Since the beginning of Special Military Operation in Ukraine, the Russian economy has faced a large number of sanctions from unfriendly states. At the beginning of 2023, Russia’s export revenues remain high. However, there are high risks of revenues decline over the horizon of several years due to restrictions on the part of unfriendly countries. Based on a general equilibrium model for the Russian economy, we analyze the impact of an anticipated shock from a reduction in future energy export revenues. First, the paper shows that the anticipated shock of a fall in export revenues leads to a short-term and medium-term increase in domestic investment. Under a closed financial account, the effect of growth in investment remains even if other export doesn’t react to currency appreciation, while under an open financial account, investment decreases. This indicates the important role of the rainy day savings factor for investment dynamics, when the possibility of savings in external financial markets is limited. Second, in the short and medium term, the impact of revenues decline is highly dependent on whether the financial account is open or closed. Under a closed financial account, the drop in macroeconomic indicators turns out to be sharp and localized in the vicinity of the period of export revenues fall. Third, the central bank’s interest rate moves in exactly opposite directions under inflation targeting regime in response to the unanticipated and anticipated export revenues shock.

Many central banks consider the change of the approach to the monetary policy. One of the options is average inflation targeting. Under rational expectations this policy leads to a tangible increase in social welfare. In this paper, we demonstrate that in the case of adaptive expectations, on the contrary, it is more likely to lead to a decrease in welfare. In particular, considering the case of adaptive learning, we show that attempts by the central bank to stabilize average inflation lead to unnecessarily high output volatility. Moreover, even if the central bank includes average inflation in its loss function, it still would not optimally alternate periods of low and high inflation. Thus, the implementation of average inflation targeting seems to be inappropriate. We consider the case of the absence of zero lower bound, which allows us to formulate conclusions that are relevant for developing and developed countries which have experienced a prolonged acceleration of inflation in recent years.

The article considers the prospects of the domestic timber industry in the context of sanctions restrictions. Based on the data on average annual trade flows for 2018—2020, the potential damage from trade restrictions is assessed. Particular attention is paid to the fifth package of EU sanctions, which contains the most severe restrictions on trade with Russia for a wide range of forest commodities. The potential loss of income for the Russian timber industry from the ban on exports to the EU is estimated at 3.5 billion dollars. The ban on imports from the EU countries may also be sensitive for the industry, but it should not be regarded as fatal. The possibilities of partial replacement of the deficit of products for a considerable list of goods are shown. At the same time, the violation of free trade in forest products because of sanctions becomes a new turn in the spiral of the global crisis, which began in the pandemic COVID-19. Consequently, the damage to countries imposing sanctions on Russia is also significant. The most affected will be the largest RF trading partners in Europe — Finland and Germany, as well as the Baltic States. A sharp increase in logging in the EU against the background of the energy crisis creates an additional opportunity for the Russian timber complex. The reciprocal nature of economic losses, as well as multiple examples of circumventing sanctions in other industries, suggest that the most likely scenario will be attempts to maintain trade relations while formally implementing the imposed restrictions.

State support plays an important role in the development of the agricultural sector, ensuring food security and sustainability. In this article the PSE/ CSE methodology, developed by OECD, is applied to analyzing the impact of support to Russian agriculture in 2021 on the welfare of all market participants: agricultural producers, consumers and the agricultural sector as a whole. We present the results of the estimation of the total level of support to agriculture and, in particular, to agricultural producers, provided at the expense of consumers and financed from budget transfers as well as the impact of agricultural policy on consumers. The level of state support to general services for the sector and to small-scale agricultural producers is also investigated. The interpretation of the PSE/CSE indicators in the situation of underdeveloped market infrastructure and regionalization of budget transfers is discussed. Policies aimed at moderating the price hikes for grains resulted in positive transfers to consumers of those commodities, while consumers of the majority of livestock commodities paid more than in the case of absence of support to agricultural producers. Based on this analysis recommendations are suggested for increasing efficiency of the agricultural policy transfers.

The paper studies the reproductive intentions of the Russians who already have at least one child before and during the quarantine restrictions (lockdowns) due to COVID-19. Binary choice logistic models and a set of machine learning models were evaluated on the data from the Person, Family, Society survey conducted in March—May 2020. Modeling of the respondents’ intentions to have more children in the short term (3 years) and the long term (more than 3 years) showed that external shocks such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the strict quarantine regulations associated with it had an impact on fertility intentions, but only in the short term. These external shocks were less significant than such factors as age of the respondent; the number of children already born; availability of housing needed to expand the family; the maternity capital program availability, which includes the opportunity to improve housing conditions after the birth of children. As Russians with children showed the increase of the probability of having additional children after April 2020, we conclude that the effect of COVID-19 on reproductive intentions was acyclical. The estimation of models with heterogeneous effects showed that the pandemic had a stronger impact on respondents with above-average household incomes.

In his “History of economic analysis” Joseph A. Schumpeter emphasized the role of the sequence “Petty—Cantillon—Quesnay”. Recent research has showed that it was Cantillon, whose contribution within this sequence was crucial. The article is devoted to the scientific legacy of the author of the “Essay on the nature of trade in general” — the first systemic treatise on economic theory in history; as well as to the impact it had on the subsequent development of economic thought. The topics under discussion include issues of method, ontological assumptions and ideological setting, theories of social reproduction, value and circulation of money, entrepreneurship, population and spatial development. It is argued that Cantillon’s blueprint of theoretical economics provided a pattern for the formation of classical political economy and partly retained this role in the post-classic period. Cantillon’s theoretical legacy can serve as a source of relevant lessons for theoretical economists and organizers of economic research until today.

Both conspicuous waste practices and their analysis have undergone significant changes since Veblen first defined them in his “Theory of leisure class” over a century ago. The article provides a comparative interdisciplinary overview of the approaches to the analysis of the economic practices of conspicuous waste. The first part of the article focuses on original approach to conspicuous waste that was proposed by Veblen, who suggested that such waste allows economic agents to maximize a special kind of utility. As this approach assumes that conspicuous waste works as a quasi-language system where the information about social status and wealth of the person is being coded, transferred and decoded, the article suggests naming it “semiotic approach”. The next part of the article considers the development of this approach in the works by Galbraith, Baudrillard, and Douglas and Isherwood. Both advantages and limitations of this approach are being considered, and possible alternative approach, based on the application of behavioral economics, is being suggested. The final part of the article provides an application of the received findings to the analysis of the modern digitalized practices of conspicuous leisure. Thus, the article examines the influence of digitalization on the dynamics between conspicuous consumption and leisure, the ways economic practices of conspicuous waste have changed within the framework of social media, and the impact of this change on the modern labour/leisure balance.

The article shows that the share of fundamental research carried out by business varies over time, but remains significant. As a consequence, not all fundamental knowledge is a public good. The uneven accumulation of knowledge, changes in the structure of research and development are highlighted as additional factors affecting publication indicators of the scientific sphere. The closer the research approaches the pre-competitive stage, the less likely it is that the knowledge obtained will be published in scientific journals. The policy of constantly increasing the number of publications in academic journals does not correspond to the nature of the real process of accumulation of fundamental knowledge, does not take into account a very important role of business in this process. The functions performed by scientific journals, including expert analysis of incoming materials and recommendations to the authors, also significantly effect this process. The issue of state funding of scientific journals should be resolved taking into account the fact that their activities are not just servicing the authors of articles, but providing an important service to the whole society. Remuneration of reviewers will contribute to improving the quality of this service.

The paper examines the question of whether inflation and inequality are interrelated. The data panel formed based on Rosstat information. The econometric modeling methodology included the identification of separate panel regressions for the consumer price index (CPI) and the Gini coefficient, as well as equations systems for these indicators, including equations systems for food inflation, nonfood products and services, as well as quantiles of population distribution by income. A two-way positive relationship between the CPI for goods and services and the Gini coefficient by region was empirically obtained. However, the result is asymmetric and typical for the CPI for food products and for the fifth income quintile. For the CPI for non-food goods/services/the first quintile of the income distribution, the result changes to a negative two-way relationship. The obtained results allow taking into account the unequal income of the population when making decisions by the Bank of Russia on monetary policy, as well as emphasize the effectiveness of government measures to equalize income of the population in order to contain inflationary processes.