The results of the first presidential round in Ukraine confirmed the exceptional competitiveness of the political system. If we choose “one sign of a democratic structure of power”, then this, of course, is the possibility that those who are in power at the time of the elections are deprived of it following the results of the elections.
Strictly speaking, President Poroshenko still has a chance to remain president, but the fact that the incumbent head of state is gaining 17% of the vote in the first round is a sign of democracy. This fully fits into the Ukrainian political tradition - in 28 years of independence, only once (in 1999) did the president manage to be re-elected for a second term. (In 1994 and 2010, the incumbent presidents lost, in 2004 the “successor” of the incumbent lost, in 2014 the incumbent president did not have the opportunity to participate.) With poor results, it is not surprising that citizens preferred to change power rather than maintain, but it is surprising that they have all the time this possibility remains.
It is useless to compare the 2019 elections with the 1994-2014 elections, because the “composition of voters” has seriously changed due to the departure of voters from Crimea and Donbass, which, of course, changes the relative weight different parts countries. In any case, in order to win in the second round, Poroshenko needs a miracle - I can’t recall from memory an example of an election in the world where a candidate who took second place in the first round would win back such a gap. (Kuchma won back 7 p.p. in 1994 - he had 31% after the first round against 38% for Kravchuk.) Even if all the other candidates unite to help Poroshenko (and uniting, for example, with Tymoshenko is both difficult and politically dangerous), not the fact that this is enough.
Boris Johnson has been known to fantasize about being Churchill but act like anyone but his idol. Over the past three days, he managed to change his position on Brexit three times - against Theresa May's plan, for the plan, against and, it seems, again "for". I really want to become prime minister, and then a gap opened up. May's plan is that those who don't like Brexit because it's not enough of a break with the EU will vote for her plan because otherwise they might get nothing at all, no Brexit. (At the same time, she threatens soft Brexiters with a no-deal, abrupt exit.) As an added bonus to Johnson & Co., she promised to resign if her plan was approved, leaving them in control of the actual exit.
It was here that Johnson saw the crack leading to the coveted premiership. Churchill, who was not only a powerful and stubborn politician, but also a wonderful writer, had a joke about Johnson. Boneless wonder, he once said. My parents took me to perform the "gutta-percha miracle" in the circus, but now I see this miracle right in front of me among the members of the government. It was said about Ramsay MacDonald, who led a government based on a small faction in his party and a large faction in the opposition, but Boris Johnson rises before his eyes as if alive.
And the reality of Brexit remains complex. A stupid move by conservative leaders who knew that leaving the free trade system and single market would be a disaster for the British, but decided they could risk a popular vote, sending the country into a trap from which the government could not get out. Citizens, having voted for Brexit without thinking about the real consequences, took away the mandate from May's government, not supporting her in the 2017 elections. But they didn't give it to anyone else. As shown by "indicative votes" in parliament this week, there is no majority for any plan of action. But Churchill is not. There are, here, gutta-percha miracles.
Regarding the "Muller Report", a special counsel investigating possible collusion and collaboration of the Trump campaign with someone from Russia. He has changed little and will not have significant influence on the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.
Democrats were mistaken in thinking that if the Mueller report contained a conclusion that the Trump campaign was collaborating with Russian agents, then this would radically change something. Republicans are now mistaken in thinking that the Mueller report, which dropped allegations of collusion, changes something radically.
The main thing to understand about political struggle in America in the 21st century is that it is happening in conditions of exceptional, by historical standards, polarization. 40% of Americans support Republican candidates, whoever they are and whatever positions they hold. 40% support the Democrats, whatever they are and whatever they say. These 40% have always been there, but now they are unusually stable.
The Republican 40% would support Trump no matter what the Mueller report said. The Democratic 40% is against Trump, no matter what is actually written there. It is difficult to understand what influences the remaining 20%, whose votes decide the elections. But it's definitely not a matter of "do they trust Trump", do they consider him a worthy leader, etc. And so it is known that they do not consider. And in 2016 they did not count. That didn't stop them from voting for him.
Trump's chances in 2020 are at least 50%, because 2+ years of his presidency is 2+ years of sustainable growth in the economy, employment, wages, incomes, etc. Not a single president, it seems, in the last 100-150 years has had such a first term - to inherit steady growth and go through the entire first term without a recession.
Trump's chances in 2020 are no more than 50%, at the moment, because he was and remains a record unpopular president. It is not known how great the "personally Clinton" negative effect was, but it is hard to imagine that the next Democratic candidate will be so personally unpopular. Democrats won elections in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan in the fall of 2018 by a margin, and these three states, if everything else remains the same, are enough to win in 2020.
So regardless of the amount of hype about the Mueller report, the unjustified expectations before and the unjustified exhalation after, he did not fundamentally change anything.
Seven and a half years ago, I wrote how hard it was to look at Nazarbayev at the St. Petersburg Forum - old man co inconsistent speech reminded me of Brezhnev, the aged Soviet leader from my childhood. This was especially unpleasant for those who, like me, remembered Nazarbayev as one of the young leaders of the USSR just before the collapse. Then he seemed the most sane and reliable.
However, it turned out that way. Today's voluntary resignation more justifies the expectations of thirty years ago than the economic successes of these thirty years. They are impressive too. Of course, the “success story” of Kazakhstan is the history of a country with a small population and large reserves oil. But Kazakhstan's GDP per capita shows much less dependence on world prices than the more seemingly diversified Russian economy. This means that decisions are made better.
Regardless of economic success, authoritarian leaders - and Nazarbayev was a typical authoritarian leader - almost never leave office voluntarily. They starve the population just to stay in power (like Ceausescu or Maduro), they arrange civil wars(like Pol Pot or Milosevic) or at least wait until the crowd approaches the palace and the lights are turned off in their office. At best, they die in office after several years of stagnation. Nazarbayev, surprisingly, walked away victorious. Just because he left.
Remember, in 2016, right after the failed military coup, I compared the Turkish president to Hitler on one specific parameter? Not because of the cruelty of the regime, foreign policy aggressiveness, etc. It's all irrelevant. By the speed with which, perhaps, Erdogan is destroying Turkish science. Hitler killed German dominance in world science, and apparently forever, in two and a half years, by 1936. This partly followed the world trend - already at the end of the 19th century, the ascent of American universities began, but if it were not for the fascist policy immediately after coming to power - to Jewish pogroms, to concentration camps, to the seizure of neighboring territories, to crimes against humanity - in the XXI world scientific language would probably be German.
So, about Erdogan. Two and a half years have passed - emigration, almost in pure form"brain drain" has almost doubled. Europe and America are actively hiring scientists of Turkish origin (in my science, especially in the high-tech part, they are very seriously represented - it is possible that stronger than anyone another European country). That is, even if Erdogan does not commit any crimes against humanity (I repeat, there is no reason to compare him with Hitler “in general”), and indeed does not do anything bad, he already seems to be negative character Turkish history.
Rosneft CEO Sechin explained the fall in oil prices by raising the Fed's key rate, and he was wrong. Rosneft needs to hire a competent macroeconomist so that they do not say nonsense to the management. Or consult with someone - there are literate people at the HSE Faculty of Economics, at Sberbank, Alfa, the Ministry of Economics, etc.
However, this misconception is extremely common. The most common form among the commentators on my blog is the belief that QE operations (the Fed is buying securities, to increase the "monetary base", cash, roughly speaking) led to an increase in stock prices, etc. Of course not. Prices - both oil and stocks - are influenced by "money", "money supply", and their volume has been growing at a constant pace for many years. This constant pace is ultimately determined by two things: (a) the long-term growth rate of the US economy and (b) the US central bank's chosen inflation target (2% for many years).
These constant rates of fasting are perfectly visible on the graph of the amount of money. Who does not see the constancy of growth rates, here they are, in logarithms and with a straight line for clarity (cool, fed, that you can now draw functions and add trends directly on the site!).
Theoretically, the actions of the Fed with a key rate could affect prices #right now, if what they did would be a complete surprise for the market. And even then, the reaction would not be to what happened to the money, but to the fact that the Fed suddenly did something unexpected. But in the last ten (twenty? thirty?) years, there are no, no surprises in the actions of the Fed. In fact, they can be reduced to the following: the Fed simply keeps the blue line on the chart straight, reacting to changing circumstances. Attributing any short-term fluctuations to the Fed's actions to keep its promises is like being surprised at the maneuvers of a driver who has chosen a route and speed and turns in response to the turns in the road.
12 years ago, in the fall of 2006, I mentioned Illinois Senator Barack Obama as a candidate for the 2008 US presidential election. The first time I seriously mentioned it was only six months later, a year and a half before the elections - when the seriousness of him as a candidate was clearly visible. So - is it possible now to predict at least something about the Democratic candidate?
The difficulty is that the list of real candidates, explicitly or implicitly leading the campaign, is very wide this time - 40-50 people at least. Polls at this stage are practically uninformative. So I just break down the candidates into several categories and, with all conceivable reservations, I predict from which group I expect the president.
(A) The "new generation" - all sorts of leaders, representatives of small subgroups, of which, like a patchwork quilt, the Democratic Party now consists. Kamala Harris, Senator from California, and Cory Booker, Senator from New Jersey are representatives of the establishment, but, like Obama in 2008, brand new, little worn political life. In American presidential politics, there is traditionally a "newness award" like literally nowhere else in the world, and the last two presidents are the best illustration. Citizens deliberately hand executive power inexperienced, new politicians who promise change and new horizons. It is possible that the desire for novelty will be so strong that the Democratic candidate will be Texas Congressman Beto O'Rourke, most reminiscent of Obama a decade ago - from collecting tens of millions in small donations to inspiring rhetoric, and - professionals do not forget to mention this - Michel Obama, a popular non-politician.
(B) "Traditional Democrats", the middle generation. In 2016, Donald Trump lost to Hillary Clinton by almost three million votes across the country, but his advantage in countryside was so huge that it ensured his victory in precisely those states where the Democrats were strong for decades - Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan. Any candidate who is really strong in these states is the Democrats' best chance against Trump. Those names aren't all that popular, but Sherrod Brown just got re-elected - and by a fair margin - to the Senate from Ohio (Trump beat Hillary 8% in 2016). This is an ideal "friend" for those Democratic voters who supported Trump two years ago. Amy Klobuchar is another such candidate. Trump is very popular in Minnesota, and she just got re-elected there. If the Democratic Party had a centralized leadership, it would nominate one of these candidates - they are the easiest to deal with Trump in 2020. But whether they will be able to win the primaries is not so clear; candidates from group (A) have more chances.
(C) "Veterans" - candidates of the same generation as the president. Joe Biden, Vice President under Obama, an unsuccessful candidate in 1988 and 2008. Elizabeth Warren, a late risen star of the "left wing" of the party. Hillary Clinton is in the same category. For those who find it obvious that she will no longer be a presidential candidate, it is appropriate to remember - in what year was the last time the hero of the 1968 campaign, Eugene McCarthy, ran for president? And the 1972 Democratic nominee McGovern, who lost by a landslide to Nixon? (Answers: 1992, 1984.) So far it is Biden who leads the polls - because of recognition, but it seems to me that the time of this generation has passed. Yes, there is no rigid sequence of generations in American politics (Obama is a generation younger than both the predecessor and the next president), and yet when the final should come.
I haven’t written even a quarter of the names here, but so far the forecast is this - it will be someone from group (A) rather than from group (B), and I don’t believe in (C) at all.
The American central bank, the Fed, raised its key rate by another 0.25, for the fourth time in 2018.
Although this decision was expected, the Fed found itself in a difficult position. President Trump, breaking all the unwritten rules of the past 40 years, has relentlessly demanded - via Twitter and other media - that the central bank does not raise the key rate. It is clear that any president, without exception, would like the rate to be lower. That is why there are many institutional constraints, built on the experience of high inflation coupled with the low growth of the 1970s, protecting monetary policy from direct intervention by politicians.
The President of the United States cannot order not to raise or lower the key rate. The main channel of his influence is the appointment of committee members who determine the rate. As luck would have it, the people appointed by Trump, including the chairman of the Fed, are from, rather, the opposite cohort, the traditional Republican persuasion - that is, representatives, rather, of "rentiers and creditors" interested in high rate. There, of course, all professionals and personal inclinations do not play a big role - the negative rate policy after the 2009 crisis was carried out by Republican appointee (and Republican) Bernanke. Nevertheless, it turns out unusually - at first Trump did not reappoint Janet Yellen, whom he criticized for too soft monetary policy (that is, a low key rate), and now he criticizes her successor, a person not from an academic, but a banking environment (they are "more conservative") for excessive conservatism (raising rates).
And the Fed is in a difficult position because, although it is wrong to submit to political pressure - perhaps in this case there is a reason to slow down with the increase. The markets are shaking - either in anticipation of another, after a record long period of growth, recession, or just like that (due to Trump's "trade wars"). A looser monetary policy would be reassuring.
There is also additional complexity. Of course, with an impending recession, it is necessary to lower the rate. But! If it is not quite close, there is a reason to raise it - precisely because during a recession it is very important to lower it. And where will you especially reduce it if it is 2.5%? There is nothing at all to zero, further, in order to make "negative rates", a new QE will be needed - so there are still 4 trillion assets left in the possession of the Fed from the past ...
Be that as it may, a slight easing, compared to the previously announced rate, is taking place - now the Fed does not predict “three steps up” in 2019, but promises to “monitor the situation”.
That's how hard it is to maintain a reputation for independence - even if you are really independent - when you are publicly pressured in exactly the direction that you yourself have reasons to lean.
British politics is shaking, and rightly so. Two years ago, it might have seemed to someone that Brexit (a brief introduction to the subject) has some meaning, some new perspective and new opportunities. Two years later and after hundreds of hours of negotiations and tons of scribbled paper, it is quite clear - it was stupidity, behind which there is nothing but the irresponsibility of some politicians, the lack of foresight of others and, of course, citizens who have lost, from increased prosperity, an understanding of where it comes from. the very welfare is taken.
The event of last week was the real Brexit plan presented by Prime Minister May, agreed with the European Union. The plan disappointed, first of all, the exit supporters - exactly because it contains what they were warned about both before and after the referendum - the exit will not bring anything but losses, and in order to avoid big losses, they will have to “leave without leaving”. For several years, the unconditional subordination of British courts to the European one has been maintained, special conditions for the part of Britain bordering Ireland, the customs and many other unions are preserved - and most importantly, in order to remove this subordination and these conditions, in fact, the consent of the EU is needed. That is, according to the exit plan, Britain remains, in general, a member of the EU, only now without any right to change the rules of the EU (only representatives of members can work in its bodies) and even without the right to speak out about these rules. Well, that is, in your parliament and in the newspapers, you can express yourself as much as you like, but no one listens to this.
Theresa May's critics can say all they want about her failure to negotiate good conditions leaving the EU, but what can a country with 2% of world GDP negotiate with a country with 16% of world GDP? All such negotiations are, if not unilateral, then completely unequal. (Remember the agreements on oil supplies between Russia and China - about the same balance of power, and about the same ratio of results; in fact, unilateral dominance.) From the very beginning - long before the referendum - the EU clearly outlined its positions and why they should have been at least from anything retreat? What was said was done.
What did two years show - what was clear only to economists two years ago? That freedom of trade - the movement of goods, technology, money, people - is a huge, costly benefit that brings great profits and raises the standard of living, it was already clear. What has become clear in the actual "exiting the free trade zone" experiment is that free trade is a complex, delicate, long-term mechanism. Where the EU countries ended up, half economically developed world, to beginning of XXI century - the result of continuous efforts over five decades. Every rule in the EU that seems unfair to British politicians campaigning for Brexit is offset by some other rule that gives Britain an advantage. As soon as the British tried to abandon the first, it turned out that other countries did not need the second. Theresa May agreed to the EU conditions precisely because without these conditions it would have been much worse.
Surprisingly, among those who reacted positively to Brexit were commentators who proclaim the importance of "free market". (The fact that Brexit was supported by those who do not understand anything in the economy and, out of ignorance, believe that international trade- a zero-sum game, no wonder.) But among the "liberal" public, interest in Brexit was simply paradoxical - there is nothing more important for economic freedom than freedom of trade, and Brexit is simply a powerful step back, to a primitive state, to a state of no free trade.
Now the best scenario looks like a “second referendum” and the hope that the efforts of politicians who are interested not only in their own premiership, but also in the common good and the money of businessmen, who are now ready to sacrifice much more than two years ago, just to stop costly stupidity, will be able to explain to the citizens what they finally realized themselves ...
As a result, the elections to the US Congress ended approximately as they should, if you look at the picture "as a whole." On the one hand, each party almost always loses the first mid-term elections after winning the presidential one. This time, the Democrats won a majority in the House of Representatives - albeit a minimal one. On the other hand, in economic terms, Trump's two years were very successful - these two years not only added to the seven years of steady economic growth under Obama, but also led to an acceleration in wage growth. As a result, the Republicans managed to keep the Senate in their hands and even increase their majority there. Given that the initial conditions in the 2018 Senate election were in their favor (of the 35 senators up for re-election in 2018, ten were in states that Trump won by a margin in 2016), this result is not particularly surprising.
Majority of Democrats in the House of Representatives means that no reforms related to legislative changes there is no hope for the next two years. With such a minimal majority in the votes, the "ultra-lefts" will have great power within the Democratic faction and all attempts (and they will not) to agree on something serious will run into the same resistance as Obama's attempts once ran into the resistance of the "ultra-conservative" members of the Republican majority. So for the next two years, politics will become even more of a TV show, with House Democrats launching several powerful investigations into the administration that, amid the administrative chaos of the past two years, will guarantee headlines, and Trump will attack them on Twitter at full speed. The victory in the Senate makes it easier for Trump to approve new ministers (who are burning out of him at a record rate).
What do yesterday's results mean in terms of Trump's prospects for 2020? If a economic growth continues - and it is still a record long one - it is hard to imagine that the incumbent president will not be re-elected. last president The one who had a steady rise for the first four years was Bill Clinton (and before him, it seems, Roosevelt) and he was re-elected quite easily. But for Clinton (and Roosevelt) growth began after a recession, and for Trump after a seven-year rise under Obama, which, in terms of growth, is more difficult. In short, I can't imagine growth continuing for another two years without Trump being re-elected. But if there is a recession, then, of course, it will be more difficult, but here the conclusion from 2018 is rather that nothing has fundamentally changed - the Democratic candidate needs to win Michigan-Minnesota-Wisconsin-Ohio, in which the Democrats won yesterday, but far from a knockout, Pennsylvania, where the Republicans are defeated; Florida, where the Republicans have taken a new seat in the Senate. The same, in general, as it was before.
And, perhaps, there is some signal about what will happen in the Democratic primary elections. There are now about thirty-odd candidates for the presidency who are running a preliminary campaign. They can, very roughly, be divided into two generations - "veterans", 60-70+ (Biden, Warren, Brown) and "new generation" (from Senators Harris, Gillibrand and Booker and Mayor Garcetti to Congressman O'Rourke). So, in American politics it is customary to live long, but it seems to me that this time everything is gradually turning towards the new generation. It is no more left-wing than the old one and no more aggressive, but more, perhaps, diverse and more focused on a coalition of voters woven from various small groups than on the “undereducated whites” that Trump took away from the Democrats in 2016. Elections-2018 showed that the Democratic Party is moving, albeit slowly, in this direction.
Konstantin Sonin was born on February 22, 1972 in Moscow. He graduated from Moscow School No. 57 in 1989 and the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics of Moscow State University in 1994, in 1998 he also received a PhD in Physics and Mathematics.
From September 2001 to December 2008 he was Associate Professor, and from January 2009 to August 2013 he was Full Resident Professor of the Russian economic school. From 2011 to August 2013, he was Vice-Rector of the New Economic School.
Since 2001 he has been working at CEFIR, before that he worked at the Russian-European Center economic policy. He is a visiting researcher at the London Center for Economic Policy Research and the Stockholm Institute for Economics in Transition. In 2000-2001 academic year was a visiting postdoctoral fellow at Harvard, in 2004-2005 - a visiting researcher at the Institute for Advanced Study, in 2009-10 - a visiting professor of management at the Kellogg Business School Northwestern University. In May 2014 he was a visiting researcher at the Becker-Friedman Institute University of Chicago.
Since August 2013, he has been a professor at the Department of Institutional Economics at the Higher School of Economics. He is a co-founder of the HSE and NES joint bachelor's program. From August 2013 to December 2014, he served as Vice-Rector of the Higher School of Economics, but was forced to resign for political reasons.
In May 2015, he announced that he would become a professor at the School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago in September 2015 and move to Chicago, USA.
Research area - modern political economy, development economics, new institutional economy, the theory of auctions and economics of information.
Published in Quarterly Journal of Economics, American Economic Review, Review of Economic Studies, Journal of the European Economic Association, American Political Science Review, Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Journal of Comparative Economics, Journal of Economics and Management Strategy, " Issues of Economics”, “Economic Journal of the Higher School of Economics”, the journal “ Social Sciences and modernity." As of May 2015, the Hirsch index according to the RSCI is 12, according to WOS - 6, according to Scopus - 10.
On April 1, 2013, he became a member of the Science Council under the Ministry of Education and Science Russian Federation.
Since 2004, he has been writing a column in the newspapers Vedomosti and The Moscow Times, and Sonin's journalistic materials were also published in the New Literary Review, Emergency Reserve, Esquire, Ogonyok, New Times, Kommersant, Le Banquet. His expert opinions are often quoted by the Russian media. In 2011, he published the book "Sonin.ru: Economic Lessons".
In 2002-2003 he was recognized Russian Academy Sciences "Best Economist of the Russian Academy of Sciences". In 2004 he received a gold medal global network development and the World Bank. In 2007 he was awarded the II Ovsievich Prize. In 2012, he was awarded a Certificate of Merit from the Government of the Russian Federation for merits in scientific work and contribution to the training of highly qualified specialists.
Konstantin Sonin is one of the few Russian intellectuals well known in the West. Moreover- he is perhaps the only economist in today's Russia, whose estimates and forecasts are presented vividly and clearly. He is not in power and not in opposition, he teaches in Moscow and Chicago, he does not comfort or intimidate - in general, he does not lose his adequacy among the Russian, and indeed the world's absurdity.
- I think we can talk about Putin's economic miracle: sanctions, two wars - and the economy, as he said, adapted, and the disaster did not happen ...
- If we were talking in 2009 - yes, the term "Putin's miracle" would be appropriate. According to the results of his almost twenty years in power, the indicators are very average. For the past ten years, growth has been almost zero. But a catastrophe is also not visible, since the current system is generally very stable. What distinguishes it from the Soviet one is that it, albeit to a limited extent, is regulated by the market.
What does “regulated by the market” mean?
- That you have to pay for everything. To support the army of guardsmen, they need to be financially stimulated. What, do we have some structures, organizations, people who support power disinterestedly? I haven't heard of these. It is difficult to imagine any kind of mobilization scenario in Russia because there are few Russians compared to the territory and the amount of resources. Someone to mobilize.
- Can some sanctions bring down the economy - an oil embargo, a shutdown of SWIFT?
“It will make things worse, no question, but even that wouldn’t be a disaster, at least for power. Sanctions work on the principle of the joke: “Dad, now you will drink less?” “No, son, you will eat less.” The population will become somewhat poorer, but it is impossible to fall to the level of the eighties and nineties.
- And savings cannot be reset to zero, as in the early nineties? The government will take away or ban dollar savings, and then...
First of all, why would he do this? Extra hassle and costly. The selection of property is impossible without violence. In 1992, after all, the savings of the money for which nothing could be bought were reset to zero. However, if such a weaning had happened, the uprising of the masses would not have happened anyway.
“And what must happen for an uprising of the masses?”
“I’m afraid to disappoint you, but I can’t imagine such a reason. Introduce exit visas? Ban foreign exchange? Call all the kids into the army? If the country did not rebel in the eighties, when, in a good way, the catastrophe had already occurred - I just don’t know of a case in world history when such a fall would have occurred without a war - then it’s hard to imagine large-scale protests now. The plasticity of the population is another factor in Putin's stability, and therefore in the coming years we will see more or less, with minor variations, the same thing.
And he won't go anywhere, of course.
- No, in such a system, power is not given voluntarily. The only scenario for a change of power that I can imagine is something like the GKChP, that is, an apex coup, which, like the GKChP, will provoke mass discontent. That is, the president himself will begin to do things that are clearly absurd; and judging by the idea of publishing a correct Russian atlas, where it is required to give our sonorous names to all territories, there is such a risk; but I wouldn't overestimate it. There will be a reformatting of power for its actual preservation, with some decorative successor, so I would not consider 2024 as a landmark date.
- But you yourself probably understand that such a system needs new tightening, harassment, reasons for national hysteria - if this bike does not ride, it falls.
- And in this part, you can endlessly inventively vary the TV. To create the appearance of a thaw, to win something back, then to toughen it up - you never know? Over the past ten years, every time it seemed to me that ideologically and psychologically they had reached the bottom, but every time they knocked from below, on well-known formula Letsa. Now I don't give forecasts, because there is no bottom, and the chatter between bad and very bad can be endless.
"The USSR could have been saved in 1975"
— You mentioned the collapse of the USSR and the subsequent fall of the economy as the biggest disaster: Could it have been avoided?
Yes, but not in 1985. The economic downturn began with Soviet power, deficits arose under the late Brezhnev - perestroika had nothing to do with it, it rather ideologically formalized an already accomplished catastrophe. And in 1975, I think, the last fork was passed. If there had been a change of power, we would have smoothly switched to the Chinese version: China retained the ruling Communist Party, power changed normally twice - I don’t know, though, how it will be now - probably, the USSR was quite tenacious and kept buoyant.
Or another option: even with the difficulties that were in the 1980s, in 1990 the Union could have survived if it had been possible to part more decisively with the Baltic states and some other republics - but speaking completely cynically, without touching anyone's patriotic feelings, the annexation of the Baltic states and Western Ukraine was the greatest stupidity of Stalin. Just beyond any moral assessments - stupidity. Because the Germans passed the Baltic in five days - it did not give any strategic advantage. After the war, we would get much more by trading with the Baltic countries, just as we got more from Finland by trading with her. And a mine under Soviet Union Western Ukraine laid the foundation - if it had remained part of Poland, would there have been talk in 1991 about the independence of Eastern Ukraine?
- Remember, the eighties were marked by a downright explosion of economic thought - Shmelev, Selyunin, Pinsker, Piyasheva, Yavlinsky ... Were any of the then recipes feasible?
- All programs of that time were similar in that they described fantastic scenarios for the future development of events, not taking into account real problems and, as it is now seen, not knowing about them. The "reforms" that took place did not follow these programs (because the programs were divorced from reality), but actually described what was already happening.
It was not Yeltsin and Gaidar who canceled the State Planning Commission. Gaidar canceled it after the State Planning Commission ceased to influence something, in fact it did not act. Gaidar generally possessed a rare ability to explain everything very clearly, sometimes too simply, so that both his comrades-in-arms and his superiors understood. As a result, Yeltsin bet on him. Pinsker, Piyasheva, Selyunin tried to outline soft paths to the transition to the market, but did not imagine that private property requires not only laws, but also courts with competent judges, but also armed people who will execute the decisions of these courts. That these armed people need to be stronger than those armed people who will take property as soon as it appears. That is, all this talk about the market economy was a completely toy game of soldiers, where you put a soldier, he stands there. Of course, there was a positive effect that at least they began to talk about the economy. That in itself gave me hope.
Will it get better or worse after Putin? Because it is different versions, about open fascism let's say...
- Immediately "after Putin" it can get better. There are already so many restrictions now that simply allowing businesses to breathe, investors to invest money, people to earn money, and not waste time circumventing censorship and demonstrating political loyalty, can become better. For how long is another question. And, of course, immediately “after Putin” there will be negative factors: for example, again, as in the early 1990s, there will be many unemployed (or working, but underpaid) people who now work in the overblown security sector.
— Which contemporary Russian economist do you think is the best?
- If we take the practical sphere, then this is not important. Key positions are filled by competent and competent people. No matter how literate people run the Central Bank or the Ministry of Finance, they are part of Putin's government. Suppose the chairman of the Central Bank does everything right, the Central Bank is an important detail in the system of state administration, but far from everything depends on it: if the clutch works perfectly in a particular Zhiguli, it’s still a Zhiguli. Economists do not define economic course countries, as well as mechanics and stokers, even the most professional ones, do not determine the course of the ship. In a technical sense, the best prime in Russian history could be Nikolai Ryzhkov - what other government in the world controlled every wagon in a huge country? - but his government carefully led the country to the worst economic disaster.
- And Voznesensky, whom Stalin seemed to be even preparing to be his successor, was really a great economist?
Who can say today? My answer is predictable, since my two grandfathers and grandmother worked in the State Planning Commission. According to their stories, in the late 20s and 30s, large-scale planning issues were the intellectual front for the whole world. The State Planning Commission really managed to gather the fastest, smartest and most courageous. There was, if you like, the economic brain of the system. The growth of industrial production in the late 1920s and 1930s was high - primarily due to the fact that he followed a record decline, but Voznesensky was the politician who led this machine. Not surprisingly, he had a reputation as a "great economist."
- Interestingly, could the planned economy be preserved?
- So it has been preserved: here, in America, it is forty percent planned, and in Russia, let's say, sixty percent. Deripaska is not an oligarch - he is the minister of non-ferrous metallurgy. This area was given to him for management. And, as a Soviet minister, he cannot cut down an inefficient enterprise, because then the single-industry town will perish. What is the main merit of many oligarchs of the 1990s? The fact that they managed to regain control over large production chains in the new, market conditions. Including expelling bandits by bandit methods. After that, they more rationally built management and established external links.
Who is the best manager out of them?
- It seems to me that the late Kakha Bendukidze, who managed to carry out large-scale and courageous reforms in Georgia.
What about Abramovich?
- Abramovich's main talent lies in his phenomenal loyalty and ability to negotiate. As a long time football fan (since childhood, when I was a passionate supporter of Dynamo Kiev), I can't help but admire the way he manages Chelsea. And no one, of course, will select this team.
- And the World Cup will not be taken away, since we are talking about it?
- Not. And I consider this championship a great merit of Putin. And no comparisons with the Berlin Olympics of 1936 are needed here, because the world championship is always good for the country, it always opens borders, it gives happiness to millions of Russians who do not have so much happiness. And to say that all this is in support of the regime ... Shostakovich did not compose in support of the regime, and Chaliapin did not sing for the tsar, and the Soviet chess school did not exist for the leaders. Everything that contributes to the greatness of the country is good.
“The only lesson learned is Novocherkassk”
- What, in your opinion, is the main feature of Putin as a politician?
- If you speak without judgment, that is, as if scientifically, this is a very accurate reliance on the people, an understanding of what they want. Putin stands on a very solid background. It most accurately represents the "average citizen" of the country. This does not mean that he is a great charismatic. This is how to say? - not his strategy, this is what he is.
— Does he have principles in economics?
- Two taboos, and both indestructible - this is some kind of imprinting from the nineties. First of all, he hates debts, first of all, after the oil boom, he tried to distribute them - and distributed them - and now, although it would be easier to borrow, he does not go for it. And secondly, printing money: he remembers the inflation of that time and absolutely does not go for a repetition. As for the rise in prices - well, it will probably be, but within certain limits. Because all Soviet and post-Soviet leaders since 1962, from Novocherkassk, have a memory in their genes of how it ends. The main, if not the only, lesson learned.
How do you picture Russia's place in the global division of labor?
- We have always supplied three things, with which there are no interruptions even now. Raw materials - and the need for Russian raw materials will not disappear under any political situation; literature - and in Russian literature today there are several world-class authors; and mathematics. The Russian, and later the Soviet, mathematical school is recognized all over the world and regularly supplies specialists, not only abroad, but also in the Russian economy.
- Have you ever thought that economics, in general, is not a science, that it is a mixture of mathematics and psychology?
— Quite the contrary, it is the mother of all sciences. Geometry, for example, has gone out of economics—you have to cut the earth; I think even philosophy comes from the same place... Economics is served by all disciplines, they leave it and return to it.
- AT scientifically he never had great authority - except in the USSR, where he was planted by force. All these productive forces relations of production, formations - it is unlikely that a modern economist today can consider this seriously; he gave detailed description position of the English working class in mid-nineteenth century, in this sense, the first two volumes of "Capital" retain historical interest.
- In Russia, capitalism, feudalism or multistructuralism?
- In Russia clean water capitalism.
- Finally, since we are talking about mathematical school: you studied at the famous - now also infamous - fifty-seventh. What is happening there now?
- There is now a new director who came from Sirius - although he himself is a graduate of the same fifty-seventh, new administrators and teachers have come there - also graduates. The school is alive, working and seems to have figured everything out. Anyway, our alumni association has issued a statement about those former teachers who were accused of harassing students. One of the problems of the great schools in Moscow is that the director, like the head of the theater, like the rector of the university, is actually doomed to die in office: with the change of power, it is difficult here, as in any team of authors. Perhaps if the director had changed a few years earlier - say, after 25 years in office, this crisis would not have happened.
— Is it possible to say that today's Russia is Putin's group of authors?
“No, you can't just say that. It's just that the team chose a leader who most closely matches its spirit; but about the author's will, I would not be mistaken. I do not think that Putin - and Brezhnev, for example - had his own will. But Khrushchev had it, and of all Soviet leaders he seems the cutest to me. And the most unfortunate - in terms of reputation in the eyes of posterity.
A few days after this publication in the magazine " Der Spiegel"famous economist Konstantin Sonin was fired from the post of vice-rector high school economy.Economist Konstantin Sonin: "Putin will cling to power to the last"
December 11, 2014
One of Russia's best-known economists, Konstantin Sonin, does not believe that the current recession is caused by the sanctions of Western countries that want, as Russian President Putin said, "to contain Russia's growing opportunities." "In fact, Russia has been heading towards economic collapse for a long time," Sonin, a professor at the Moscow Higher School of Economics, said in an interview. German magazine Der Spiegel. - The Russian economy has shown practically no growth over the past seven years and is at the level of 2007. "At the same time, Russia is a developing economy, which "should add at least 3% more per year than, for example, the German economy." Devaluation of the ruble , according to Sonin, also began before the Ukrainian crisis. "One of the reasons for this phenomenon is that investors refuse to invest in Russia," the expert is sure. experienced stagnation." Therefore current crisis, according to the economist, is very similar to the 1991 crisis: "In reality, it was also a gradual decline that began many years before."
Russia, according to Sonin, could have avoided this crisis if "Vladimir Putin, after the first two successful presidential terms, refused to continue to stay in power in 2008, since after 2008 he is not engaged in reforming the country, but in maintaining his power." As a result, economic policy has fallen by the wayside, reforms have been halted or forgotten, and many sound decisions from the early years of Putin's presidency have been rescinded. Western sanctions do not have a decisive impact on the deterioration of the quality of life in Russia. "Our Russian response to the sanctions has done much more harm to the Russians," Sonin said. It was the ban on the import of products from the EU "inflated prices, which hit the low-income segments of the population, who spend a significant part of their earnings on food."
According to Sonin, the history of all dictators and autocrats shows that they are effective only in the first ten years of being in power. Then they are more interested in maintaining their own power, and stagnation begins. "Putin will also hold on to power to the last," the source said. "Not a single politician leaves on his own initiative." In Russia, Sonin believes, there will be a revolution. "I am not a supporter of the revolution, but I cannot imagine any significant changes in better side under the current regime," he said.
Education and degree
In 1995 he graduated from the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics of Lomonosov Moscow State University. He graduated from the postgraduate course of Moscow State University, in 1998 he received the degree of candidate of physical and mathematical sciences.
Labor activity
Since 2001, he worked at the Center for Economic and Financial Research and Development (CEFIR), before that he worked at the Russian-European Center for Economic Policy (RECEP). He is a visiting researcher at the London Center for Economic Policy Research (CEPR).
In the 2000-2001 academic year he was an invited doctoral student at Harvard, in 2004-2005 at. - visiting researcher at the Institute for Advanced Study, in 2009-2010 y. - Visiting Professor of Management at the Kellogg Business School of Northwestern University (Illinois, USA).
From September 2001 to December 2008, he was Associate Professor, and from January 2009 to August 2013, Full Resident Professor at the Russian School of Economics (NES). From 2011 to August 2013, he was Vice-Rector of the New Economic School.
Since 2007 he has been studying at the Higher School of Economics. On August 1, 2013, he, being the director of microeconomic research, is a professor at the Department of Institutional economics NRU HSE (since 2010) was appointed to the position of vice-rector of the university. He is a co-founder of the HSE and NES joint bachelor's program.
From August 2013 to December 2014 he was Vice-Rector of the HSE, however, according to journalist Masha Gessen, he was forced to resign for political reasons.
In May 2014, he was a visiting researcher at the Becker-Friedman Institute at the University of Chicago.
In May 2015, he announced that he would become a professor at the University of Chicago in September 2015 and move to Chicago, USA.
Conducts extensive research and journalistic activity and is a member of the Council Russian Association Public Sector Economics Researchers (ASPE). First of all, he is interested in modern political and institutional economics, economics of development, information and the theory of auctions.
Publications
The scientific works of the expert have been published in leading international journals - Quarterly Journal of Economics, Review of Economic Studies, American Political Science Review, Journal of European Economic Association, Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Journal of Comparative Economics, Journal of Economics and Management Strategy and in Russian journals - "Problems of Economics", "Economic Journal of the Higher School of Economics", "Social Sciences and Modernity". In addition, he writes columns in the newspapers Vedomosti and The Moscow Times, his journalistic texts were published in the New Literary Review, Emergency Reserve, Esquire, Ogonyok, New Times, Kommersant, Le Banquet.
Awards and titles
In 2002 and 2003 he was recognized by the Russian Academy of Sciences as the “Best Economist of the Russian Academy of Sciences”.
In 2004, he was awarded the gold medal of the Global Development Network and the World Bank, and in 2007 he was awarded the II Ovsievich Prize.
In December 2012, he was awarded the Honorary Diploma of the Government of the Russian Federation.
In 2016, he became the best lecturer at the Higher School of Economics according to a vote by HSE students.
