This report investigates the environmental impacts of Russia's accession to the World Trade Organization. A 10-region, 30-sector model of the Russian economy is developed. The model is innovative and more accurate empirically in that it contains foreign direct investment, imperfectly competitive...

In 2004 a law regulating a replacement of some in-kind social benefits by cash payments was passed and liabilities for the benefit provisions were redistributed between federal and regional budgets. The objective of the paper is to study consequences of the ongoing and upcoming social benefits...

Transport can play an important role in promoting growth, diversification and regional convergence. However, with insufficient investment and incomplete structural reforms, Russia faces very large challenges in modernising its large transport system. Urban transport problems are intensifying,...

The stability of Russian banking sector is threatened by three negative tendencies — overheating of the credit market, significant decrease of banks’ capital adequacy ratios, and growing problems associated with banks’ lending to affiliated non-financial corporations. The co-existence of...

The article summarizes the key results of researches in the field of early warning systems for financial crises, conducted by the Center for Macroeconomic Analysis and Short-Term Forecasting (CMASF) since 2005. The proposed early warning system consists of three major blocks: the leading...

The authors survey the types of cashless payments, explain their advantages and disadvantages, analyze the factors that promote and impede their use in Russia, and consider how monetary and credit policy and technical measures can facilitate the transition from cash to cashless payment.

Since 2010 the issues of development of retail payment systems in Russia have been discussed by the general public. But there is still a lack of assessments of possible macroeconomic effects. In our research we offer systematization of positive effects generated by broad implementation of retail...

The article analyzes factors affecting growth of the share of nonperforming loans in the loan portfolios of Russian banks. Using the results of stress tests of Russian banks, the authors assess their potential capital needs in 2010 and estimate the share of government assistance in capital...

The article analyzes measures taken by the Bank of Russia in response to the occurrence of a problematic situation characterized by three "stress points": signs of new overheating of the credit market, a significant decrease in bank capital adequacy ratios, and exacerbation of the problem of...

The article presents an empirical analysis of the interaction between market power of Russian banks and their resistance to credit risk during 2004Q1–2011Q2. We employ individual concentration index of banks in different asset markets (structural measure) and the Lerner index (unstructured...