Kryzys finansowy w Rosji i sposoby jego rozwiązywania

Abstract

In August 1998, Russia became the center of the financial crisis afflicting emerging markets. It had been subject to recurrent financial market pressures since the intensification of the Asian crisis in October 1997. These pressures were attributable to a combination of serious remaining weaknesses in economic fundamentals, especially in the fiscal area, unfavorable developments in the external environment and the country’s vulnerability to changes in market sentiment arising from the financing of the balance of payments and the budget through short-term treasury bills and bonds placed in international markets. A number of shortcomings in economic reform have set the context. In addition to incomplete reforms in the structural area, chronic fiscal imbalances and poorly functioning tax and expenditure management systems have continued to major problems. The retreat of investors from emerging markets compounded the fiscal problem. The decline of confidence in the authorities’ ability to bring the fiscal situation under control and to roll over the treasury bills that had not been swapped into Eurobonds was the main immediate cause of the August 1998 crisis. The other measures were aimed at supporting the new exchange rate policy, easing the budget’s cash-flow situation, and protecting the banking sector.