Large cities and urban (or metropolitan) regions play relatively large roles in the world and national economies.
The paper provides a methodology for Gross Urban Product (GUP) assessment that is based on the international experience but with some peculiarities necessitated by the use of Russian official statistics. Estimates of the GUP of capital cities derived with this methodology are used to assess their contribution to national and regional economic development.
The paper presents the results of the first attempt to use GUP estimates to examine the national and regional economic development roles of 81 Russian capital cities over the period from 2000 to 2015.
Estimates of the GUP, GUP per capita and GUP growth rates are compared with the level and evolution of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and Gross Regional Product (GRP) to examine relationships between the structure of urban economies and economic development. The study argues that agglomeration economies are manifested only in the largest capital cities of Russian regions, but the benefits differ significantly between capital cities since they depend on economic structure and efficiency.
Published online: 21 Dec 2020, available online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23792949.2020.1830707
