Sanctions and Russian online prices

Jonathan Benchimol and Luigi Palumbo

No 1468, Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) from Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area

Abstract: This study leverages web-scraped daily data to evaluate the impact of the economic sanctions following Russia's invasion of Ukraine on consumer prices and product availability across different goods categories in Russia. We find that international sanctions significantly disrupted Russian price dynamics, with the exchange rate serving as the primary transmission mechanism. Utilizing granular online data allows us to circumvent potential misreporting and to track real-time economic indicators at a high frequency. Our analysis uncovers heterogeneous effects across product groups, with sanctions associated with an average increase of 11.7 percentage points in the Russian CPI. The results highlight how trade policies and geopolitical events can rapidly propagate through retail markets, underscoring the importance of timely price monitoring during periods of economic turbulence. More broadly, we demonstrate the value of online data for evaluating policy shocks, paving the way for similar applications in other contexts.

Keywords: political economy; online prices; product availability; sanctions; conflict; Russia; Ukraine (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E21 E31 F13 F38 F51 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024-10
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Journal Article: Sanctions and Russian online prices (2024)
Working Paper: Sanctions and Russian online prices (2024)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bdi:wptemi:td_1468_24

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