How much a country is talked about in the media can determine its place in the public debate. In this brief, SITE researchers Maiting Zhuang and Svante Strömberg study the amount of news coverage devoted to European countries in the Swedish press. They document a systematic difference between Western and Eastern Europe and explore underlying factors that could be important in explaining this East-West divide.

In recent years, there have been several high-profile leaks of documents related to the offshore financial industry, such as the Pandora Papers released last year. Some of the data contained in the leaked documents have now been made public. In this brief, SITE researchers Jonathan Lehne and Maiting Zhuang discuss the advantages and pitfalls of using these data for economic analysis. They show that despite some caveats, there are patterns in these data that can shed light on a secretive industry.

The recent record-high gas prices have triggered legitimate concerns regarding the EU’s energy security, especially with dependence on natural gas from Russia. This brief discusses the historical and current risks associated with Russian gas imports. SITE researchers Chloé Le Coq and Elena Paltseva argue that decreasing the reliance on Russian gas may not be feasible in the short-to-mid-run, especially with the EU’s goals of green transition and the electrification of the economy. To ensure the security of natural gas supply from Russia, the EU has to adopt the (long-proclaimed) coordinated energy policy strategy.

The need for urgent climate action and energy transformation away from fossil fuels is widely acknowledged. Yet, current country plans for emission reductions do not reach the requirements to contain global warming under 2°C. What is worse, there is even reasonable doubt about the commitment to said plans given recent history and existing future investment plans into fossil fuel extraction and infrastructure development. This policy brief shortly summarizes the presentations and discussions at the SITE Development Day Conference, held on December 8, 2021, focusing on climate change policies and the challenge of a green energy transition in Eastern Europe.

Policy brief: Some recently discovered money laundering schemes have funnelled large amounts of illegal money from former soviet states through European banks. This note briefly describes the evolution of the Anti-Money Laundering (AML) regime for financial institutions, the introduction of which was concurrent with the post-soviet transition and the connected illegal flows of funds. It discusses the effectiveness of the current AML regime – and its ability to detect and seize illegal funds. The brief also highlights some of its deficiencies as well as lack of compliance with its prescriptions. It proceeds to stress that after judging the current framework insufficient, the US recently introduced whistleblower rewards for AML-infringements. Europe might want to follow their lead if it really aims at limiting money laundering.

Policy brief: The recently declassified proceedings of the Swedish Academy shed new light on why it awarded Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn the literature prize in 1970. His novels reflected unique experiences of many prisoners. The Academy characterized his work as a renewal of the great Russian literary tradition. However...

Policy brief: This brief summarizes the insights shared in the online workshop “Dimensions of Well-being“, where participants presented and discussed their latest research relating to the dimensions of well-being. The two-day workshop was organized by the Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics (SITE) as part of the Forum for Research on Gender Economics (FROGEE) and took place on 28-29 June, 2021.

Policy brief: Why is the IMF sending $1bn to Belarus as the country is falling deeper into repression and authoritarianism? The answer might not be what you expect.

Policy brief: In this brief, we report on the FREE network webinar on the state of vaccinations and the challenges ahead for opening up economies while containing the pandemic, held on June 22, 2021.

Policy brief: The Belarus economy was already struggling to generate growth before both the corona pandemic and the political protests following the August presidential election. The lack of growth was the result of an incomplete transition process to modernize the economy combined with a strong reliance on the Russian economy and its dependence on international commodity prices that have not paid off in recent years. With the added political turmoil and, so far, lack of a new political and economic strategy, the economic outlook for Belarus looks grim. Even if a full-blown crisis may be avoided by restrictive economic policies, stagnation will nevertheless be the most likely outcome without fundamental reforms.