Russian Economic Report, September 2015 : Balancing Economic Adjustment and Transformation

Russia’s recession deepened in the first half of 2015 with a severe impact on households. The economy continues to adjust to the 2014 terms-of-trade shock amid a tense geopolitical context marked by ongoing international sanctions. Oil and gas prices remained low through the first half of 2015, furt...

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Main Author: World Bank Group
Format: Report
Language:en_US
Published: World Bank, Washington, DC 2015
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10986/22714
id okr-10986-22714
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spelling okr-10986-227142021-04-23T14:04:10Z Russian Economic Report, September 2015 : Balancing Economic Adjustment and Transformation World Bank Group balance of payments monetary policy public expenditure poverty trends macroeconomic outlook economic growth economic risks aging population demographics natural resource management fiscal policy Russia’s recession deepened in the first half of 2015 with a severe impact on households. The economy continues to adjust to the 2014 terms-of-trade shock amid a tense geopolitical context marked by ongoing international sanctions. Oil and gas prices remained low through the first half of 2015, further underscoring Russia’s vulnerability to volatile global commodity markets. The weakening of the ruble created a price advantage for some industries, boosting a narrow range of exports and encouraging investment in a certain sectors, but this was not sufficient to generate an overall increase in non-energy exports. Investment demand continued to contract for a third consecutive year. Economic policy uncertainty arising from an unpredictable geopolitical situation and the continuation of the sanctions regime caused private investment to decline rapidly as capital costs rose and consumer demand evaporated. The record drop in consumer demand was driven by a sharp contraction in real wages, which fell by an average of 8.5 percent in the first six months of 2015, illustrating the severity of the recession. However, the deterioration of real wages was also the primary mechanism through which the labor market adjusted to lower demand, and unemployment increased only slightly from 5.3 percent in 2014 to 5.6 percent in the first half of 2015. The erosion of real income significantly increased the poverty rate and exacerbated the vulnerability of households in the lower 40 percent of the income distribution. 2015-10-01T14:09:10Z 2015-10-01T14:09:10Z 2015-10-01 Report http://hdl.handle.net/10986/22714 en_US CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo World Bank World Bank, Washington, DC Economic & Sector Work Economic & Sector Work :: Economic Updates and Modeling Russian Federation
repository_type Digital Repository
institution_category Foreign Institution
institution Digital Repositories
building World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection World Bank
language en_US
topic balance of payments
monetary policy
public expenditure
poverty trends
macroeconomic outlook
economic growth
economic risks
aging population
demographics
natural resource management
fiscal policy
spellingShingle balance of payments
monetary policy
public expenditure
poverty trends
macroeconomic outlook
economic growth
economic risks
aging population
demographics
natural resource management
fiscal policy
World Bank Group
Russian Economic Report, September 2015 : Balancing Economic Adjustment and Transformation
geographic_facet Russian Federation
description Russia’s recession deepened in the first half of 2015 with a severe impact on households. The economy continues to adjust to the 2014 terms-of-trade shock amid a tense geopolitical context marked by ongoing international sanctions. Oil and gas prices remained low through the first half of 2015, further underscoring Russia’s vulnerability to volatile global commodity markets. The weakening of the ruble created a price advantage for some industries, boosting a narrow range of exports and encouraging investment in a certain sectors, but this was not sufficient to generate an overall increase in non-energy exports. Investment demand continued to contract for a third consecutive year. Economic policy uncertainty arising from an unpredictable geopolitical situation and the continuation of the sanctions regime caused private investment to decline rapidly as capital costs rose and consumer demand evaporated. The record drop in consumer demand was driven by a sharp contraction in real wages, which fell by an average of 8.5 percent in the first six months of 2015, illustrating the severity of the recession. However, the deterioration of real wages was also the primary mechanism through which the labor market adjusted to lower demand, and unemployment increased only slightly from 5.3 percent in 2014 to 5.6 percent in the first half of 2015. The erosion of real income significantly increased the poverty rate and exacerbated the vulnerability of households in the lower 40 percent of the income distribution.
format Report
author World Bank Group
author_facet World Bank Group
author_sort World Bank Group
title Russian Economic Report, September 2015 : Balancing Economic Adjustment and Transformation
title_short Russian Economic Report, September 2015 : Balancing Economic Adjustment and Transformation
title_full Russian Economic Report, September 2015 : Balancing Economic Adjustment and Transformation
title_fullStr Russian Economic Report, September 2015 : Balancing Economic Adjustment and Transformation
title_full_unstemmed Russian Economic Report, September 2015 : Balancing Economic Adjustment and Transformation
title_sort russian economic report, september 2015 : balancing economic adjustment and transformation
publisher World Bank, Washington, DC
publishDate 2015
url http://hdl.handle.net/10986/22714
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