WFGV.2014.0006

DOI: 10.14311/WFGV.2014.0006

THE ECONOMIC NATURE AND STRUCTURE OF MUNICIPAL ECONOMY

O.S. Belokrykova¹*, N.V. Pogosyan¹

¹ Southern Federal University, Rostov-on-Don, Russian Federation 

*Corresponding author. Email: belokrylova@mail.ru

Abstract: The paper outlines the essence of communal activities as an economic activity, aimed at providing the essential services for the population to enable normal living conditions in a particular area: natural and social reproduction of individuals. The authors analyze the economic nature of utilities as a type of public goods with such fundamental characteristics as special monopoly, based on the inability of the population to refuse these services,  a high social importance, local production and consumption of services. A network of communal services in a territory is understood as a pool of service providers, regardless of the form of ownership and the legal form of the organizations serving the population of a local territorial entity. Dimensions and characteristics of a municipal complex are defined by a set of various factors: geographical, demographic, economic, social, industrial and environmental.

KEYWORDS: utilities; communal activities; network of communal services in a territory; municipal economy.