This has never happened, and here again. This well-known aphorism quite accurately describes what is happening. The world again passes through a crisis lane – and this is a common phenomenon, but never in the era of modern economic growth, that is, over the past 300 years, the global economic crisis has not been provoked by medical problems.
– –
The crisis is inevitable, but unexpected
–
The coronavirus pandemic has become a trigger for the economic crisis, the rigidity and depth of which no one has yet fully realized. We are dealing with the interweaving of several processes – or, more precisely, several crises. However, this is not unusual: the crises that the world and Russia have faced in recent decades have also had a complex structure.
– –
First of all, the pandemic led to the severance of economic ties, to the closure of borders, many of which seemed transparent forever. This created a shock in supply – a phenomenon that the world has not encountered for at least half a century. The closest analogue is the situation of the early 1970s, which arose due to the oil embargo of the Arab countries and served as a trigger for a decade-long structural crisis. Now the shock of supply has been the result of a sharp reduction in available capital and labor due to the closure of enterprises, individual regions and entire countries. To this we must add the decrease in total factor productivity due to the limitation of transport connectivity and the functioning of supply chains.
– –
The shock of supply is superimposed on the shock of demand. It affects the Russian economy through a decrease in demand for export goods (especially hydrocarbons), as well as through a contraction of domestic demand, including due to devaluation and a decrease in the purchasing power of the population.
– – .
