context of export competitiveness studies. The purpose of this article is to adapt the methodology of the global ranking of countries depending on the value of the export competitiveness index to the regional level, to identify changes in the commodity structure of exports of the Yaroslavl region and the economies of adjacent regions comparable to it, and to measure their export competitiveness. The article describes some methodical provisions of assessment with an indication of their advantages and limitations, demonstrates the selection of regions-competitors. In the article, the authors calculated the export competitiveness index and its three composite indicators on the basis of statistical data on industrial exports of different processing degrees for 5 constituent entities of the Russian Federation for the period from 2016 to 2020. The authors carried out the analysis of the Yaroslavl region export competitiveness in terms of dynamics and structure by categories of exports and by different degrees of non-energy exports processing. As a result, the authors identified directions for the state policy improvement in the field of the Yaroslavl region industrial export development.
Keywords: export competitiveness, industrial exports, export sophistication, economic scale of the region, gross value added, structural differences, volume of exports, import substitution policy
Highlights:
♦ the authors revealed the content of the methodology, as well as the information base of the export competitiveness analysis in relation to the regional economy;
♦ the authors proposed a comprehensive algorithm for selecting regions to be included in the outline of the export competitiveness analysis of the region, which is the object of the study; the selection is based on determining the level of structural differences between regions in terms of the industry structure of gross added value, commodity structure, categories of exports and its processing degrees;
♦ the authors selected regions to assess the export competitiveness of the Yaroslavl region economy; calculated the export competitiveness index for the selected regions; formulated conclusions regarding the export opportunities and exports sophistication of these regions, as well as proposals to improve the export competitiveness of the Yaroslavl region economy.
Igor A. Karachev, Olga V. Kaplina - P.G. Demidov Yaroslavl State University, Yaroslavl, Russia