2020. vol. 24. No. 4

To explore the role of financial frictions for macroeconomic policy transmission, this paper compares macroeconomic effects of tightening financial repression in the standard medium-scale DSGE model which assumes perfect capital markets and the one with financial frictions. Introducing financial frictions into the model deepens negative impact of financial repression on private investment, it but leads to weaker initial negative response in output. This result is driven by two effects. Firstly, in the model with financial frictions, investment is more sensitive to changes in the economic activity because negative shock worsens financial health of entrepreneurs and leads to tighter borrowing conditions. Secondly, in the model with financial frictions, the problem of households who consume and save and that of entrepreneurs who invest in capital are considered separately. Financial repression reduces return on capital, which further worsens financial stance of entrepreneurs, but does not impact return received by creditors because it is fixed in the contract. Hence, the impact of financial repression on households and their consumption is smaller in the model with financial frictions. In the consumption-led economy the overall effect on output is less prominent if we model financial market explicitly. Quantitatively, this effect can be quite substantial, so we conclude that analysis of financial repression effects calls for explicit modeling of financial market and its specific characteristics despite possible benefits of a simpler model. Furthermore, when compared to various distortionary taxation measures as a way to finance an increase in government purchases, financial repression produces lower fiscal multipliers.

This paper studies learning in strategic environment using experimental data from the Rock-Paper-Scissors game. In a repeated game framework, we explore the response of human subjects to uncertain behavior of strategically sophisticated opponent. We model this opponent as a robot who played a stationary strategy with superimposed noise varying across four experimental treatments. Using experimental data from 85 subjects playing against such a stationary robot for 100 pe riods, we show that humans can decode their strategies, on average outperforming the random response to such a robot by 17%. Further, we show that human ability to recognize such strategies decreases with exogenous noise in the behavior of the robot. Further, we fit learning data to classical Reinforcement Learning (RL) and Fictitious Play (FP) models and show that the classic action-based approach to lear­ning is inferior to the strategy-based one. Unlike the previous papers in this field,e.g. Ioannou, Romero (2014), we extend and adapt the strategy-based learning techniques to the 3×3 game. We also show, using a combination of experimental and expost survey data, that human participants are better at learning separate components of an opponent's strategy than in recognizing this strategy as a whole. This decomposition offers them a shorter and more intuitive way to figure out their own best response. We build a strategic extension of the classical learning models accounting for these behavioral phenomena.

The relevance of the research, the results of which are presented in this article, is conditioned by the attention in society that is given today to the development of effective policy in the field of poverty eradication and inequality reduction at the global and national levels.

The purpose of the article is to analyze the acceptability of using the equivalence scalesused in the EU and OECD in Russia, based on the characteristics of consumption of its population and to obtain the additional consistent to international practice indictors which assess poverty and inequality based on official statistics which are available to users. Equivalent income research on inequality and poverty is a widespread experience international organizations and national agencies abroad. However, in Russia, it has not received proper application. The only example is the estimation of the risk of poverty and social exclusion, by Rosstat which has implemented the Eurostat methodology.

The study revealed that the use of the value of the equivalent income as a criteria of households significantly changes the composition of population groups in the social hierarchy. Thus, the poorest strata of the population with the minimum values of the equivalent incomelevels are more likely to include older people and to a lesser extent children compared to the groups of households according to the nominal income per capita. At the same time, the characteristics of income distribution, such as the Gini Index and Palma Ratio, practically do not change their values. Therefore, the inclusion of an equivalent income in the analysis of inequality and poverty makes it possible to identify additional characteristics and socially significant aspects of these phenomena and take them into account accordingly when developing policy measures and targeted support for needy groups of the population.

The framework of the calculations that were performed in the study was the files of anonymized microdata available from a sample survey of population income and social programs participation, which were taken from the website of the Federal State Statistics Service.

The article clarifies the concept of fiscal sustainability and its main indicators and assesses fiscal sustainability of Russian regions. The topic is chosen due to importance of managing the risks of the budgetary system ceasing to perform its functions. Academic research and regulatory documents are reviewed, and the IMF data are analyzed. The paper distinguishes between fiscal and debt sustainability. It is established that fiscal sustainability means a functioning of the budgetary system when achievement of its goals in the present does not reduce achievability of the goals in the future. Debt sustainability provides the conditions for countercyclical fiscal policy, an essential element of fiscal sustainability. Thus, fiscal sustainability depends not so much on the amount of debt, but on the fiscal and public administration institutions. Russia's fiscal sustainability risks are highest at the regional level, where the authorities have a small amount of powers, including the regulation of debt parameters. New federal governmental methodology for assessing the regional debt sustainability (article 107.1 of the Bud­get code) reflects creditworthiness, provides flexibility and correctly differentiates regulatory measures based on the amount of debt. However, it does not fully reflect the institutional and economic aspects (which we propose to include in our fiscal sustainability index (FSI)), but further restricts fiscal independence of lagging regions. We conclude that it is more effective to limit only the debt powers of those regions without additional restrictions on spending.

The article analyzes the behavior of the credit cycle in the period after the global financial crisis, as well as the consequences of changes in the «inter-crisis» period of 2010–2019 for the future credit cycle after new economic recession in 2020 caused by COVID-19 pandemic.

The «credit crunch» phase, defined as a period of reduced credit activity under the low and declining interest rates, has been prolonged in many countries since the global financial crisis. The reason for this were both some mistakes in monetary policy and the tightening of financial regulation, primarily in the banking sector. Ultimately, this led to slower economic growth, reduced efficiency of the banking channel of monetary policy and the transition of non-financial companies to alternative funding sources and the transfer of financial risks to the non-banking financial sector (primarily the shadow banking sector).

According to the authors, the new world recession, caused by COVID-19 pandemic, will lead to further changes in the model of the credit cycle – funding opportunities at low interest rates be even more restricted (excluding public financing programs) and the Central Bank will act as «lender of primary resort» and the main risk collector. The level of interest rates will affect service of increasing public debts. In fact, under the ultra-low interest rates, credit crunch may occur in the debt market (except for companies with high credit rating), and financial risks will accumulate even more in the shadow banking sector.

The results of the analysis allow us to form a «frame» for further research of the credit cycle after a current economic recession.

New methods are proposed that allow using the properties of nonlinear dynamics models to analyze the dynamics of real socio-economic processes. For this, a complex of models has been developed in the form of connected nonlinear one-dimensional and multidimensional map pings that meet the general laws of socio-economic processes – development in a rapidly changing environment under resource constraints. The proposed set of models allows you to analyze the dynamics of processes under the assumptions of both their independence and interconnection with each other. The definition of interrelated processes is introduced as processes developing under conditions of general constraints. Three criteria are proposed for identifying interrelated processes based on empirical data. In the case of interrelation of processes, the parameters of one-dimensional and multidimensional models are also interrelated, which allows a deeper analysis of the situations under consideration. The use of the proposed method is demonstrated by the example of analyzing the dynamics of revenue of Russian companies in the pe­riod from 2006 to 2015 (38 thousand companies in total). All companies were divided into four groups, depending on the rate of revenue growth from 2010 to 2015. The hypothesis of a possible relationship between the decline of one and the parallel strengthening of another group of Russian firms after the crisis of 2008–2009 is investigated and rejected. Innovative firms that boosted their revenue growth potential after the crisis were targeting markets other than con ser­vative firms whose revenue growth potential was exhausted after the crisis. The peculiarities of the dynamics of revenue of groups of companies are visually presented in the form of normalized values, when the median estimates of each of the groups in 2007 are taken as a unit.