Inmates' informal code regulates their behavior and attitudes. We investigate whether prisons contribute to the spread of these norms to the general population using an exogenous shock of the Soviet amnesty of 1953, which released 1.2 million prisoners. We document the spread of prison norms in...

This paper examines the current dependencies and exposures of the euro area's financial sector in a context of rising geopolitical tensions. Focusing on Russia, China, and the Middle East, we analyze direct exposures through lending and securities holdings of banks and large investors. Our...

Russia's war of aggression, which has brought wide destruction and loss to Ukraine, has also transformed the Russian economy in significant ways. The Russian government's role in the economy has grown, with an ever-increasing amount of economic resources allocated to the war effort. The...

Russia's war of aggression, which has brought wide destruction and loss to Ukraine, has also transformed the Russian economy in significant ways. The Russian government's role in the economy has grown, with an ever-increasing amount of economic resources allocated to the war effort. The...

Three years of war, sanctions and Russia's isolation from the global community have changed its economy in many ways. Some changes such as the degraded business environment and increased government presence in the economy are likely to persist. War has also exacerbated Russia's already poor...

Three years of war, sanctions and Russia's isolation from the global community have changed its economy in many ways. Some changes such as the degraded business environment and increased government presence in the economy are likely to persist. War has also exacerbated Russia's already poor...

We study how Europe could replace US support for Ukraine both (i) financially, in terms of the fiscal effort required, and (ii) militarily, in terms of weapon production. Financial effort: The financial challenge of replacing US aid is limited. Currently, European governments are spending just...

This Policy Brief examines the economic well-being of Russian households in the wake of warrelated sanctions, leveraging ten years of data from the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS). Building on macroeconomic indicators suggesting resilience, we analyze subjective wellbeing,...

This paper examines the growth of military production in Russia since the onset of the war against Ukraine in February 2022. Utilizing official data from Rosstat, the study explores how military production is classified within Russian industrial output statistics. The analysis reveals...

On 8 December 2024, the Assad regime in Syria was overthrown by a rebel alliance led by Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). The collapse of the family dictatorship was made possible by shifts in regional and international power dynamics. Key factors included Turkish support for the rebels, the...

For the past three years, Ukraine has not allowed Russia to win its illegal war of aggression. During long periods of the war, the parties have found themselves in a military and diplomatic stalemate. Now US President Donald Trump has sided with the aggressor. "Nothing about Ukraine without...

Apart from several infrastructure projects which ultimately failed, and a surprise visit by the icebreaker Xuelong off the Greenlandic capital, Nuuk, the People's Republic of China has long maintained a cautious and reserved presence in the Arctic in the shadow of Russia and its fleet of...

On 8 December 2024, the Assad regime in Syria was overthrown by a rebel alliance led by Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). The transitional government under Ahmad al-Sharaa now faces enormous economic, social and political challenges. It has yet to establish control over the country as a whole; and...

• Durch die Verringerung der Abhängigkeit von fossilen Energieträgern kann die EU-Klimapolitik die Finanzkraft Russlands deutlich verringern und damit dessen militärische Fähigkeiten zur Fortführung der Aggression gegen die Ukraine und darüber hinaus einschränken. • Wir liefern...

• By reducing reliance on fossil fuels, EU climate policy substantially lowers Russia's financial strength, thereby limiting its military capabilities to sustain its aggression on Ukraine and beyond. • We provide estimates for the security dividend of EU climate policy. • A one-euro...

We explore the impact of fear on demand for government intervention. Our empirical strategy takes advantage of a unique quasi-experiment: During our survey in Russia, a very popular television program misreported the riskiness of the Covid-19 virus, thereby providing short-term exogenous...

This note discusses recent developments in economic relations between Russia and China. China has become an essential economic partner for Russia since the invasion of Ukraine. Cut off from most Western economies, Russia today is heavily dependent on trade with China and actively pursues greater...

Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the US, EU, and likeminded countries swiftly imposed an expanded set of primary and secondary export restrictions on Russia. This paper assesses the effectiveness of those measures and their ongoing refinement and modification over time...

According to the US government, the Russian government is developing a programme to arm some of its satellites with nuclear warheads. Should the Kremlin acquire this capability, it could destroy key parts of the civilian satellite infrastructure by detonating a single nuclear weapon in low Earth...

Russia's Maternity Capital program, launched in 2007, is a key policy with an obvious pronatalist focus aimed at countering the country's long-term depopulation trend by encouraging families to have more children. Initially, providing financial incentives for second and subsequent births. The...

We compare wage profiles for STEM-educated and non-STEM-educated individuals over their lifetimes. Using repeated cross-sectional data from Russia, we examine how the dynamics of these types of human capital are affected by technological developments, applying the Age-Period-Cohort decomposition...

Russia is going to great lengths to ensure that the war in Ukraine is perceived by its citizens as a distant military operation that does not affect them directly. But the consequences of both the war and the forced integration of the occupied Ukrainian territories are large-scale, diverse and...

The agricultural industry in Russia demonstrated a notable growth since 2010. Russian policymakers strive to further increase agricultural production and set new targets for the industry for the years ahead. While agroholdings are regarded as one of the main driving forces behind the recent...

Authoritarian states are increasingly leveraging non-state cyber capabilities to expand their operational reach, thereby challenging conventional distinctions between state and non-state activity. This practice complicates attribution and presents obstacles for coordinated international...

In my last post, ‘The Half Life of Empire’, I charted the rise and fall of the British and US empires, as measured by their share of world energy use. Afterwards, several readers requested that I apply the same methods to the rise and fall of the Soviet Union. Here’s my attempt to do so.

This report updates and expands the data-driven work of our initial study from September 2024, which concluded that Europe would only be fit for war in several decades. We show that the situation today is even more concerning if Europe aims to be fit for war by 2030. First, Russia continues to...

We extend our previous work on bank lending around elections in Russia's electoral autocracy (Fungáécová et al., 2023) by considering the most recent data on bank lending and 2024 presidential election. Unlike the elections held between 2004 and 2019, our findings show no systematic evidence...

In May 2025, the European Commission published a Roadmap outlining various measures aimed at phasing out all Russian pipeline gas and LNG imports into the EU. It was followed by a legislative Proposal in June, which stipulates firm prohibitions on importing Russian gas and providing long-term...

Geopolitics is an overarching characteristic of much of this outlook for the key themes in the global energy economy in 2025. The start of Donald Trump's second term in the White House will herald new pressures to multiple layers of the global economy, from trade to labour, monetary policy to...

Russia apparently aims to be capable of attacking targets in the Baltic Sea region from Lake Ladoga, which is located north of Saint Petersburg and only 40 kilometres from the Finnish border. Since 2023, Russia has been evaluating the deployment of corvettes equipped with cruise missiles there....

Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine marked the start of a prolonged confrontation between Moscow and Europe - one that is fundamentally reshaping the parameters of European security. The return of Donald Trump to the White House and his stated intent to quickly end the war in Ukraine and put...

This paper provides an overview of the major changes in Russia's macroeconomic policies since the early 1990s. For decades, the quest for economic stability and security have been leading principles of Russian macroeconomic policies. To understand the genesis of these macroeconomic policy...

Purpose - This study examines whether CEO power influences the book-based and market-based performance of Russian companies when it is restricted by the presence of essential shareholders, namely, state and influential businessmen. Design/methodology/approach Managerial power is divided into...

We explore the impact of fear on demand for government intervention. Our empirical strategy takes advantage of a unique quasi-experiment: During our survey in Russia, a very popular television program misreported the riskiness of the Covid-19 virus, thereby providing short-term exogenous...

Gerschenkron (1962) argued that public institutions such as the State Bank of the Russian Empire spurred the country's industrialization. We test this assertion by exploiting plant-level variation in access to State Bank branches using a unique geocoded factory data set. Employing an...

This paper formalizes the geopolitical externality of climate policy and estimates its plausible magnitudes. Specifically, domestic reductions in fossil fuel demand depress global prices, thereby lowering export revenues for resource-rich autocracies - many of which allocate substantial...

Purpose This study examines whether CEO power influences the book-based and market-based performance of Russian companies when it is restricted by the presence of essential shareholders, namely, state and influential businessmen. Design/methodology/approach Managerial power is divided into...

For the past three years, Ukraine has not allowed Russia to win its illegal war of aggression. During long periods of the war, the parties have found themselves in a military and diplomatic stalemate. Now US President Donald Trump has sided with the aggressor. "Nothing about Ukraine without...

• By reducing reliance on fossil fuels, EU climate policy substantially lowers Russia's financial strength, thereby limiting its military capabilities to sustain its aggression on Ukraine and beyond. • We provide estimates for the security dividend of EU climate policy. • A one-euro...

• Durch die Verringerung der Abhängigkeit von fossilen Energieträgern kann die EU-Klimapolitik die Finanzkraft Russlands deutlich verringern und damit dessen militärische Fähigkeiten zur Fortführung der Aggression gegen die Ukraine und darüber hinaus einschränken. • Wir liefern...

Authoritarian states are increasingly leveraging non-state cyber capabilities to expand their operational reach, thereby challenging conventional distinctions between state and non-state activity. This practice complicates attribution and presents obstacles for coordinated international...