The digital transformation of all socio-economic spheres of the country determines the inclusion of digital factors in the assessment of investment potential. The aim of this paper is to justify the need to include digital factors in assessing the investment potential and the assessment of the digital potential of St. Petersburg. The study includes statistical methods of correlation analysis, average values, comparison, and grouping. This paper defines the concept of digital potential; highlights indicators of digital technology development; presents a methodology and assessment of the digital capacity of St. Petersburg compared with other cities of federal status through 2016–2018. The author features three key components of digital potential: information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure, digital government, and e-business. The study shows that St. Petersburg’s digital potential is sustainably growing. The research reveals that the digital capacity of St. Petersburg is improving by boosting the “e-business” component which reflects the use of ERP and CRM systems by organizations, as well as by the e-commerce. The low level of the “digital government” component has a negative effect on the integral level of digital potential despite the ongoing digitization process in the public sector services. The conclusions of the study suggest that the use of digital channels to interact with public authorities, the digitization of businesses, as well as the implementation of electronic workflow processes will improve the digital potential of St. Petersburg. Taking digital factors into account as a part of the investment potential of a city will make it possible to accurately assess its investment attractiveness. The findings of the study may be useful to scientists, rating agencies, and government officials when making investment decisions. The prospects for future research on this topic consist of expanding its base, clarifying the components of the digital potential factors, and methods for assessing the investment attractiveness of a territorial entity.

This paper investigates the impact of the moderate growth of government borrowing on debt sustainability in 11 Russian regions over about 10 years, starting in 2010. The current study aims to assess the debt sustainability of the Russian region’s budget by determining Euclidean distance budget constraints and cluster analysis. This study is based on the methodology of hierarchical cluster analysis, which makes it possible to isolate regions of accumulation of objects from the aggregate data and combine them into homogeneous segments. The central hypothesis of this study is that by using this method, it is possible to increase the accuracy of the values that limit budget constraints in a region’s financial system. This study, using open data from the Federal State Statistics Service, is based on a database of statistical, financial, and economic indicators of the Russian economy. The calculations include about 45 macroeconomic indicators, which reflect the ratios of socio-economic development of the region’s financial system. The methodology described in the paper for assessing the debt sustainability of budget policy proves the need to calculate six indicators and determine the debt limits for the regions of each cluster. It finds a need to reduce the high debt burden of 46% of the regions belonging to the Northwestern Federal District. Confidence intervals for the debt limit suggest that the negative growth effect of high debt may start from levels of around 5% of the debt-to-GDP ratio and about 43% of the debt-to-revenue ratio. The results indicate that regions with a high level of debt sustainability include St. Petersburg city, the Leningrad region, and the Kaliningrad region. From a state debt policy perspective, the results provide additional arguments for debt reduction for the Republic of Komi, the Republic of Karelia, the Arkhangelsk region, and the Pskov region. The general conclusion of the study boils down to the need to reduce the debt burden of the budgets of some regions of the SFZO, as well as to the need to change the upper limits of debt, which are equally set for all regions by the Budget Code of the Russian Federation, to differentiated values of public domestic debt, taking into account the results obtained in the study.

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Background: This article provides an assessment of the sustainability of Russian regions’ financial systems. The study is based on the methods of generalization and synthesis, correlation-regression analysis, and multivariate classification. Since the structure of the regional financial system is complex, several works are devoted to studying its sustainability issues. The relevance of the study topic is confirmed by the lack of a systematic approach to assessing the integral index of sustainability and the possibility of using various tools in determining the complex indicator. Methods: This  methodology with application of mathematical statistics methods makes it possible to assess the financial system sustainability in four sectors, to include the leading indicators in the assessment, and to identify regions with extreme values of debt burden indicators. The method was tested for the regions of the Northwestern Federal District (NWFD) for the period 2010 - 2019  to classify the regions according to three levels of debt sustainability. Data collection from the 1st January to 30th April 2022 included statistical data from government open internet sources, sectors studied relate to government, and municipal budgets in the NWFD. Authors analyzed regional debt sustainability indicators and identified themes in the field of sustainability studies for the NWFD. Results: An increased level of financial system sustainability was observed among the  NWFD regions in the corporative and personal finance sectors, indicating a significant contribution of businesses and households to maintaining the balance and sustainability of the financial system in Russia as a whole. The results of the study also identified that the NWFD regions belong to three clusters: cluster 1 - high debt sustainability; cluster 2 - medium debt sustainability; and cluster 3 - low debt sustainability. Conclusions: The study results allowed the identification of regions with a constantly high level of debt, financial, and corporative sustainability.

The aim of the paper is to assess the debt sustainability of the budget system of the regions of the Northwestern Federal District (NWFD) of Russia and establish differentiated values of the budget constraints. The author uses methods of comparison and grouping, correlation and cluster analysis. The author’s methodology based on the methods of multivariate statistical analysis made it possible to include indicators that have the nature of leading indicators in the assessment, evaluate the integral indicator of debt sustainability, and determine the limit values of these indicators. Approbation of the author’s methodology for assessing the debt sustainability of the budget system on the statistics of the NWFD regions allowed dividing the regions into three clusters according to the types of debt sustainability and determining the threshold values of indicators for each cluster. The research results substantiate the need to reduce the high debt burden for 70% of the NWFD regions. The results indicate that the regions with a high level of debt sustainability include St. Petersburg, Leningrad and Kaliningrad regions. The integral indicator of debt sustainability of these regions is greater than one and the regions are well grouped according to six indicators of debt sustainability into a group that is homogeneous in terms of characteristics. The Republic of Komi, the Republic of Karelia, and the Arkhangelsk and Pskov regions have a low level of debt sustainability: the standard limiting values for the “debt-to-GRP ratio” indicator of the regions is less than 5%, and the “debt-to-revenue ratio” indicator — less than 42%, the value of all indicators of debt sustainability exceeds the values of the cluster centroids. For these regions, the author recommends pursuing a targeted budget policy with a mandatory debt reduction to the level of threshold values for the indicators of the regions of this cluster. The paper concludes that it is necessary to reduce the debt burden of most regions of the NWFD, as well as to establish differentiated values of budget constraint on public debt, taking into account the indicators of socio-economic development of these regions.