Grocery counter-sanctions cost the Russians a 2.2 trillion rubles

The ban on food imports imposed by the Russian government as counter-sanctions against Western countries, hurt the wallets of the Russian population.

Artificial restriction of competition in the food market has led to higher prices, to pay for which had out of pocket to consumers.

For 6 years, which operates a food embargo, the Russians lose on the average for 445 billion a year, paying for more expensive domestic products or imports from countries not targeted by sanctions, according to a joint study by economists at the Academy and the CEFIR.

On the average, consumers are losing up to 3 thousand rubles in prices of 2013, or 250 rubles per month, or about 4.8% of the value of the minimum food basket included in the cost of living.

If we consider the accumulated in 2014 inflation, which Rosstat estimates at 44.8%, the losses are 4344 rubles per person. The prices of the current year, the Russians are losing annually by 644 billion rubles.

The total loss for all time of the embargo are thus 2.2 trillion rubles in prices of 2013, or 3.2 trillion when calculated in prices of 2019.

“The success of import substitution” can be considered poultry, pork and tomatoes – their real prices have risen by 2016, but further growth of domestic production by 2018, provided the fall below the 2013 level and the growth of consumption.

The winners are the Russian manufacturers – 84% of the amount lost by consumers, got them, despite the fact that most of the items of the list of sanctioned goods to replace failed.

About 13% were the net loss for the economy, and another 3% go to new suppliers for the more expensive products from abroad.

Five years after the imposition of counter-sanctions, Russian consumers continue to pay for them out of pocket, the authors of the study, the findings of which leads “Kommersant”. Although few industries have demonstrated the positive effects of the policy of import substitution, most of them are not effective enough to change the dynamics of prices, they conclude.

Economists in the Academy and CEFIR compared the change in consumption, production and prices of the products from the sanctions list in 2018 in comparison with 2013 based on partial equilibrium models (a simple model showing the basic functional relationship between domestic demand and supply and supply and demand of goods on the world market, determines the volume of exports and imports, as well as the equilibrium price in the trade), as well as the data of Rosstat, Euromonitor and the UN Comtrade. The result was the estimate that they received sanctions from consumers, manufacturers and importers.

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