Territorial Differentiation as the Factor of Sustainable Economic Development

The article deals with the issues of assessing the impact of territorial development differentiation on the sustainable growth of the country’s economy. The ambiguous effect of this factor is proved in paper. The formation of the state territorial development policy depends on the direction of the influence of the differentiation factor (negative or, on the contrary, stimulating). The authors estimated the dependence of the growth of the country’s economy on the territorial differentiation by calculating the integral indicator of the differentiation of the socio-economic development of municipalities by constituent entities of the Russian Federation and assessing the concentration of GRP throughout the country. The typology of the regions of the Russian Federation by the level of differentiation of the regional socio-economic development allowed to determine its threshold, after which differentiation stimulating influence arises.