Prostranstvennaâ Èkonomika (Jun 2023)
The Economics of Force Majeure: The Price of ‘Financial Stability’
Abstract
In this paper, it is shown that, despite a tremendous number of sanctions that significantly modify the conditions of financial and economic equilibrium in Russia, the basic mechanisms, priorities and construction of the goals of the financial and economic policy have not changed. This is especially true for monetary and fiscal policy. The analysis of the parameters and results of budget planning for 2022–2023 has been carried out. Although there are no catastrophic failures of macroeconomic indicators according to the Ministry of Finance in 2022 and the official projections of the 2023 budget do not promise an increase in problems, the discrepancy between the actual possibilities to increase revenues and the imperative requirements to increase budget expenditures signal a serious deterioration of the budget situation, which requires urgent and adequate solutions. The author discusses the prospect of the state budget deficit turning into a permanent phenomenon accompanying the country’s economic development for a long period, due to the indefinite period of revenue suppression and acceleration of state budget expenditures, the reasons of which are long military expenditures and the duration of restructuring the structure and mechanisms of global and subglobal financial and economic interactions. In this paper, estimates of the budget deficit, which are alternative to the official data, have been made; estimates of real sizes and dynamics of budget deficits are proposed; and the concept of hierarchy and target concentration of budget expenditures is argued. The main tools for financing budget deficits (the National Welfare Fund, ruble devaluation, money emission, government borrowings) are analyzed, the possibilities and potential limits of their use are shown. It is shown that all of them, except domestic government borrowings, give a short-term effect and at the same time have a negative impact on macroeconomic equilibrium. The possibilities, direct and indirect consequences of the policy of reduction of budget expenditures are considered
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