Экономический рост и неравенство: пересмотр экономической политики

Abstract

The study is devoted to the issue of changes in Russian economic policy in the context of a “covid” crisis and after it, based on the previous dynamics. The main task is to launch economic growth in Russia while solving acute social problems that were present before the “covid” crisis in the form of non-growing real disposable incomes, high poverty levels, and compressed consumption. The crisis has significantly exacerbated these problems, having worked to increase unemployment, created a special social regime for teleworking, and created imbalances in the distribution of demand and income. Poverty and inequality levels have increased, real disposable income and gross domestic product have decreased, which makes it urgent to determine the relationship between economic growth and inequality in the pre-crisis period in order to identify economic policy instruments that can stimulate growth while reducing the level of inequality and poverty in the country. The research methodology is a regression analysis based on the Gretl 2020b software module, the use of which makes it possible to select the best models of the relationship between the GDP value and inequality and poverty, as well as to reveal the influence of a set of parameters of the conducted macroeconomic policy on the income growth rate of 20% of the poorest and richest stratum of the country’s citizens. As these parameters, the key interest rate, the oil price, the level of monetization of the economy, the amount of inflation and the amount of budget expenditures are taken. Thus, it is possible to get a picture of the influence of the same economic policy instruments, when they change, on the dynamics of income of different strata of the population. This result makes it possible to identify for the future the possibilities of economic policy, together with the social measures taken to support the population in a crisis situation, the greatest opportunities for ensuring economic growth simultaneously with solving the problem of an outstripping income growth rate of the poorest strata of the population. The prospect of the undertaken research is the study of the influence of various institutional, including tax, changes on the dynamics of income of various groups of the population of the country.