Oil explains everything

Economists argued about the place of Russian economy in the international division of labor

In the Moscow Center of Carnegie, an expert discussion "Russian Economics: Features of National Transit" was held. The speakers discussed how the country's financial authorities make decisions in conditions of instability in the raw materials and what place Russia could take in the world division of labor.

The famous Swedish economist Turbjern Becker told how the macroeconomics sees the situation with the oil dependence of Russia. “You can build a model with one exogenous variable: a change in oil prices. It explains 65–90% of the growth of Russian GDP, while other countries usually require 20–40 variables, ”said Becker.

It is clear that neither the Ministry of Finance nor the Central Bank is able to influence oil quotes and even accurately predict them. Can economic policy be effective in such conditions?

If one of the typical tasks of the Central Bank of Sweden or another European country, to evaluate how economic growth is affected by a change in the refinancing rate, then in Russia regulators have to monitor the volatile prices for hydrocarbons. This fundamental uncertainty presses not only the government, but also on an ordinary business that cannot plan its activities.

One of the few tools that remains with the monetary authorities in the resource state is the management of the national currency, said Becker. Oil prices since the end of 2014 in ruble terms have declined much less than in dollar, which allowed the government to soften the consequences of an economic recession. “People are unhappy with devaluation, it reduces their purchasing power. But from the point of view of macroeconomics, this was correct, ”said the economist.

The main functions of the financial authorities should be reduced to attempts to build a modern economy that does not parasitize on raw materials. “I think that during the life of our children, oil will completely leave energy,” Bekker predicted. Natural raw materials today is rapidly losing its value. According to the World Bank, the cost of Norway resources is $ 80 thousand per capita, and intangible assets (human capital, institutions, innovations) - $ 500 thousand. For Russia, both indicators are approximately equal and amount to about $ 25 thousand.

The speakers agreed that the most important for the country is the reform of basic institutions, for example, strengthening private property rights. “This is not a technocratic, but a political and economic task. It is feasible only if the elites are ready to go for self -restraint, ”said Yevsey Gurvich, head of the economic expert group. But the fall of the economy, apparently, turned out to be too soft: the elites were not “frightened”, did not feel the need to change something, the economist said.

The structure of the economy will contribute to stability until the Russian GDP per capita will be reduced at least at least, the director of the Economic Politics program, Moscow Center of Carnegie Andrei Movchan. “From the point of view of the manager, reforms are evil, and institutional reforms are double evil. For the sake of them, elites would have to take the risk of monstrous destabilization in the country, including a temporary increase in crime and the fall in the population’s incomes, and all this for a certain bright future. ”

An ideal scenario for Russia is the role of an industrial platform for goods from the EU, by analogy with Mexico, which American companies transferred their production, the economist believes. “Russia and Mexico are approximately similar in the population and the volume of GDP. But they grow by 4% per year, and we are in recession. Russia needs to make Mercedes and Volkswagen collect from us how Ford is collected in Mexico, ”Movchan said. Time -intensive production in our country is possible, only the high cost of labor in low labor productivity interferes: the income of the worker in the USA and Mexico differ by about 8 times.

Today, Russia imports 95% of industrial machines, 70% of household appliances and 40% of food. For the real development of the economy, any state should participate in international competition - to produce goods focused on export (hence the futility of the policy of protectionism). In the case of Russia, transit to this model is complicated by the fact that not only power, but also the population of the country, said to the distribution of rent, Movchan said. The occupation of a competitive niche in the global economy will require serious efforts, the volume of which will grow every year of delay.