The Dupuy Institute

Excellence in Historical Research and Analysis

The Dupuy Institute

Excellence in Historical Research and Analysis

Tenth Largest Economy?

Christopher A. Lawrence
June 21, 2016

Just an update on the Russian economy:

Drop in 2015: -3.7%
Estimated drop in 2016: -1.8%
Budget deficit:
1. 2.6% of GDP in 2015
2. 3% of GDP in 2016 if oil prices remain at $40 a barrel (now hovering around $50).
Ruble to dollars exchange rate: 64-to-1 (used to be less than 30-to-1)
Elections for Duma this year (no surprises are expected)

A few interesting articles

Nice summary: Why Russia’s economy may be on hold before elections
A more positive article: Russia is coming back strong from the oil collapse
An article addressing the behind the scenes dynamics on economic policy: Rival Kremlin camps prepare for battle over economy
Article on budget from Forbes: Russia needs a budget miracle

The claim in the first article that Russia is the world’s tenth largest economy is probably no longer correct. In 2014, according to World Bank and the United Nations, it was the tenth largest economy with a GDP of 1,860,598 or 1,849,940 million U.S. dollars (two different sets of figures). This put it behind India and ahead of Canada ($1,785,387 in both sets of figures). In 2015 the IMF figures put the Russian economy at $1,324,734, which put it twelfth on the list, behind Canada (1,552,386) and South Korea (1,376,868). Hard to say if these figures factored in all the drama of 2015 (ruble dropping by more than half and the economy shrinking by 3.7%). Pretty certain Russia is no longer among the ten largest economies in 2016. Just for comparison, according to the IMF the United States economy was $17,947,000 in 2015.

Christopher A. Lawrence

Christopher A. Lawrence is a professional historian and military analyst. He is the Executive Director and President of The Dupuy Institute, an organization dedicated to scholarly research and objective analysis of historical data related to armed conflict and the resolution of armed conflict. The Dupuy Institute provides independent, historically-based analyses of lessons learned from modern military experience.

Mr. Lawrence was the program manager for the Ardennes Campaign Simulation Data Base, the Kursk Data Base, the Modern Insurgency Spread Sheets and for a number of other smaller combat data bases. He has participated in casualty estimation studies (including estimates for Bosnia and Iraq) and studies of air campaign modeling, enemy prisoner of war capture rates, medium weight armor, urban warfare, situational awareness, counterinsurgency and other subjects for the U.S. Army, the Defense Department, the Joint Staff and the U.S. Air Force. He has also directed a number of studies related to the military impact of banning antipersonnel mines for the Joint Staff, Los Alamos National Laboratories and the Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation.

His published works include papers and monographs for the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and the Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation, in addition to over 40 articles written for limited-distribution newsletters and over 60 analytical reports prepared for the Defense Department. He is the author of Kursk: The Battle of Prokhorovka (Aberdeen Books, Sheridan, CO., 2015), America’s Modern Wars: Understanding Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam (Casemate Publishers, Philadelphia & Oxford, 2015), War by Numbers: Understanding Conventional Combat (Potomac Books, Lincoln, NE., 2017) and The Battle of Prokhorovka (Stackpole Books, Guilford, CT., 2019)

Mr. Lawrence lives in northern Virginia, near Washington, D.C., with his wife and son.

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