Economic complexity and inclusion of regional economies

Abstract

The paper presents a probabilistic interpretation of the elements of the matrix, which is used to assess the economic complexity in accordance with the traditional approach. Their properties are given, on the basis of which aggregate indicators are introduced that characterize the nesting of the structures of strong sectors of regional economies. It is shown that aggregate nesting indicators are statistically significant explanatory variables for economic complexity. It is proved that the used procedure for calculating the economic complexity is correct in the sense of the existence and uniqueness of the solution. It is shown that the data that are used to assess the economic complexity in accordance with the author’s approach allow to reflect the formation of value chains and groups of related sectors focused on both the external and internal markets. For this economic complexity, calculated on regional data, its high values correspond to large values of the aggregated nesting indicators. Low values of economic complexity correspond to low values of nesting indicators.