Trends in Financial Support of the Budget Powers of the Authorities of Large Cities in the Russian Federation

Abstract—

Fiscal policy is one of the main tools for managing territorial development. An efficient fiscal policy encourages increased budget filling. As a result, a country’s regions can increase their expenditures to boost their socioeconomic development. The goal of this study was to analyze the key areas of state policy in the domain of financial support to local government bodies of large cities and to studying the influence of fiscal policy on the development of million-plus cities. The article considers the main indices of the budgets of the largest Russian cities and assesses the structure of their fiscal revenues for determining the sufficiency degree of tax and nontax revenues accumulated in these cities and transferred to their budgets, the extent to which the budgets depend on the funds allocated to them on a nonreimbursable basis from the budgets of the respective regions, and makes a detailed analysis of the fiscal expenditures of the considered cities. Special attention is devoted to analyzing the budget of Novosibirsk as the largest municipal entity in Russia. The calculation of fiscal coefficients helps one study the stability of the city budget, identify the positions of Novosibirsk among both the largest cities of Russia and urban districts and municipal districts of Novosibirsk oblast. Particular emphasis is also made on analyzing the principal fiscal revenue items of the Russian million-plus cities from the standpoint of affluence with tax and nontax revenues and considering the nonreimbursable transfers to their budgets from the budgets of the respective regions. It is concluded that stable tax sources of revenue should be attached to the local budgets on the whole and the cities in particular to improve the tax potential of the local budgets. It is established that in 2011–2018 the Russian million-plus cities experienced a significant reduction in their fiscal capacity and autonomy. The principal expenditure items of the budgets of the largest Russian cities are studied to determine their focus on the socioeconomic development of the Russian million-plus cities. The Russian million-plus cities should be considered separately from the general totality of municipalities because these cities are drivers of the national economic development and have a decisive influence on the economy. The tax revenue sources sufficient for the stable functioning and formation of the development budgets of large Russian cities should be legally attached to them on a nationwide scale.