Measuring the performance of fiscal policy in Russia

This paper evaluates the performance of fiscal policy since the 1998 crisis, along several dimensions and using a variety of indicators. Russia has progressed tremendously in recent years on public debt sustainability largely because the real interest rates on public debt have been negative and growth has been high. However the constant oil-price balance shows a progressive worsening starting in 2001 with a modest reversal in 2004. As to optimal fiscal policy in a country endowed with exhaustible resources, analysis of the nonoil fiscal balance shows that Russian fiscal policy has had a mixed record. It has spent part of the windfall before introducing the oil stabilization fund, but has saved most of the oil revenues in the last two years. The standard fiscal impulse shows that budget policy has not contributed to the increase in aggregate demand since 2003. However the fiscal position was not tight enough to contain the inflationary effect of the exceptional oil windfalls for the economy as a whole.