Commodity and Financial Networks in Regional Economics

Abstract

The article discusses the relationship between commodity-production and financial network structures in the regional economy as dual conjugate systems. Material flows (raw materials, goods and so on) circulate in the commodity network as shown by Leontiev’s input-output balance model. Nonmaterial flows of property rights, money, and so on circulate in the financial network and reflect the movement of material objects in commodity networks. A network structure comprises closed and open circuits, which have fundamentally different characteristics: locally closed circuits meet local demand by supplying locally produced goods, thus ensuring self-reproduction of the local economy; open (or transit) circuits provide export-import flows. The article describes the mechanism of ‘internal’ money generation in closed circuits of commodity-production networks. The results of the theoretical study are illustrated by the calculations of closed and open circuit flows in the municipal economy model. Mutual settlements between the population and manufacturing enterprises are given in matrix form. It was found that the volume of the turnover in closed circuits of the municipal economic network model is about 28.5 % of the total turnover and can be provided by ‘internal’ non-inflationary money. The remaining 71.5 % of the total turnover correspond to the flows in the network’s open circuits providing export and import. The conclusion is made that in the innovation-driven economy, main attention should be given to the projects oriented towards domestic consumption rather than export supplies. The economy is based on internal production cycles in closed circuits. Thus, it is necessary to find the chains in the inter-industrial and inter-production relations which could become the basis of the production cycle. Money investments will complete such commodity chains and ‘launch’ the production cycle.