Attempts to study the economy within a particular region have been known since the days of the Ancient Greek Kingdom. In our country, the peak of interest in the economy of the regions came at the time of the formation of the Soviet Union as a single space. Globalization and limited resources served as the basis for the further development of science.
Definition
Spatial economy is a model of economic development, in which the process of managing different objects occurs in the form of interaction and distribution of responsibilities between them. She answers 3 key questions: “What? Where? What for?".
“What?” Implies a certain economic entity producing a product or service: enterprise, farm, etc.
“Where?” Means the location of this economic entity in space. This is a matter of proximity to other facilities, the availability of similar facilities, the proximity of resources for production. For example, where is the forest for the logging company?
“Why?” Is a matter of motivating the subject to take action. For example, why does enterprise A need to interact with enterprise B? Answer: since B offers the best prices for components and is located close. This will allow Enterprise A to generate more profit and reduce transportation costs.
Goal and tasks
The main goal of a spatial economy is to create mutually beneficial conditions for all its entities.
The main task is to timely detect and use the potential of business entities to create mutually beneficial economic cooperation.
For this, several conditions must be observed:
- Favorable location of business entities. It should be equally convenient for both consumers and manufacturers. Resources for production should be as close as possible.
- The territory (area) of the location of enterprises should be used as efficiently as possible to create business projects, development sites, etc.
- Reduction of market zones and a clear distribution of work between them.
Structure
The spatial structure of the economy is usually divided into 2 parts:
- Homogeneous structure. It is characterized by the homogeneity of the economic region without special differences in all its parts.
- Polarized structure. There are several centers in the region that combine the rest of the space.
Forms
The forms of spatial organization of the economy are as follows:
- Local is the simplest element of space or the territory on which a single object is located. A monotown is a good example of a local form.
- The nodal form is divided into industrial and transport. The industrial center concentrates several enterprises, settlements with a common infrastructure. A transport hub is a concentration in one place of transport routes around which industrial enterprises and people are concentrated.
- The industrial and territorial complex is a subject of the economy, consisting of several industries combined technologically and socially. The complexes have a common developed infrastructure.
Economists have long been studying the problem of the distribution of economic resources in space. Today, there are several basic theories of spatial organization of the economy. Next, we consider them in more detail.
Creating Poles of Growth
The essence of the theory is that enterprises that create innovative goods and services demonstrate high efficiency. Around highly efficient organizations, firms, companies, infrastructure begins to grow, auxiliary production facilities open, housing for workers is built. As a result, such an enterprise becomes a kind of pole of attraction for other economic entities and a new economic zone. In this theory, the place of an enterprise can be occupied by certain territories of accelerated development or even entire countries that are leaders in any sphere of the international economy.
Theory of Spatial Equilibrium Economics
According to this theory, producers and consumers (subjects) are attached to a specific place in space. The impact on the distribution of entities in space is provided by costs and demand. A perfect balance in the distribution of enterprises in space can be achieved by observing the following rules:
- the location of enterprises in space should be as convenient as possible for consumers and for the producers themselves;
- the density of enterprises allows full use of the territory in which they are located;
- the market is divided into zones, while each zone should be quite small;
- the boundaries of market zones should be limited by indifference curves (a zone in which customers are given the same benefit from the benefits received).
Perrox Theory
The basis of this theory is the judgment that the economic space looks like a kind of force field, fueled by corporations and their interconnections. The more resources and marketing opportunities an enterprise has, the greater its “force field”. The theory perfectly reflects the difference in the amount of working capital, the number of partners and types of corporations. This inequality gives rise to dominant enterprises and subordinates. Deformation impedes the harmonious spatial development of the economy.
Theory of Industrial Complexes
Widely used in practice in the USSR. According to her, a certain group of enterprises with close proximity, access to resources and employed in the same industry, demonstrate high efficiency compared to disparate industries. The theory focuses only on input and output. The disadvantages of this approach are the lack of adjustment for regions and their borders. It is almost impossible to organize a production complex within one region.
Porter Theory
It is based on the theory of industrial complexes, but Porter's theory has significant improvements. In order for the region to develop harmoniously, at least two industries must be present in it, and each complex must have a number of supporting industries in the same territory. In Porter's theory, competition between complexes is the key to the harmonious development of space and economic growth in the regions.
Spatial and Regional Economics
The reality is that in the context of economic wars, trade embargoes and unequal access to natural resources, our country is again forced to recall the regional economy along with the spatial one.
The spatial economy is characterized by blurring of boundaries between development centers, their transparency. The freedom of movement of capital, labor resources, services and goods, the effective division of labor - all this is characteristic of the model under consideration. The best example of a spatial economy is the European Union.
The regional model of the economy is characterized by protectionism (protection of national interests) and closed borders. However, there is no free movement of resources, labor and capital. In the context of globalization, such a model does not withstand competition. Not a single region of the world is currently able to fully provide itself with everything necessary for production and at the same time be a sales market.
The space of the national economy
The Russian economy has always been a complex and multifaceted subject to study. The spatial organization of the national economy is influenced by factors:
- Uneven distribution of population, capital and resources. More than ¾ of the population of Russia live in its European part. Most of the minerals and other resources are located beyond the Ural Mountains.
- Large extent of territories. The country is very stretched in the east-west direction.
- A big gap in the development of regions. There are regions, the level of gross regional product between which varies by 40 times.
All this suggests that the spatial organization of the country has a pronounced model of regional nodal economies. Between regions there is no uniform distribution of labor, capital and resources.
On the other hand, Russia shows signs of spatial development of its economy. Our country is a member of an integration union with Belarus and Kazakhstan, which involves the free movement between countries of labor, capital, services and goods. Later, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan joined the Customs Union.
Thus, a feature of the spatial development of the Russian economy is the deformation of the country's regional development and unevenness, combined with the high efficiency of spatial development and interaction with other countries.