I am going to Moscow in a couple of weeks. Going to Russia always inspires me to think about monetary policy in commodity exporting countries. I recently found what looks to be an interesting paper on monetary policy in commodity exporting countries – “Monetary Policy in an Economy Sick with Dutch Disease”. The paper is from 2007.

I have started reading the paper, but as usual I want to share my joy of having found the paper with my readers before actually having read the entire paper. Here is the abstract:

“The paper studies monetary policy in an economy, in which the manufacturing sector is ousted completely by the presence of a large natural resource industry. Thus, the economy produces only non-tradable goods, which can complement or substitute imported goods, and the primary shock to the economy comes from the fluctuations in the world price of the exported commodity. A model of such an economy is calibrated using parameters relevant for Russia, which is an example of an economy sick with Dutch Disease, and several conventional policy rules are considered. It is shown that in absence of a well-functioning fiscal stabilization fund, it may be optimal for monetary authorities to respond to the real exchange rate, as the Bank of Russia allegedly does, using purchases of foreign reserves as the policy instrument. The logic of these actions is to replace the absent fiscal stabilization policy. In case monetary policy is conducted using an interest rate instrument, there should be no reaction to the real exchange rate and only slight one – to inflation.”

In the paper the authors Kirill Sosunov and Oleg Zamulin present a DSGE model for the Russian economy. The model in many ways is similar to my own thinking of the Russian economy and I therefore think it would be interesting to update Zamulin and Sosunov’s work. It would for example be extremely interesting to simulate the 2008-9 shock in the model under different monetary policy rules and what rules would have done the least harm to the Russian economy. Would my suggestion that Russia should have followed an Export Price Norm for example have prevented the crisis?

I have earlier claimed the sharp contraction in the Russian economy in 2008-9 was due to monetary policy failure. My feeling is that Zamulin and Sosunov’s model would yield a similar result, but I am not sure.

Anyway, I hope to be able to do some work on that model myself – with the help of my colleague Jens Pedersen – in the coming weeks. Then we will see what we manage to get out of the model and I would of course encourage others out there with interest in DGSE model and particularly with interest in monetary policy in commodity exporting countries to have a look at the model for yourself (please drop me a mail if you are doing work on monetary policy in commodity exporting countries as well – lacsen@gmail.com).

Now back to reading the paper…