The Collapse of Soviet Trade and Finland's Great Depression of the 1990's: A Re-Examination

Abstract

The paper re-examines the role of the collapse of Soviet/Russian trade in the Finnish depression of the 1990’s, using time series analysis based on a theoretical open macro model. It is shown that empirically, the strong credit expansion resulting from the simultaneous liberalization of the domestic financial markets and international capital movements has played the most important role in explaining the changes in real economic activity in Finland during the time period analyzed. In fact, over a longer time period (1980-2005) exports to Russia emerge as a countercyclical variable: slightly contractionary after the crazy years, and expansionary during the following depression.