Preview

Voprosy Ekonomiki

Advanced search
Open Access Open Access  Restricted Access Subscription Access

The impact of news coverage of Russia in the media on export—import activities

https://doi.org/10.32609/0042-8736-2019-8-30-44

Abstract

After the introduction of sanctions against Russia, the volume of both exports and imports in the country fell sharply. The purpose of the study is to identify the possible impact of news information, taking into account its emotional color, on the volume of foreign trade of Russia during the sanctions period. The empirical base of the study included news texts of Thomson Reuters Agency from the beginning of 2012 to may 2018 and indicators of export and import of Russia. Using the methods of text analysis (sentiment-analysis based on NRC Word-Emotion Association Lexicon and calculating the semantic distance between words) and econometric modelling, the influence of the tone of news about Russia for the period from March 2014 to May 2018 was studied. As a result of the study, it has been found that there is a relationship between the content of news reports about Russia and the volume of its export-import operations. Sanctions pressure creates a negative reputational background around Russia, which reduces its attractiveness as a foreign trade partner for other countries.

About the Authors

Elena A. Fedorova
Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation; National Research University Higher School of Economics
Russian Federation


Svetlana O. Musienko
Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation
Russian Federation


Igor S. Demin
Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation
Russian Federation


Fedor Yu. Fedorov
RedSys, LLC
Russian Federation

Moscow



Dmitriy O. Afanasyev
Greenatom, JSC
Russian Federation

Moscow



References

1. Manturov D., Nikitin G., Osmakov V. (2016). The Russian government approach to import substitution planning in industry. Voprosy Ekonomiki, No. 9, pp. 40—49. (In Russian). https://doi.org/10.32609/0042-8736-2016-9-40-49

2. Shafiev R. (2015). Economy under sanctions. Negative consequences and positive opportunities. Rossiya i Musulmanskiy Mir, No. 11 (281), pp. 5—16. (In Russian).

3. Shishkin A. V., Latyshov A. V. (2015). Russian foreign trade in 2014: The view through sanctions. Mezhdunarodnaya Torgovlya i Torgovaya Politika, No. 2, pp. 44—56. (In Russian).

4. Afesorgbor S. K. (2019). The impact of economic sanctions on international trade: How do threatened sanctions compare with imposed sanctions? European Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 56, Iss. C, pp. 11—26. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2018.06.002

5. Baker S. R., Bloom N., Davis S. J. (2015). Measuring economic policy uncertainty. Unpublished manuscript, http://www.policyuncertainty.com/media/EPU_BBD_2013.pdf

6. Bazoobandi S. (2015). Sanctions and isolation, the driving force of Sino-Iranian relations.

7. East Asia, Vol. 32, No. 3, pp. 257—271. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12140-015-9244-4

8. Daniel M. et al. (2017). Company event popularity for financial markets using Twitter and sentiment analysis. Expert Systems with Applications, Vol. 71, pp. 111—124. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2016.11.022

9. Gharehgozli O. (2017). An estimation of the economic cost of recent sanctions on Iran using the synthetic control method. Economics Letters, Vol. 157, pp. 141—144. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econlet.2017.06.008

10. Gusev M. S., Shirov A. A. (2009). Foreign trade forecast in the system of midterm forecasting of the Russian economy. Studies on Russian Economic Development, Vol. 20, No. 1, pp. 1—12. https://doi.org/10.1134/s1075700709010018

11. Hauk W. R. Jr. (2012). U.S. import and export elasticities: A panel data approach. Empirical Economics, Vol. 43, No. 1, pp. 73—96. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00181-011-0456-1

12. Herrerias M. J., Orts V. (2013). Capital goods imports and long-run growth: Is the Chinese experience relevant to developing countries? Journal of Policy Modeling, Vol. 35, No. 5, pp. 781—797. https://doi.org/10.1016/jjpolmod.2013.02.006

13. Lee Y. S. (2018). International isolation and regional inequality: Evidence from sanctions on North Korea. Journal of Urban Economics, Vol. 103, pp. 34—51. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jue.2017.11.002

14. Li X. et al. (2014). News impact on stock price return via sentiment analysis. Knowledge-Based Systems, Vol. 69, pp. 14—23. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.knosys.2014.04.022

15. Neuenkirch M., Neumeier F. (2016). The impact of US sanctions on poverty. Journal of Development Economics, Vol. 121, pp. 110—119. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2016.03.005

16. Olper A., Pacca L., Curzi D. (2014). Trade, import competition and productivity growth in the food industry. Food Policy, Vol. 49, pp. 71 — 83. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2014.06.004

17. Petoussis Е. (1985). The aggregate import equation: Price homogeneity and monetary effects. Empirical Economics, Vol. 10, No. 2, pp. 91 — 101. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf01973543

18. Quinn K. M., Monroe B. L., Colaresi M., Crespin M. H., Radev D. R. (2010). How to analyze political attention with minimal assumptions and costs. American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 54, No. 1, pp. 209—228. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5907.2009.00427.x

19. Salitskii A. I., Xin Z., Yurtaev V. I. (2017). Sanctions and import substitution as exemplified by the experience of Iran and China. Herald of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Vol. 87, No. 2, pp. 205—212. https://doi.org/10.1134/s1019331617020058

20. Senhadji A. S., Montenegro C. E. (1999). Time series analysis of export demand equations: A cross-country analysis. IMF Staff Papers, Vol. 46, No. 3, pp. 259—273.

21. Setayesh S., Mackey T. K. (2016). Addressing the impact of economic sanctions on Iranian drug shortages in the joint comprehensive plan of action: Promoting access to medicines and health diplomacy. Globalization and Health, Vol. 12, No. 1, pp. 1—14. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12992-016-0168-6

22. Sharma Ch., Mishra R. K. (2015). International trade and performance of firms: Unraveling export, import and productivity puzzle. The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Vol. 57, pp. 61—74. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.qref.2015.02.001

23. Shirov А. А., Yantovskii А. А., Potapenko V. V. (2015). Evaluation of the potential effect of sanctions on the economic development of Russia and the European Union. Studies on Russian Economic Development, Vol. 26, No. 4, pp. 317—326. https://doi.org/10.1134/s1075700715040103

24.


Review

For citations:


Fedorova E.A., Musienko S.O., Demin I.S., Fedorov F.Yu., Afanasyev D.O. The impact of news coverage of Russia in the media on export—import activities. Voprosy Ekonomiki. 2019;(8):30-44. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.32609/0042-8736-2019-8-30-44

Views: 1127


ISSN 0042-8736 (Print)