Variations in the Effects of a Single Monetary Policy: The Case of Russian Regions

This research analyses regional heterogeneity in the reaction of core inflation to shocks of a single monetary policy on the example of Russia. We use a global vector autoregression model to reveal impulse response functions of core inflation in Russian regions to monetary policy shocks. The average 5-year cumulative response of regional core inflation to a MIACR shock of 1 percentage point (pp) is ‒0.74 pp. For 77 out of 80 regions, the 5-year cumulative core inflation response is found to be statistically significant. If we exclude three statistically insignificant responses and discard the four regions with the highest and lowest responses, we get a spread of ‒0.55 to ‒0.93 pp with a standard deviation of 0.12. We show that, over a one-year horizon, the heterogeneous response to monetary policy shocks can moderately reduce the heterogeneity of the response of regional inflation to exchange rate shocks. However, the magnitude of this effect is limited. According to the analysis of the regional heterogeneity factors, the higher are the share of extractive industries in the gross regional product of a region, the share of loans to manufacturing sector, the share of loans to small enterprises, as well as the unemployment rate, the stronger will be the reaction of the core inflation to the monetary policy shock. The degree of heterogeneity in the Russian regions’ core inflation response to monetary policy shocks, the set of factors explaining this heterogeneity, and the explained variation in the regional response (30–40% depending on the model specification) turn out to be comparable to similar indicators in other countries with pronounced regional heterogeneity.