ASSESSMENT OF THE SOCIO-ECONOMIC SITUATION OF REGIONS USING THE ZIPF LAW

Resumen

The approval of the spatial development strategy of Russia encourages the activities of regional
public authorities to develop strategic development documents. The regulations adopted by the
Federal center do not define the tools necessary for scientific justification of long-term development
goals of the Rus-sian Federation's subjects. This paper offers a simple tool for assessing the socioeconomic develop-ment of Russian regions that can be used to determine the potential of the regional
economy. Objective: to determine the dynamics of changes in the socio-economic position of regional
leaders in the Russian Federation by comparing the quantitative values of 3 indicators with an
inversely proportional function (Zipf’s law). The paper presents a solution to the problem of forming
quantitative initial values. Statis-tical observations of Rosstat are the only source of information that
has the highest level of reliability. The quantitative values of the considered indicators are published
annually by the state statistics bod-ies. Standard methods of mathematical statistics were used in this
work. By changing the value of the coefficient of determination for each array of quantitative values,
the speed of approximation of the dis-tribution to Zipf’s law is determined. Convincing evidence is
given for approximating distributions of quantitative indicators to an inversely proportional function
(Zipf’s law). This conclusion can be used in the formation of long-term goals of socio-economic
development in systems that are a set of territori-al entities. The results obtained coincide with the
published conclusions on the feasibility of applying the Zipf’s law in the study of socio - economic
situation in systems that are a set of territorial entities.