Transformation of the Tertiary Sphere of Russia’s Regions Economy in the Post-Soviet Period

The downward trend in the role of the primary and secondary sectors of the Russian economy has become especially noticeable in the post-Soviet period during the transition to market relations. When analyzing the accelerated development of the tertiary sector, the main emphasis is usually placed on its objective nature and compliance with global trends. However, despite the common model of transformation of the structure of the economy with European countries, the results achieved both quantitatively and qualitatively differ from the level of more developed countries. These differences are even more pronounced at the regional level. In the article, the results of the tertiary sector development in Russia in the post-Soviet period are presented in comparison with other European countries and by the federal subjects. The research information base includes Eurostat and World Bank databases for cross-country comparisons, Rosstat materials for the typology of Russian regions, and quarterly data on tax contributions from the Federal Tax Service for the analysis of the stability of the tertiary sector sub-sectors in the context of the coronavirus crisis. Russia’s lagging in terms of the share of the tertiary sector in the economy, which was rapidly decreasing in the first decade and a half of the post-Soviet period, has stabilized in recent years. The lagging behind developed European countries is determined by the weighted structure of the economy, combined with unfavorable institutional conditions for the development of B2B services, lowered consumption standards of the population, including those associated with its relatively low incomes, the sparseness of the settlement system, and tardy entry into the period of tertiarization. At the regional level, the quantitative and qualitative tertiary sector growth is characteristic of a stable group of fifteen of the most advanced federal subjects. In most of the rest regions, it is rather derivative on the background of a recession in other sectors of the economy. The resilience of the tertiary sector during the coronavirus crisis has been determined by the ratio of more inertial non-market and vulnerable market subsectors. The group with the largest relative losses includes both strong regions with moderate diversification of the tertiary sector and an increased share of B2B services and the weakest regions, where market branches are mainly represented by retail trade.

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