Economic and educational complexity in the Russian regions: Should they go hand in hand with each other?

We establish a positive association between economic and educational complexity, both at the country level, as well as for the Russian regions. As for the latter, we observe a higher variance of educational complexity, while economic complexity fluctuates noticeably less. A number of regions features a higher education system that stands considerably ahead of the development of the corresponding regional economy. We note that the process of making a regional economy more complex is likely to be associated with significant risks of failure, high expenditures and a slow pace of progress. Thus, a more developed higher education system potentially might have a small impact on the development of the corresponding regional economy. However, the latter does not imply that the process of balancing the quality of higher education in the Russian regions should be reversed. The further development of the network of high-quality regional universities contributes to the reduction of income inequality at the level of households by producing more favorable opportunities for migration to better developed regions and accessing higher-quality labor market segments.