REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT,ECONOMIC ACCOUNTABILITY,AND SOCIAL JUSTICE

The author argues in favor of redoubled efforts at improving access to transportation and communications as the most effective means of government intervention promoting a “level playing field” for disparate territorial units under “regional khozraschet.” He maintains that such an approach does not remove incentives for innovation and productivity at individual enterprises, but helps eliminate the disadvantages of peripheral production enterprises relative to those of “central” areas. A scheme is proposed whereby increasing overall (intermodal) transportation accessibility would be the objective, rather than maximizing narrowly based microeconomic efficiency criteria for various transportation ministries. Translated by H. L. Haslett, Leamington Spa, UK from: Territorial'naya organizatsiya obshchestva i problemy mezhnatsional'nykh otnosheniy: Materialy k IX s'yezdu Geograficheskogo Obshchestva SSSR. Leningrad: Geograficheskoye Obshchestvo SSSR, 1990, pp. 9-13.