Nigmatulina, Dzhamilya (2022) Sanctions and misallocation. How sanctioned firms won and Russia lost. CEP Discussion Papers (1886). London School of Economics and Political Science. Centre for Economic Performance, London, UK.
![]() |
Text (dp1886)
- Published Version
Download (1MB) |
Abstract
Using a unique natural experiment of staggered firm-level sanctions against Russia in 2014-2020 and the data on over 900,000 Russian firms, I estimate the effect of sanctions on targeted firms and on the aggregate economy. Surprisingly, sanctioned firms on average gained 38% more capital inputs after sanctions relative to the industry trends. The effect is in part driven by sanctioned state-owned firms, getting 60% more capital relative to non-sanctioned firms. Using additional data on subsidies and government contracts, I find that this result is explained by the government protection of targeted firms, that more than compensated for a negative sanctions shock. However, the sanctioned firms were already too large and had too much capital prior to sanctions. I use a heterogeneous firm framework to show that the distortions between sanctioned and non-sanctioned firms, which existed before the sanctions, got exacerbated after the joint effect of sanctions and government protection. I combine the causal estimates with the quantitative frame-work and estimate that on the aggregate, the Russian TFP dropped at least by 0.33% reaching 3% in relevant sectors.
Actions (login required)
![]() |
View Item |