Institutional Capacities of Russian Regions and Levels of Regional Development: Approaches to Measurement and Searching for Relationships

This study is devoted to establishing the nature of the relationship between the subnational institutional capacities of the Russian regions and the level of their economic development. Based on a long scientific discussion and tradition of joint consideration of these categories, I offer a new approach to their analysis in a regional rather than country comparative perspective using the example of Russia. The initial assumption that there is a positive relationship between these parameters is confirmed by empirical analysis and the construction of the corresponding regression models. The achievement of the result presented in the work was made possible thanks to the development of new approaches to operationalization of the concept of regional capacity, which resulted in the construction of an appropriate index of subnational capacities. In addition, the starting point for the operationalization of economic development was the use of data on nightlights of Russian territories, which, as was shown, can serve as one of the most relevant measurements of economic well-being at this level of analysis.