Digital economy of the Russian Federation: A conceptual analysis of the national program

The Government “Digital Economy of the Russian Federation” Program describes future economic development of Russia, its regions and industries. However, this Program has not been scrutinized for the modern economic theories and inner conceptual inconsistencies. Therefore, the purpose of the study is to identify the Program’s conceptual uncertainties which could give rise to the alternative scenarios of the economic development of Russia and to inconsistent managerial decisions resulted in the dramatic differences in unfolding the digital economy in different regions and industries. It has been found that the Program contains three definitions for the digital economy – declared (with the focus on the digital data), latent (with the focus on the digital platforms), and promising (with the focus on the artificial intelligence) ones. The Program’s content was compared with the modern economic theories, which revealed five levels of strategic uncertainty: 1) cluster or platform economy; 2) dispersed or agglomeration economy; 3) linear or circular economy; 4) homogeneous or heterogeneous economic landscape; 5) smart cities, smart agglomerations or smart regions. The reviewed Program lacks a clearly defined priority in the development of the cluster or post-cluster (platform) economy in Russia, which creates the theoretical (conceptual) and practical (connected with the development of the social and economic strategy) uncertainties for the industries and regions. With a stronger focus on the latent definition of the Program, there is a risk of extreme monopolization of the digital markets in Russia by the platform leading companies which are mainly located in Moscow and established with the public support under this Program implementation. The article offers to expand the concept of platform economy with a new type of digital ecosystem – a territorial digital platform to construct regional digital platforms and to develop business-ecosystems around them. It has been found that the digital economy in Russia is developed together with the implementation of the previously adopted spatial development strategy aimed to diminish the inter-regional differences, therefore, the dispersed digital economy should be seen as a promising approach. At the same time, there is a risk to activate the process of extreme territorial concentration of digital economic activities as the reviewed Program contains no measures aimed to disperse the agents of digital economy with any financial and other public mechanisms. One more strategic uncertainty induced by the fact that the Program lacks any priorities in preserving or expanding value chain is connected with linear or circular economy dichotomy. This uncertainty misinforms the domestic economic agents and could lead to the technological retardation of Russia from the leading countries in the circular digital economy. The advent of the artificial intelligence gives rise to the debate about the alternative routes of development with the homogeneous (human only) types of agents or heterogeneous (humans, intelligent machines and human-machine systems) economic landscape. It has been shown that the Program does not regulate the interaction of the different economic agents and the development of the economic landscapes, which could result in the unwanted transformation of the Russian economic space. In connection with the smart territorial units, the conclusion is that the Program does not contain any instructions concerning a preferable theory for the territorial organization of digital economy (smart city, smart region, smart agglomeration). This could lead to the situation when different regions observe different theories, with their implementation violating the equilibrium in the digital economic space of Russia. Interception of all alternative theories gives 48 possible development scenarios for digital economy in Russia. It has been established that Russia is likely to follow the platform agglomeration linear digital economy in homogeneous landscapes and smart cities. It is noted that the development of platform dispersed circular digital economy in heterogeneous landscapes and smart regions is seen to be the most favorable scenario in terms of modern studies and digital economy practices in other countries. The practical value of the study is determined by the adjustment of the existing Program or a development of a new document. Further studies are seen to be performed in the field of finding new uncertainty levels, one of them being “4G-, 5G- or 6G-determined digital economy”.