Influence of Expenditures in the Development of the Digital Economy on the Volume of Russia's GDP

Abstract

The purpose of this work is to assess the effectiveness of achieving planned investment indicators within the framework of the national program «Digital Economy of the Russian Federation» and the adequacy of investments in the digitalization of the economy to form positive dynamics of Russia's GDP. The hypothesis is tested about the presence of influence, along with the indicators of the functioning of traditional sectors of the economy, of indicators of digital sectors of the economy and indicators of investments in digital transformation in Russia. The methodology for such calculation is based on the theory of elasticity, which can be used to analyze the efficiency of resources (investments) in the case of alleged underfunding of a certain economic entity, that took place in the case of the specified program. This technique involves the construction of a Cobb-Douglas production function. The data of Russian statistical compilations in the regional context for the period from 2015 to 2018 were used as an information base for calculating and constructing a production function. Within the adopted specification of the cross-sectional regression model, the parameters of the production function were determined for each year within the specified period. Also, the predicted values ​​of the indicators of the used information base for 2019 and 2020 were determined using the linear regression method, and, proceeding from them, parameters of the production function were determined. Due to the incompatibility of data on the indicator of internal costs for the development of the digital economy in the program «Digital Economy of the Russian Federation» and the statistical indicator of the cost of information and communication technologies, it was necessary to calculate the ratio between these indicators. The solution to this problem showed that these indicators are in good agreement with each other with a difference of only a few percent. The final result of the study is an assessment of GDP losses while maintaining the dynamics of digitalization costs observed in 2015-2018, suggesting continuation of the trend towards the Digital Economy of the Russian Federation program being underfunded in 2019 and 2020.