Where russians should live: a counterfactual alternative to Soviet location policy

Tatiana Mikhailova ()

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: This paper investigates the extent of distortions in Russia's spatial economy that are inherited from the Soviet system. Using Canada as a benchmark for spatial dynamics of economic activity in a market economy, I construct the spatial allocation of population that would result in Russia, given its initial conditions and existing regional endowments, in the absence of Soviet location policy. The results show that Siberia and the Far East were overpopulated by about 14.5 million people by the end of the Soviet period. Overdevelopment of Siberia comes at the expense of the European area of the country. This discrepancy persists, even after adjusting the simulated counterfactual allocation for WWII.

Keywords: Russia; USSR; Siberia; economic geography; Soviet location policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: P5 R1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012-01-13
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cis, nep-geo, nep-tra and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/36157/1/MPRA_paper_36157.pdf revised version (application/pdf)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:35938

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