Russia's central bank adopted a new monetary policy regime in 2018 by raising the key interest rate for the first time since December 2014. After slashing the key interest rate on February 9th and on March 23rd by 0.25 percentage points to 7.5 and 7.25 percent per annum, respectively, the...

Monetary policy analysts often rely on rules-of-thumb, such as the Taylor rule, to describe historical monetary policy decisions and to compare current policy to historical norms. Analysis along these lines also permits evaluation of episodes where policy may have deviated from a simple rule and...

Monetary policy analysts often rely on rules-of-thumb, such as the Taylor rule, to describe historical monetary policy decisions and to compare current policy to historical norms. Analysis along these lines also permits evaluation of episodes where policy may have deviated from a simple rule and...

Both stabilized inflation and ruble exchange rate allowed the Bank of Russia Board of Directors to further cut the key interest rate to 11.50% p.a. on 15 June 2015. The cut was triggered by the fact that Russia's economy was still facing serious downside risks amid lower risks of inflation....

The Bank of Russia on 11 December 2015 decided to keep the base interest rate unchanged at 11%, thus indicating that the bank will not move forward with easing monetary policy. Russia's Central Bank on 14 December resumed 12-month foreign exchange repo auctions with a view to pushing down demand...

Russia's current account surplus was affected considerably by falling exports, whereas imports declined at a slower rate, as compared with the same period previous year. In January–September 2016, net capital outflow in the private sector is reported to be five times less than what it was...

Russia's balance of payments data for Q3 2015 show a considerable decline in her current account balance. In monetary terms, the decline in imports during Q3 was faster than that in exports (relative to Q3 2014). By comparison with Q2 2015, it even demonstrated a slight increase, notwithstanding...

The Consumer Prices Index (CPI) in September continued to see its growth rates increase, 0.6% up (0.7% up in September 2014). The Russian ruble saw a much slower depreciation in September-October, compared to August, due to some rallies in the oil market. For the first time in five years, banks...

Further stabilization of inflation and the ruble exchange rate allowed the Bank of Russia Board of Directors to further cut the key interest rate to 11.50% p.a. on 15 June 2015. The cut was triggered by the fact that Russia's economy was still facing serious risks of a downturn amid weakening...

On 30 April 2015, the Bank of Russia reduced the key interest rate from 14% to 12.5% per annum, noting in this connection that the inflation risks had become less pronounced, but that the risks of a more significant cooling of the economy were still there. By all indications, the RF Central Bank...