“Crime and Punishment”: How Russian banks anticipated and dealt with global financial sanctions

Mikhail Mamonov, Anna Pestova, Steven Ongena 

Financial sanctions against Russia’s state-owned and controlled banks were imposed consecutively between 2014 and 2019, allowing banks that would potentially be targeted in the future to adjust their international and domestic exposures. This column explores the informational effects of financial sanctions, showing that compared to similar private banks, ‘not yet sanctioned’ financial institutions immediately reduced their foreign assets while, rather unexpectedly, expanding their foreign liabilities. These informational effects crucially depend on geography, with targeted banks located further from Moscow decreasing their foreign assets by more and raising foreign liabilities by less than those located near the Kremlin. 

Figure 1  Evolution of foreign assets and liabilities before and after sanctions for selected largest Russian banks

Fiscal rules in the European Monetary Union

Fiscal rules were enshrined in the founding documents of the European Monetary Union. This column presents the latest CfM-CEPR survey, in which the panel of experts on the European economy were nearly unanimous in agreeing that the existing EU fiscal rules require revision. Most panel members would opt for some combination of fiscal councils; more flexible, countercyclical, or expenditure-based rules; and increased fiscal capacity at the EU level. A smaller share of panelists would scrap fiscal rules altogether, leave fiscal policy to national authorities, and provide greater clarity that the EU would not bail out countries facing debt problems. A single panel member called for stricter rules with greater enforcement.

Proposition 1: The existing fiscal rules for European Monetary Union members require revision.

Returning to the office will be hard

The COVID-19 pandemic prompted a collective shift to working from home. This column argues that though the shift was surprisingly easy, returning to the office will be hard. New evidence from a survey of 2,500 employees in the UK shows a preference in favour of home working 2-3 days a week, with lingering concerns of overcrowded transport and offices. But allowing workers to choose when to work from home will leave empty offices Monday and Friday, and many tasks such as large group meetings are more effective in person than online. Hybrid working will be the solution.

Figure 1 In 2022, how often would you like to have paid workdays at home?

Privacy and antitrust: 'Integration', not just 'intersection'

Returning to the office will be hard