The Impact of Economic Diversification on Labor Productivity in Russian Regions

Introduction. Achieving national goals requires reducing the dependence on commodity exports based on the diversification of the economic structure, which has its own characteristics in regions with different industrial specialization, having a different impact on labor productivity. The purpose of the article is to determine the impact of diversification of the regional sectoral structure on the level and dynamics of labor productivity in the regions. Materials and Methods. In the first block, the impact of economic diversification on the dynamics of labor productivity and economic activity in the regions was assessed. I. In the second block, the assessment of the impact of the development of regional of types of economic activities of specialization and types of economic activities of the reserve of specialization was carried out by assessing the levels of labor productivity, innovation activity and export orientation of types of economic activities. The structural and sectoral typology of regions was used to form differentiated proposals on regional policy priorities. Results. The estimates obtained for 2010‒2021 showed the absence of a pronounced rigid relationship between the nature of changes in labor productivity and the level of economic diversification in Russia’s regions: geographically differentiated combinations of them were identified, which determines the need for a selective approach to determining the priorities of state support for regions. Discussion and Conclusion. The practical implementation of the study should be the clarification of the priorities of the state regional policy to support the effective diversificationof of the economy of the Russian regions based on the accelerated development of their new specialized industries with high levels of innovation activity and export orientation. The prospects of the study are related to the substantiation of specific mechanisms to support the advanced development of a complex of high-tech types of economic activity in the regions.