Approaches to Modeling Selected Macroeconomic Indicators

The publication contains three papers authored by the Gaidar Institute’s leading researchers based on the studies conducted by the Institute in 2018. In the first paper, a modification of Russia’s GDP growth rate decomposition methodology is suggested, along with estimates of the indicators of structural unemployment and total factor productivity calculated for the Russian economy. It also offers an analysis of the structural, foreign trade, and cyclical components of the estimated GDP growth rate under several macroeconomic scenarios for 2019–2024. The second paper assesses the economic potential of alternative sources of growth, in particular informal institutions – the social and cultural norms that have evolved in the Russian regions, including various types of social capital and entrepreneurial culture. The third paper attempts to identify the effects on the quality of socioeconomic forecasts derived on the basis of a massive volume of data of the recent alterations in the methodology applied by Rosstat in its calculations of industrial production and industrial producer price indices that translated into changes in the structure of data used in forecasting.