Assessing Russia's Non-fuel Trade Elasticities

This paper attempts to assess the impact of exchange rate movements on Russian import and nonfuel export performance, using an error correction model. The estimation of trade equations shows that long-run price elasticities for imports and non-fuel exports are close to 0.6 and 0.7 respectively, hence relatively similar to those obtained for OECD countries. The Marshall-Lerner condition clearly holds. More precisely, we find that a 10% real appreciation (depreciation) of the currency leads on average to a non-fuel current account deterioration (improvement) of around 1% of GDP. Moreover, the short-term dynamics of the error correction model indicate that the response of the trade balance to exchange rate shocks is rapid, the adjustment being almost complete after one quarter. Finally, the evolution of import prices and non-fuel export prices of Russia, relatively to its competitors on domestic and third markets, suggests that the Russian economy lost already in 2004 the price-competitiveness advantage it had gained after the 1998 crisis.