Assessment of the economic effects of structural changes in the manufacturing industry of Russia

The article examines methodological issues of assessing the economic effects of structural changes in the manufacturing industry. The aim of the study is to assess the economic effects of structural changes in the manufacturing industry of the Russian Federation in 2020−2024, namely, to evaluate the contribution of the redistribution of average headcount of employees across technological groups of the manufacturing industry to the change in labor productivity. The methodological basis of the study is the works of S. Fabricant, B. Massell, M. Syrquin, M.P. Timmer and A. Szirmai, as well as studies on structural transformation and technological dynamics in industry. The scientific novelty lies in the modification of methods for analyzing structural changes in industry and adapting the shift-share approach to the assessment of the economic effects of structural changes in the average headcount of employees across technological groups of manufacturing industries. The author modifies the methodology of Timmer and Szirmai, in which the change in productivity is decomposed into the within-sector effect, the static structural effect, and the dynamic interaction effect. The difference of the modified methodology lies in applying this decomposition logic to the assessment of structural changes in the manufacturing industry, taking into account the grouping of its industries according to OECD technological groups. Another difference is the choice of time intervals for the calculation. In the Timmer and Szirmai study, labor productivity decomposition is carried out over large intervals, ranging from five to ten years depending on the country and period. This article uses a chain annual calculation for 2020−2024 over the intervals 2020−2021, 2021−2022, 2022−2023, and 2023−2024. This allows tracking the change in the contribution of structural redistribution not only over the entire period, but also over individual years. The empirical base is formed from Rosstat data for 24 types of manufacturing activities, aggregated into four OECD technological groups. It is shown that the structure of the average headcount of employees by technological group changed moderately in 2020−2024. The share of high-technology industries increased, while the share of low-technology industries decreased. The structure of the volume of shipped goods differs significantly from the employment structure: the largest share of shipment volume is accounted for by medium-low- technology industries. Labor productivity, measured as the volume of shipped goods per employee, increased across all technological groups. It was established that the increase in labor productivity was mainly driven by the within-sector effect calculated at the level of technological groups. The static structural effect at the level of technological groups was positive but significantly smaller than the within-sector component, while the dynamic interaction effect was minimal.