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The ongoing technological development leads to the emergence of a new value-creation paradigm that calls for changes and structural transformations in economic systems at different levels. Structural transformations are prompted by growing economic complexity. In this context, the selection of industrial strategies and the validation of key regional industrial policies is of paramount importance. Economic complexity (EC) analysis is a new effective tool to address the issue. Its application at a subnational level is, however, limited by methodological problems. To analyse economic complexity at a subnational level, a basic methodology and special software were developed within this study. The object of the research is the exclave Kaliningrad region, whose location makes it possible to capture accurate and comprehensive data on international and interregional trade. Based on the EC analysis theory and practice, the study involved the development of methods, algorithms, and software to form a source database and measure economic complexity. The findings may guide the use of EC analyses in regional policies. The article suggests activities for sequential upgrading of the industry in the Kaliningrad region. These activities will facilitate the development of the existing and new capabilities, improve the business environment, and increase the complexity of products, productions, and industries.

The recent geopolitical shifts and Russia’s response to them have had a significant impact on the Kaliningrad region. This has created new challenges and warranted a revision of the old ones. The article investigates the reaction of the region’s economy to the challenges of its exclave position and considers possible measures to offset related problems in the current geopolitical situation. The article employs statistics, regional strategies, cross-border cooperation programmes, and expert interviews conducted by the authors in Kaliningrad in 2012—2014. The vast body of empirical data is instrumental in analysing the views of different stakeholders and estimating the problems and prospects of the region’s development as either Russia’s military outpost in Europe or as a ‘cooperation laboratory.’ The analysis takes into account collaborations with the neighbouring states. In striving to identify the preferable regional development conception, the authors reveal low susceptibility of local cross-border cooperation actors to the belligerent rhetoric of national authorities on either side of the border. The study of the state of affairs in tourism, a promising area of regional specialization, demonstrates a dual effect of the exclave position, which can be considered both as a challenge and an opportunity.

In the article, the authors build a balance model for an exclave region. The aim of the work is to explore the unique properties of exclaves to evaluate the possibility of development of a more complex model for the economy of a region. Exclaves are strange phenomena in both theoretical and practical regional economy. There is lack of comparative models, so it is typically quite challenging to study exclaves. At the same time, exclaves produce better statistics, which gives more careful consideration of cross-regional economic flows. The authors discuss methodologies of model-based regional development forecasting. They analyze balance approach on a more general level of regional governance and individually, on the example of specific territories. Thus, they identify and explain the need to develop balance approach models fitted to the special needs of certain territories. By combining regional modeling for an exclave with traditional balance and simulation-based methods and event-based approach, they come up with a more detailed model for the economy of a region. Having taken one Russian exclave as an example, the authors have developed a simulation event-based long-term sustainability model. In the article, they provide the general characteristics of the model, describe its components, and simulation algorithm. The approach introduced in this article combines the traditional balance models and the peculiarities of an exclave region to develop a holistic regional economy model (with the Kaliningrad region serving as an example). It is important to underline that the resulting model helps to evaluate the degree of influence of preferential economic regimes (such as Free Customs Zone, for example) on the economy of a region.

This article focuses on a commodity flow model for an exclave region (CFMER). The CFMER development is aimed at identifying aggregate proportions of the exclave’s economy in the transitional period of the special economic zone (SEZ) functioning. The key method of analysis is the comparison of data on the generation of gross regional product and regional foreign economic activities (including export and import of goods and moving goods from/into the Kaliningrad region to other Russian regions). It results in a conceptual CFMER, which is assessed as of 2011. The availability of additional — as compared to a regular region — data on commodity flows in the framework of the SEZ transitional period makes it possible to identify structural disproportions in the economy. It is shown that the introduction of the SEZ transitional period did not result in a change in the conceptual model of the regional economy’s functioning merely increasing the opportunities for rent extraction. The authors predict structural imbalances in the exclave economy at the microlevel, in particular, the article analyses the conceptual model of rent extraction in the SEZ transitional period. The CFMER can be used for forecasting the development of exclave’s economy under different scenarios of the evolution of SEZ in the Kaliningrad region.

76 This article considers the origin, development, change in the status, and extinction of enclave and exclave formations in the territory of the modern Kaliningrad region. The author offers information on their socio-economic and political features. The article identifies enclave (exclave) problems peculiar to them, including the land access (passenger and cargo transit) of the metropolis to the isolated territory, as well as the issues relating to the origins of state border, border control, visa regime, and political and economic relations to neighbouring states and the mainland. The author reviews cases of evolutional development of enclavity and peaceful and military methods of eliminating enclave formations. Actions towards the solution of political and socioeconomic problems taken in East Prussia are compared to those taken in the Kaliningrad region. The author emphasizes the need to solve the problems of the only Russian exclave region in view of the experience of its historical “predecessors”.

The economy of the Kaliningrad exclave is not sufficiently stable and is heavily affected by external factors. This work aims to estimate the current economic situation in the region and explore possible ways to increase the stability of regional economy. The study employs economic statistical methods and identifies factors affecting regional development. The author analyses the dependence of the manufacturing industry on customs and tax privileges under the law On the Special Economic Zone in the Kaliningrad region and federal programmes supporting the development of manufacturing and social infrastructure. The article stresses that the abolition of customs privileges in 2016 will result in a significant reduction in industrial output, since a lot of production is heavily dependent on imported raw materials and components. It is expected that the companies enjoying customs privileges to produce goods for the national market will receive government support for reequipment. Effective use of the allocated funds would require setting up a regional programme identifying priority areas of regional economic development thus ensuring economic stability. There is also a need to support companies ensuring the economic — including food — security of the region.

In this article the authors detail the methodology of regional development forecasting with the balance method. They provide with an overview and assessment of the existing models and systems, and their use for the purposes of public administration at the regional level. The article underlines the need to develop a balance approach models for specific territorial conditions. In particular, the authors identify the possibilities of studying the connections between the proportions of material and cash flows within the regional system, and reconciling the needs of a regional economy with the production and resource potentials. The long-term sustainability balance model — a simulation of event-based forecasting — has been developed for the Russian exclave. The authors provide a general description of the balance model, its elements and simulation algorithm. The results of calculations using the balance model for forecasting regional development are provided for three alternative scenarios for the Kaliningrad region for the period until 2018.

With its exclave status, the Kaliningrad region has been drawing attention of many researchers in different fields. Yet the prospects for cooperation between the region and neighbouring communities in Poland and Lithuania, which once constituted an integrated social, economic and political space, remain unclear. Media analysts and scholars alike tend to view the Kaliningrad region as “double periphery”, since it is excluded from major modernisation processes both in the European integration zone and in the Russian Federation. However, a detailed study involving polyscale socioeconomic indices, expert interviews, and surveys run contrary to this viewpoint. A look at the key indices of the Kaliningrad region and the neighbouring communities of Poland and Lithuania showed that both socioeconomic situation and standards of living are comparable in these areas, which indicates the prerequisites for mutually beneficial interregional cooperation. We have analysed factual information on socioeconomic development of cross-border regions and surveyed the students from the leading universities of Gdansk, Kaliningrad and Klaipeda. We were thus able to conclude that the reasons behind the delapidated cross-border relations are rather subjective and lie in the field of geopolitical orientation, information and institutional policy, as well as persistent stereotypes that shape public opinion. In this light, integration between the Kaliningrad region and mainland Russia is seen not only as an economic, but also as a sociocultural objective. An analysis of the stages of the region’s exclavisation, and policies of social support stemming from the uniqueness of the economic and geographical position of the region substantiate this conclusion.

This article focuses on the genesis of and correlation between the related concepts of enclave and exclave and the scope of their use in different sciences, fields of knowledge, and everyday speech. The author examines the circumstances of their emergence in the reference and professional literature in the Russian language. Special attention is paid to the typology of the world’s enclave territories as objects of political geography; at the same time, their new categories and divisions (international enclave, overseas exclaves, internal enclaves of different levels) are extended and introduced. The author offers a new classification of contemporary and historical enclaves and exclaves. The article identifies the specific features of the Kaliningrad region in comparison to other enclave territories. The difference between the exclavity of the Kaliningrad region in the Soviet and post-Soviet periods is emphasised. The author shows the evolution of the use of concepts of enclave and exclave for describing the fe atures of the Kaliningrad region’s positions from the perspective of the mother and surrounding states. The article introduces the concept of dividing states and stresses the need to take their interests into account to ensure the functioning of the Russian exclave. The author substantiates the thesis that the Russian region is an enclave of the European Union (but not NATO) and an exclave of the Russian Federation and a number of political and economic intergovernmental alliances with Russian participation. The article offers a generalised characteristic of the Kaliningrad region from the perspective of its enclavity / exclavity.