ASSESSMENT OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT OF COUNTRY'S REGIONS TAKING INTO ACCOUNT LIVING STANDARDS OF PEOPLE
Modern trends in social and economic development of regions open new opportunities for each territory and raise new issues connected wtih its sustainable development and improvement of its people’s living standards. These issues are reflected in the papers of Russian scientists in the field of economy. The authors of the article deal with the task of improvement of the method for the assessment of sustainable development of a region. In particular, a serious issue is the choice and justification of indicators that are directly connected with the development of a region and the well-being of its population, and that can be used to monitor and rank the progress of any federal entity of Russia. An emphasis only on improvement of living standards cannot form the core of a regional strategy to promote the region’s sustainable development. The assessment should cover indicators that allow evaluating the level of social and economic development in federal entities of Russia, for instance, healthcare, labor and employment, migration and tax policy, financial performance of economic entities, population income, administration of a region’s consolidated budget and others. The developed method for the assessment of sustainable development of regions involves a comparative analysis of indicators of federal entities of Russia in a particular federal district. When making the calculations, the authors used Russian official statistics,the data provided by the Federal State Statistics Service and the Federal Service for Labor and Employment. The results of the studyare focused on the identification of driver indicators and identification of the problems of regional development in order to minimize them by increasing the effectiveness of the regional policy aimed at ensuring high rates of sustainable economic growth using mainly the resources of a specific region. The methodology for the assessment of sustainable development of the regions of the Russian Federation taking into account the living standards of people was tested on the regions of the Southern Federal District.