1887

OECD Economics Department Working Papers

Working papers from the Economics Department of the OECD that cover the full range of the Department’s work including the economic situation, policy analysis and projections; fiscal policy, public expenditure and taxation; and structural issues including ageing, growth and productivity, migration, environment, human capital, housing, trade and investment, labour markets, regulatory reform, competition, health, and other issues.

The views expressed in these papers are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the OECD or of the governments of its member countries.

English, French

Assessing Russia's Non-fuel Trade Elasticities

Does the Russian Economy React "Normally" to Exchange Rate Movements?

This paper attempts to assess the impact of exchange rate movements on Russian import and nonfuel export performance, using an error correction model. The estimation of trade equations shows that long-run price elasticities for imports and non-fuel exports are close to 0.6 and 0.7 respectively, hence relatively similar to those obtained for OECD countries. The Marshall-Lerner condition clearly holds. More precisely, we find that a 10% real appreciation (depreciation) of the currency leads on average to a non-fuel current account deterioration (improvement) of around 1% of GDP. Moreover, the short-term dynamics of the error correction model indicate that the response of the trade balance to exchange rate shocks is rapid, the adjustment being almost complete after one quarter. Finally, the evolution of import prices and non-fuel export prices of Russia, relatively to its competitors on domestic and third markets, suggests that the Russian economy lost already in 2004 the price-competitiveness advantage it had gained after the 1998 crisis.

English

Keywords: Russia, price-competitiveness, non-fuel trade balance, foreign trade, exchange rates, price elasticities
JEL: F19: International Economics / Trade / Trade: Other; P27: Economic Systems / Socialist Systems and Transitional Economies / Socialist Systems and Transitional Economies: Performance and Prospects; C22: Mathematical and Quantitative Methods / Single Equation Models; Single Variables / Single Equation Models; Single Variables: Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models; Diffusion Processes; O11: Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth / Economic Development / Macroeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
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