Regional Budgets in Q1 2021: Own Revenues Are Recovering

Alexander N. Deryugin – Senior Researcher of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration; Senior Researcher of the Gaidar Institute for Economic Policy (Moscow, Russia). Е-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Despite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, according to the Q1 2021 results, the revenues of the regions’ consolidated budgets not only did not drop against Q1 2020, but also showed a noticeable increase, which was ensured not only by the growth of fiscal transfers from the federal budget, but also by the growth of their own tax and non-tax revenues (+9.0%) of regional and local budgets.

The debt burden of the regions, although it has increased over the past 12 months, remains significantly below its maximum for the end of March of 33.8%, recorded on April 1, 2016.

According to H1 2021 results, we can expect double-digit growth rates in tax and non-tax revenues of the consolidated budgets of the subjects of the Russian Federation, and the main trend in the structure of the regions’ public debt until the end of this year will be the replacement of commercial loans with budget ones. It is also possible that the debt burden of the subjects of the Russian Federation, which previously pursued a strict budget policy and currently have a low level of public debt, will increase.

Key words: regions’ budgets, revenues of regional budgets, expenditures of regional budgets, intergovernmental fiscal transfers, regional debt.

JEL-codes: H61, H62, H63, H71, H72, H74, H77.