Russia’s Economic Growth Looks Too Good to Be True
Under a new top statistician, recent data have been much more optimistic. That doesn’t make them correct.
Keep doing the math until you get it right.
Photographer: Maxim Shemetov/AFP/Getty Images
Russia’s official statistics agency is displaying a feverish optimism under its new boss, Pavel Malkov, who took office in December. On Monday, the agency reported that in 2018, the country’s economy grew the fastest since 2012. Coming on top of a recent data revision that eliminated the 2016 recession, the recent numbers seem increasingly fishy, including to some government economists.
On Dec. 20, President Vladimir Putin was asked at a news conference why Russia’s economic statistics looked rosier than people’s actual lives would suggest and whether the data could be trusted. Putin admitted the statistics were “not perfect” and needed to be improved. A mere four days later, Alexander Surinov, head of Rosstat, the official statistical agency, was asked to resign and Malkov, a former Economics Ministry official, was appointed in his place. Finance Minister Anton Siluanov commented on Dec. 24 that the quality of Rosstat’s data was “terrible” in some areas, such as people’s incomes (which went down in four of the previous six months) and inflation (which was higher than government forecasts for most of the year).