The literature has widely discussed the role of financial and economic uncertainty shocks for the macroeconomy. However, it has turned out to be difficult to isolate these shocks from financial market indicators and uncertainty proxies because any identifying restriction on their response...

This paper looks at economic growth and its fundamental determinants in Russia over the last decades. It starts by showing that, contrary to the views of some political commentators, growth is highly important for the popularity of president Putin. Furthermore, regular models of growth are...