Sustainability of economic growth and digital risks in regions of Russia

Abstract

Digital transformation of society which influenced all spheres of people’s life can promote sustainability of economy, especially on the growth stage of its lifecycle. The research characterizes sustainability of economy as sustainability of economic growth in regions of Russia, which is estimated by variation ratio of growth rates of physical volume of gross regional product in 85 regions during 2011–2019. Positive connection between regional subindices of people’s quality of life and the ESG ranking of Russian regions is revealed. It was discovered that increase of people’s digital wealth positively influenced on sustainability of growth rates of gross regional product during 2015–2018. The risk of unemployment rate increase which is frequently mentioned in publications was not confirmed, namely the share of unemployed with higher education and without it as a part of relevant labor force negatively correlates with digital indices. Digitalization of social sphere and services positively influence on divorcement rate and tumor illness frequency while its decrease could result in growth of economic crimes share. However people’s digital wealth could influence on decrease of share of government and municipal servicemen in regions labor force. It is advisable to count these ambiguous processes when perfecting national and regional development programs.