Factor Analysis of Socio-Economic Differentiation of the Regions (on the Example of the Republic of Belarus)

Abstract

Subject. In the article, based on a certain set of indicators, comprehensively reflecting the socio-economic situation of individual territories of the Republic of Belarus, we constructed integral characteristics, according to which the territories are located in the space of latent factors, and analysed their socio-economic differentiation. The subject of the study is a system of socio-economic indicators that comprehensively reflect the socio-economic development of the regions of the Republic of Belarus.

Goal. Construction based on the application of factor analysis of the integral characteristic, which includes the entire set of initial socio-economic characteristics, for the subsequent study of the differentiation of the regions of the Republic of Belarus in the process under study.

Methods. We based our study on the multidimensional statistical methods, namely, factor analysis.

Results. The practical importance of the study consists of the expansion of the possibility of comparing the territories by socio-economic development parameters.

Conclusions. The proposed aspects of constructing integral characteristics of assessing the state of socio-economic development will allow us to determine the directions for improving social policy to solve the identified problems of differentiation in individual territories.