We study the tax-spend nexus for Russian regional budgets. Causal relationship running from taxing to spending is found, thus supporting the concept “tax and spend” suggested by M. Friedman. Next, elasticity of expenditure by revenue is estimated for a panel of 80 regional budgets basing on data for 2000—2017. Estimates are in the range of 0.72 to 0.78 (depending on the econometric technique), which exceeds elasticity for the federal budget more than twice. This evidences that fiscal policy at the sub-federal (as distinct from the federal) level has clear pro-cyclical nature. Besides, the largest sensitivity of expenditure to revenue shocks is found for the item “national economy”, implying marked adverse implications for economic growth. We suggest to mitigate this effect by modifying fiscal rules for sub-federal budgets. They are currently aimed primarily at enhancing fiscal discipline, with less emphasis on countercyclical policy, insulating economy from fiscal shocks.

Russian regions recovered financial stability in 2017—2019 due to high ruble commodities prices, improving tax collection and conservative expenditures and borrowings policy. Panel data analysis shows that social-demographic structure of population is one of the key factors of regional budgets balance. Government measures will contribute to sustainability of regional finances and reducing interregional differences in debt sustainability, but provide negative impact of regional fiscal policy on output dynamics in the coming years. Strengthening of fiscal burden via federal taxes will diminish procyclicality of regional budgets revenues, but require a return of full profit tax rate on regional level for compensating lost incomes. For improving borrowing conditions Bank of Russia and regional governments must develop placement of bonds with floating rates, indexed and amortized nominal.

The article analyzes the features of the dividend policy of Russian companies. The first part has contained an overview of academic literature and current trends. In the second part we discuss the results of empirical analysis that is based on a sample of 236 joint-stock companies. The motivation of Russian companies for maintaining the attractiveness of their shares during the period of significant increase of risks and volatility led to the growth of dividend yield. However, the increase of allocated profits observed in the largest state-owned enterprises (SOEs) to a large extent resulted from escalation of the tension in government finances. The threat of budget deficit growth led to partial substitution of tax income for dividend income from SOEs. At the same time some factors of uncertainty for SOEs’ operational strategies were increasing, especially those concerning long-term decisions in capital expenditure programs. The results of our analysis reveal that in private companies or SOEs, where the state has a limited influence on the dividend policy, the size of dividend payments to a greater extent depends on their financial performance, cash flows and the availability of promising investment projects. Moreover, the article shows that such companies are more likely to follow dividend smoothing strategies.

Since 2014, the Russian stock market has been under pressure due to both sanctions and a sharp drop in oil prices, which led to its increased volatility. This paper analyzes the impact of the price volatility of Brent oil and sanctions on the volatility of the Russian stock index RTS. Under volatility the paper understands both its parametric estimate obtained from the GARCH model estimation as well as non-parametric estimate — realized volatility. To estimate the effect of oil price volatility and sanctions, several cointegrated regressions were analyzed. The robustness of the results in relation to the choice of volatility assessment is demonstrated. The results show that RTS index volatility still depends on oil prices volatility in 2007—2018. This dependence is most pronounced in the periods of crisis. The paper also demonstrates the adjustment of the Russian stock market to the previous sanctions, which calls into question their long-term efficiency.

In this study, we evaluate the effectiveness of market selection based on data of Russian manufacturing firms from 2006 to 2017 and compare our results with those for foreign countries. To do this, we decompose the labor productivity at the industry level to determine the contribution from the redistribution of market shares from less to more productive companies. We also conduct a direct econometric assessment of the relationship between firm productivity and revenue growth. The results obtained indicate a moderate role of market selection in Russia. If we measure the firm productivity by estimating the value added per employee (labour productivity), then estimates for Russia are lower than for other OECD countries, while estimates based on total factor productivity are generally comparable. We also find that the role of market selection is higher for small and medium-sized enterprizes, which indicates the need to stimulate competition especially among large firms.

This paper shows, for the first time in empirical literature, that the presence of employees from academia in the firm, regardless of their participation in the firm’s research activities, reflects the skills of the firm to learn and acquire new knowledge or, put differently, its absorptive capacity. It is assumed that the higher absorptive capacity act as a mechanism that determines the impact of scientists on the productivity of the firm. The hypothesis that there is an inter-firm diffusion of knowledge in the commodity space is also being tested: firms with similar commodity structures are more likely to hire scientists. Hypotheses are tested on the example of a sample of small and medium-sized Russian firms-exporters, for which absorptive capacity is particularly important.

This paper is devoted to determining the impact of economic policy uncertainty on corporate investment of Russian manufacturing companies. By applying fixed effects models on panel data, it was found that under increasing level of economic policy uncertainty, the companies reduce their investment activity. The effect is most pronounced for large companies. It is important to note that public companies are not affected by the uncertainty of Russian economic policy, however, the European and global economic policy uncertainty has a negative impact on their investments. Testing the robustness by applying the methods of instrumental variables confirms the results. The study suggests that maintaining transparency and stability of economic policy can increase the level of corporate investment.