Macroeconomic and Structural Analysis, Econometric Estimates of the Economic Dynamics of Russia (2000-2021): Equations and Identities of the Foreign Economic Bloc

The article is yet another contribution by the authors, this time focusing on the findings of an econometric model for Russia in its 2022 iteration. It describes the equations and identities of the external economic block of the model. Econometric equations determine the volume of exports and imports of Russia, as well as the exchange rate of the ruble to the dollar. The elasticities show that the volume of exports depends primarily on global demand, and the volume of imports depends on domestic demand, the prices of imported goods and the share of wages in the households’ incomes. The exchange rate is affected by a large number of variables. Among them there are the money supply, export and import prices, the number of economically active population, the volume of public procurement, inflation in the United States and some others. Impulse multipliers of exogenous variables demonstrate that the value of Russian exports is influenced only by global demand; at the same time, imports also depends heavily on the value of government purchases, dollar prices of imported goods and the number of economically active population. The exchange rate is also contingent on government procurement, the economically active population, and US inflation. The outcomes of the predictive scenarios reveal that export volume significantly diverges from the baseline scenario solely due to shifts in global demand. For imports, it may also be changes in monetary and fiscal policy and in the trajectories of import prices. These same factors, as well as changes in the rate of inflation in the United States, alter the dynamics of the exchange rate. The article compares the share of exports and imports in the GDP of Russia and OECD countries and gives the regional cross-section of exports and imports.