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The article deals with the development of a methodological approach to forecasting and modeling the socioeconomic consequences of viral epidemics in conditions of heterogeneous economic development of territorial systems. The relevance of the research stems from the need for rapid mechanisms of public management and stabilization of adverse epidemiological situation, taking into account the spatial heterogeneity of the spread of COVID-19, accompanied by a concentration of infection in large metropolitan areas and territories with high economic activity. The aim of the work is to substantiate a methodology to assess the spatial heterogeneity of the spread of coronavirus infection, find poles of its growth, emerging spatial clusters and zones of their influence with the assessment of inter-territorial relationships, as well as simulate the effects of worsening epidemiological situation on the dynamics of economic development of regional systems. The peculiarity of the developed approach is the spatial clustering of regional systems by the level of COVID-19 incidence, conducted using global and local spatial autocorrelation indices, various spatial weight matrices, and L.Anselin mutual influence matrix based on the statistical information of the Russian Federal State Statistics Service. The study revealed a spatial cluster characterized by high levels of infection with COVID-19 with a strong zone of influence and stable interregional relationships with surrounding regions, as well as formed growth poles which are potential poles of further spread of coronavirus infection. Regression analysis using panel data not only confirmed the impact of COVID-19 incidence on the average number of employees in enterprises, the level of average monthly nominal wages, but also allowed to form a model for scenario prediction of the consequences of the spread of coronavirus infection. The results of this study can be used to form mechanisms to contain the coronavirus infection and stabilize socio-economic at macroeconomic and regional level and restore the economy of territorial systems, depending on the depth of the spread of infection and the level of economic damage caused.

The paper considers a method for studying panel data based on the use of agglomerative hierarchical clustering — grouping objects based on the similarities and differences in their features into a hierarchy of clusters nested into each other. We used 2 alternative methods for calculating Euclidean distances between objects — the distance between the values averaged over observation interval, and the distance using data for all considered years. Three alternative methods for calculating the distances between clusters were compared. In the first case, the distance between the nearest elements from two clusters is considered to be distance between these clusters, in the second — the average over pairs of elements, in the third — the distance between the most distant elements. The efficiency of using two clustering quality indices, the Dunn and Silhouette index, was studied to select the optimal number of clusters and evaluate the statistical significance of the obtained solutions. The method of assessing statistical reliability of cluster structure consisted in comparing the quality of clustering on a real sample with the quality of clustering on artificially generated samples of panel data with the same number of objects, features and lengths of time series. Generation was made from a fixed probability distribution. At the same time, simulation methods imitating Gaussian white noise and random walk were used. Calculations with the Silhouette index showed that a random walk is characterized not only by spurious regression, but also by “spurious clustering”. Clustering was considered reliable for a given number of selected clusters if the index value on the real sample turned out to be greater than the value of the 95% quantile for artificial data. A set of time series of indicators characterizing production in the regions of the Russian Federation was used as a sample of real data. For these data only Silhouette shows reliable clustering at the level p < 0.05. Calculations also showed that index values for real data are generally closer to values for random walks than for white noise, but it have significant differences from both. Since three-dimensional feature space is used, the quality of clustering was also evaluated visually. Visually, one can distinguish clusters of points located close to each other, also distinguished as clusters by the applied hierarchical clustering algorithm.

Technological development determines the emergence of highly detailed data in time and space, which expands the possibilities of analysis, allowing us to consider consumer decisions and the competitive behavior of enterprises in all their diversity, taking into account the context of the territory and the characteristics of time periods. Despite the promise of such studies, they are currently limited in the scientific literature. This is due to the range of problems, the solution of which is considered in this paper. The article draws attention to the complexity of the analysis of depersonalized high-frequency data and the possibility of modeling consumption changes in time and space based on them. The features of the new type of data are considered on the example of real depersonalized data received from the fiscal data operator “First OFD” (JSC “Energy Systems and Communications”). It is shown that along with the spectrum of problems inherent in high-frequency data, there are disadvantages associated with the process of generating data on the side of the sellers, which requires a wider use of data mining tools. A series of statistical tests were carried out on the data under consideration, including a Unit-Root Test, test for unobserved individual effects, test for serial correlation and for cross-sectional dependence in panels, etc. The presence of spatial autocorrelation of the data was tested using modified tests of Lagrange multipliers. The tests carried out showed the presence of a consistent correlation and spatial dependence of the data, which determine the expediency of applying the methods of panel and spatial analysis in relation to high-frequency data accumulated by fiscal operators. The constructed models made it possible to substantiate the spatial relationship of sales growth and its dependence on the day of the week. The limitation for increasing the predictive ability of the constructed models and their subsequent complication, due to the inclusion of explanatory factors, was the lack of open access statistics grouped in the required detail in time and space, which determines the relevance of the formation of high-frequency geographically structured data bases.