Convergence Patterns of Regional Income Inequality Levels in Russia

A recent paper found that during 1995–2012 the dispersion of income inequality between Russian regions was decreasing, i.e. convergence of regional inequalities took place. This result is of no use for analyzing the impact of socio-economic policy, as it may aim at reducing income inequality of the entire country’s population and regional populations, but in no way at equalizing inequalities between regions. Moreover, the found phenomenon itself can be either positive, if regional inequalities converge to low values, or negative, when they converge to high values. In order to clarify this issue, a more detailed study of the convergence process is needed. The aim of this study is to reveal the ‘anatomy’ of regional inequality convergence in 1995–2012, and the divergence that followed it in 2013–2022, i.e. the internal pattern of these processes. To this end, the paper explores the evolution of the regional Gini indices distribution, namely, that of main distribution statistics and the distribution itself (represented by a histogram). The results obtained suggest that convergence of regional income inequalities in Russia in 1995–2012 is almost exclusively due to ‘catching-up’ of low-inequality regions with high-inequality regions. Therefore, this process cannot be considered positive. Divergence of regional inequalities in 2013–2022, on the contrary, was accompanied by a decrease in income inequalities in the regions, improving the situation with spatial inequality in Russia