This paper reveals the contents of the category of «regional industry-specific shift» by which, unlike existing treatments, a qualitative change in the sectoral structure of the region, leading to increase or decrease of its production specialization is meant. A methodical approach is proposed for the delineation of the categories of «regional industry shift» and «regional industrial change», based on the use of criterion interval averages of industry changes. This indicator reflects the transition «to regional industry changes» in the «regional industry shift». A method for evaluation of regional industrial structure and typology of Russian regions, depending on changes in industrial specialization, was elaborated. The paper presents the criteria of monospecialization and polyspecialization of the region, using which the subjects of the Russian Federation and distributed to monospecialized and polyspecialized. A comparison of monospecialized and polyspecialized regions validated the dependence of economic development entities of the Russian Federation on the territory of the diversified industrial structure. An innovation is the author's proposal for the development of measures of structural policy in the monospecialized regions of Russia, differentiated according to the identified trends in the manufacturing field in the region.

In this article, the maintenance of the various points of view on a category «the structural policy» is revealed. The sight of authors of the article is reflected: the structural policy is understood as a subsystem of a social and economic policy of the state, called to carry out function managing by development of branches of the economy together with private business, distributions of financial resources between sectors, control over use of the given money resources with a view of, actual for a certain historical stage, by use of administrative, standard and financial tools of regulation. The methodological basis of a structural policy is defined, functions with that end in view reveal, the target system, subjects and objects, and also are specified principles and classification of tools of a structural policy. By sight authors, regional branch shifts which promote progressive changes of branch structure of a region in directions of formation V and VI technological ways, increase of a diversification of manufacture by stimulation of innovative changes should become a target reference point of a structural policy. The most sensitive to tactical both technological fluctuations and vulnerable in the economic plan are monospecialized regions. In this connection, the technique of carrying out of a structural policy in monospecialized subjects of the Russian Federation taking into account shifts in branches of their industrial specializations is offered.