Measuring regional economic development in Russia

Article abstract:

Economic indicators are essential for policy making. In transition economies and in Russia in particular, both the quality of data and their comparability are subject to criticism. This phenomenon is particularly observable for the Kaliningrad region, which is currently at the centre of discussions between the European Union and the Russian Federation. At present, many observers and policy makers are dissatisfied with the existing figures. The objective of this paper is to fill part of the gap and to give an economic image of the Russian enclave, on the basis of five years of fieldwork. We concentrate on the assessment of Kaliningrad's trading openness and its economic development level. In a first section, we reassess the trading position of the region taking into account its geographical location. Second, we give an appraisal of the unrecorded economy of the enclave and reassess regional production. Finally, we make Gross Regional Product comparable with other countries and reassess the region's GRP in purchasing power parity.