Economic convergence in the methodology of structural shifts

Throughout the entire period of market transformations, the trend towards the distance of the Russian economy from technologically advanced countries has persisted, in terms of both the dynamics of the main macroeconomic indicators and structural proportions. This is due to the high sensitivity of the Russian economy to external shocks, including technological ones, as well as a number of successive negative structural shifts. At the same time, the commonality of endogenous processes, which affect the structure of factors of production and distribution of national income, in the economies of advanced and catching up countries is not fully associated with economic convergence. The studies are dominated by exogenous sources of convergence - sociopolitical, cultural. Therefore, the study of the role and place of structural shifts in the system of economic convergence is a methodological approach that allows one to come close to the theoretical foundations for stabilizing macroeconomic dynamics, reducing the susceptibility of the national economy to external shocks, and entering a long-term growth trajectory above world rates. In this article, the authors consider the problem of launching convergent structural shifts - the basis for the transition of the Russian economy from economic divergence to convergence with advanced countries, which was the basis for the aim of this study. Within the framework of this article, a methodology for analyzing structural shifts in their mutual influence on technological, structural and economic convergence is presented. The authors give a typology of convergent and divergent structural shifts that bring the national economy closer or further away from technologically advanced market systems. Such a typology of structural shifts implies the endogenous nature of economic convergence, due to a change in the proportions of accumulation and consumption, the involvement of production factors in the creation of national income and its distribution, contrary to the prevailing exogenous approach to the study of economic convergence. Based on the presented typology, the article highlights the factors of structural convergence -neo-industrial and fundamental investment, associated with a priority increase in funding for fundamental research, the creation of new innovation and investment partnerships between the state and business, and the modernization of basic industries based on convergent technologies. The authors show that these factors should be institutionalized in a system of convergence-oriented structural policy, which is a key condition for the transition of the Russian economy from structural divergence to convergence, with access to a sustainable growth trajectory and a reduction in exposure to external shocks.

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