Economists estimate losses of Russia from Western sanctions

Baku. 12 May. REPORT.AZ/ Researchers from Berlin first estimated the effect of sanctions on Russian economic growth by econometric methods. The upper limit of damage for growth estimated at 11%.

Report informs referring to RBK, Russian economy had lost an average of 2 pp quarterly GDP growth due to the western sanctions. This is stated in a joint article research fellow of the German Institute for Economic Research DIW Berlin Constantine Kholodilin and postdoc at the Free University of Berlin Alexei Netsunaeva:"If we translate this into a loss of economic growth in the two years of sanctions war, the effect will be very noticeable."

The paper says that the actual GDP growth in the second quarter of 2014, when the first sanctions were imposed on the third quarter of 2015 was minus 4.1%, while the counterfactual (as if there were no sanctions ) - plus 6.9%."The difference of 11% can be regarded as" an upper limit losses due to the sanctions ", - says Kholodilin.

Note that for the analysis were used data of Rosstat, Eurostat, Datastream and Bank for International Settlements on the growth of Russia's GDP and the eurozone, oil prices and real effective exchange rates.

The first sanctions against Russia were imposed in March 2014. The impact of financial sanctions - limiting foreign borrowings was sensitive for the economy of Russia. According to PwC data, if before sanctions in 2013 Russian issuers of Eurobonds attracted by 46.4 bln USD in 2014 - only 10.4 bln USD, and in 2015 - a little over 5 bln.Counter-sanctions imposed by Russia in response to Western sanctions affected the performance of inflation in the country.