Financial crises and the model of financial market cycles. On the causes of global financial crises: a model of managed crisis Cycles of financial crises author

Basel. December 17th. site - The crisis, the waves of which have been rolling over different countries for five years, economists have not been able to explain within the framework of standard neo-Keynesian and neo-classical theories of business cycles. Therefore, to explain it, one must apply the well-forgotten and long out of fashion theory of financial cycles, writes Claudio Borio from the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), one of the most "fashionable" economists of our time. For the first time after a long break, the theory (based on the views of the Austrian school, but gone far from it) was remembered in the 90s, when Japan plunged into an incomprehensible and illogical stagnation. But the study of the issue did not save the world from repeating the mournful Japanese path. The knowledge accumulated over a couple of decades is enough to understand: the ultra-soft policy of the Fed and other world central banks will not help. The only way out of the crisis is for governments to take on all private debts, Borio is sure. What is a financial cycle? Boriot wrote a quick guide to understand the concept for economists who are used to thinking of finance as a simple system of resource reallocation, in which only transaction costs need to be taken into account:

• Think medium term, not short term, because financial cycles are much longer than standard business cycles.
• Think about the monetary nature of the economy, because the financial system does not just allocate resources, but also creates purchasing power itself and therefore, in part, lives on its own.
• Think globally, because the world economy with its financial, food and intermediate markets is already quite integrated.

There is no generally accepted definition of the financial cycle, writes Borio, who is at the forefront of this theoretical direction. The closest definition is "the self-producing interconnections of our ideas about the value of assets, risks, financial constraints lead to the boom and then to the fall of the markets."

• Our position in the financial cycle is most accurately shown real estate prices and loan costs. Lending is especially important when building and buying real estate, so these two components are usually interconnected. Stock prices have much less relationship with these two benchmarks.
• Also important in studying cycles are interest rates, volatility, risk premiums, bad loans, and so on.
• Financial cycles change less frequently than business cycles. Traditional business cycles repeat with a frequency of 5-8 years. The average financial cycle length for the 7 advanced economies is 16 years, as measured since the 1960s.

The financial cycle is longer than the business cycle

• Immediately after the peak of the financial cycle follows the crisis. Usually, as soon as the cycle reaches its high point, a banking crisis begins. Throughout the study of 7 developed economies, the crisis did not immediately follow the peak only if it was caused by external losses of banks and financial institutions. For example, recent problems in the banking systems of Switzerland and Germany have been linked to the financial cycles of other countries in Europe and the United States.
• A recession after a financial crisis is harder than after an economic one. Typically, a downturn is 50% deeper than the downturn caused by the business cycle.

The peak of the financial cycle is usually followed by a crisis

• The crisis is predictable. The modern theory of financial cycles allows you to detect signs of a crisis in the future. Moreover, the risks can be determined quite accurately and in real time. The clearest benchmark is the simultaneous positive deviation of the credit-to-GDP ratio and asset prices, especially real estate, from historical norms. Together, these two deviations give a clear signal - the peak is close, the crisis is about to begin.
• Along with globalization, the role of the international component of cycles is growing - this can be determined, for example, by the share of loans issued to non-financial enterprises by foreign banks.

The current financial crisis in the US could have been predicted

"International factor" contributed to the spread of the crisis

• The duration of the cycle depends on the policy of the state. The looser the financial policy, the stronger the ascending and descending part of the cycle.
• Open macroeconomic policies in a globalized world are also booming: the economy is growing, there is more room for rising asset prices and credit, and lower inflation. Because of the latter feature, inflation targeting-preoccupied central banks are oblivious to the boom that soaring inflation is usually a sign of—and they simply lack the motivation to tighten monetary policy. Then it is already too late - the boom "unexpectedly" is followed by a crisis.

What you need to forget to understand financial cycles According to Borio, all models that will allow predicting crises and choosing the right policy must necessarily include three aspects: 1. Financial booms do not just precede the crisis, they cause them. A crisis is a consequence of system vulnerabilities that appear during the boom stage. 2. It is lending and debt in general that is the engine of any boom, because companies allow themselves to spend and buy more. This leads to misallocation of resources, both capital and labor. Once asset prices and cash flows begin to decline in the downturn, debt becomes a force holding back the recovery as households, businesses and governments seek to save to rebuild their balance sheets. 3. Consider the difference between potential release models:

• according to the standard theory, this is output at a level that ensures full employment and does not cause inflation to accelerate. It is assumed that if the economy has reached its potential, then it will remain there indefinitely until it is "knocked out" by an external shock. Inflation in this model is a reliable indicator of whether output is above or below potential.
• according to the theory of financial cycles, inflation can be stable, but output will decrease or grow rapidly - this is due to financial imbalances. Inflation, however, can tell nothing about output.

In different models, the output potential may be different
Finally, we must forget everything taught by the theory of rational market behavior that died in terrible agony during the crisis:

• It is worth abandoning the idea that the behavior of economic agents is rational and that they have complete information about the state of the markets. We must proceed from the fact that the information of the agents is incomplete.
• In addition, it must be remembered that the attitude to risk is not absolute, but varies depending on information about the state of the economy.
• It should be taken into account that the financial system itself creates purchasing power, and does not simply serve as a resource transfer system.

Two Views on the Current Crisis It is generally accepted that the cause of this crisis was trade imbalances in the global economy.

• Current account surpluses, especially in Asian economies, led to capital outflows from these countries, which financed the credit boom in current account deficit countries - mainly in the US, at the epicenter of the crisis.
• There were more savings in the world than investments. The result of this was pressure on the interest rate - it was especially low on dollar assets, in which the surpluses of Asian countries were mainly invested. Investors in search of greater profitability began to take on unnecessary risks - this was the cause of the financial crisis.

But this is not true, writes Borio. One of the consequences in this model replaces the root cause of the crisis:

• Don't focus on savings. The crisis is associated with a rapid growth in the ratio of lending to GDP, and savings is only a small part of GDP.
• The credit boom in the US was largely financed by domestic funds or funds from other countries with large current account deficits, such as the UK. And the US itself was a major exporter of capital.
• The reason for the crisis is the gap in financing channels in the lending structure - the streams of savings and investments will not tell us anything about this until the roasted rooster pecks us. When analyzing, it is more likely to focus not on net (inflow minus outflow), but on total capital flows.
• The unbalanced allocation of assets changed the balance of supply and demand in the money market, and also "shifted" long-term natural rates - rates corresponding to the potential issue. Unlike market rates, which depend on the policies of central banks and other factors, natural rates depend only on fundamental factors. Which, in fact, imperceptibly changed during the boom.

Trade imbalances and high savings rates cannot fully explain the crisis
How to prevent a crisis Policy makers need to fight credit booms with fiscal, monetary, and macroeconomic policies. This will help to contain the development of imbalances and quickly cope with their consequences. The government can thus remove what is called "excessive elasticity" of the system. An effective method is to increase the requirements for reserves and liquidity of banks, for example, within the framework of Basel III, but not during a crisis, but during a boom. But, for starters, you need to learn how to quickly identify the boom.

• When conducting monetary policy, central banks should be guided not only by inflation, but also by other indicators of the financial market. The regulators' forecasting horizon should be more than 2 years, and the main emphasis should be placed on risks.
• Fiscal policy should be as modest as possible, because during a boom, economic growth and income forecasts are usually overestimated. Thus, before the crisis, the budgets of Spain and Ireland seemed quite reliable: the level of public debt to GDP was relatively low, and the budget itself was in surplus. But the government did not take into account the possible crisis (and who did?) and the problems of the banking sector associated with it, which drove them into a debt trap. If the risks of financial cycles were taken into account, then governments would not have to take on the debts of banks, and they would not find themselves in a debt crisis.

Advice, excellent, but difficult to implement, admits Borio. Most likely, next time, governments busy with short-term and urgent matters simply will not be able to keep track of financial cycles, because they are much longer than business cycles. They will miss significant imbalances when placing assets. And then again, not the financial disease will be treated, but only its symptoms and complications in the form of a recession. It will only delay the day when the economy starts to recover. Crisis Handbook Most crises after the war looked very different: high inflation told the central banks to overheat, they tightened their policies, this led to a recession, the economy quickly recovered, new debts did not arise, and therefore did not interfere with the recovery. But this crisis began during a period of stable inflation, and the monetary authorities did not track it, and then they could not stop it correctly, although they began the fight with the right steps. According to Borio, you need to act like this:

• Crisis management. The main goal of the authorities at this stage is to minimize damage and stop the spread. A variety of means are suitable here - from increasing budget spending to easing monetary policy.
• Crisis resolution. Immediately after the symptomatic treatment should be followed by the main, eliminating the causes of the crisis. The priority should be to restore the balance sheets of banks, companies and households. This will be the basis for economic recovery.
• The government needs to figure out how to use limited budget resources to help solve the problem of private sector balance sheets. Thus, banks should be provided with capital, but only on the condition of debt cancellation and possible nationalization. Some of the debt can be written off from households.
• This means an active strategy to replace private debt with public debt. At the same time, it is necessary to actively and decisively resolve all conflicts between borrowers and lenders, management, shareholders and investors. As soon as the risks decrease, the economy will start to grow.
• Too long aggressive monetary policy - as a way to "buy time" - is contraindicated for the patient. It will likely only delay the economic recovery, not solve the problems. This also applies to a period of low rates and an aggressive program of asset purchases. The result may be a decrease in the income of financial companies, atrophy financial markets. In addition, the aggressive policies of central banks can drive the disease inward, making it chronic.
• In this case, the central banks themselves will be too burdened with assets. Their independence and reliability will suffer. There will be reason to criticize them for being too aggressive. As a result, there will be even more risks, and a way out of the vicious circle will not be found. The conclusion is that monetary policy, unlike budgetary policy, is actually not effective during financial crises.
• On the other hand, a depreciation of the currency, which will lead to an increase in exports, may turn out to be effective. In this case, the economic recovery will be more sustainable.

A good example of anti-crisis policy is the Nordic countries in the 1990s. The crisis management stage was short but quite effective: the authorities stabilized the financial market with state guarantees to banks and liquidity injections. Then they immediately tackled the problem of balance sheets - they conducted severe stress tests, some financial institutions had to be temporarily nationalized, bad assets were written off, excess capacity in the financial system was eliminated and operational efficiency was improved. As a result, the recovery of the economy was rapid. An unfortunate example is Japan, which also experienced a financial crisis in the 1990s. The authorities did not immediately determine that this was a financial market crisis, and the problem was in the balance sheets, and they began to cut rates until they hit the bottom. Then, when the diagnosis was finally made, it took several years to use taxpayer money to improve the balance sheets of banks and companies. The economy never really recovered. BIS - a bank created specifically to coordinate the work of central banks - strongly advises the Central Bank of the world not to get carried away with monetary stimulus. Policies that seem effective for some countries can be devastating on a global level. There are already signs that imbalances similar to those in developed countries before the crisis are emerging in some emerging economies.

ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL INSTITUTE

COURSE WORK

ON ECONOMIC THEORY

«ECONOMIC CYCLES AND CRISES»

COMPLETED: Belova I.V.

CHECKED:

M O S K V A 1 9 9 9

CONTENT:

Introduction.

Chapter 1. The history of the problem of cyclical development of the economy.

Chapter 2. Four phases of the cycle.

1. Crisis.

2. Depression.

3. Revitalization.

4. Rise (boom).

Chapter 3. Reasons for the cyclical development of the economy.

Chapter 4 Types economic cycles.

Chapter 5

Chapter 6. State countercyclical regulation.

INTRODUCTION

Economic history shows that economic growth is never smooth and even. A few years of revival of business activity and prosperity are followed by a recession or even a panic or collapse.

The economic cycle covers all aspects of society. It penetrates everywhere - in production, construction, employment, income, the stock market, and politics. Even such non-economic phenomena as fertility and marriages feel the fullness of the crisis.

The business cycle affects individuals and sectors of the economy in different ways and to varying degrees. For example, workers and industries that produce capital goods, consumer durables, and construction are most affected by the recession. Industries producing non-durable consumer goods tend to be less responsive to downturns.

Entrepreneurs rely on a certain assumption about the future when they make decisions about investment and output. If they believe that next year will bring a recession, they will try to reduce investment now. When, on the contrary, they expect a revival and a significant rise in prices, they rush to buy goods, expand production and construction.

Absolutely also, stock market players want to know the future in order to be able to profit from buying or selling shares.

The ability to anticipate the consequences of one or another factor means the opportunity for the entrepreneur to take measures in advance to mitigate the negative impact in the event of a downturn or stimulus measures in the event of a recovery.

Entrepreneurs in all developed countries are constantly faced with the problem of a win-win investment of capital, therefore, the study of economic cycles in terms of predicting an increase or decrease in economic activity is one of the most important tasks of the modern economy.

“Evolution is essentially a process that

moves in cycles... Only the cycle itself is real

by oneself". J. Schumpeter.

HISTORY OF THE PROBLEM OF THE CYCLE

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

The peculiarity of a market economy, manifested in a tendency to repeat economic phenomena, was noticed by economists in the first half of the last century.

In their striving for the boundless expansion of their production, for the conquest of the largest possible market, which at any given moment has limits, the owners of capitalist enterprises periodically encountered overproduction of goods. The essence of overproduction is manifested in the predominance of the supply of a given commodity over demand, when the price of a commodity drops to a level at which, if not for all, then at least for a significant part of the producers, it does not even remain normal, not to mention economic profit.

Trying to identify the causes of overproduction, economists have paid attention to the frequency of such phenomena as an increase or decrease in demand, an increase in production volumes or its downtime. A certain sequence in the alternation of these phenomena was also revealed. The problem was of such great importance for economic development that almost none of the leading economists of the 19th and 20th centuries bypassed it. Dozens of different works have been written that determine the causes of cyclic development, a wide variety of explanations and forecasts have been received. The study of economic cycles is devoted to the work of such scientists as K. Clark, W. Mitchell, K. Marx, N.D. Kondratiev,

J. Schumpeter and many others.

Colin Clark (1905) American economist and statistician. He believed that with the appropriate policy of the state, namely the regulation of monopolies and the nationalization of a number of industries, it is possible to mitigate cyclical fluctuations in the economy.

A special place in the development of the theory of cyclicity belongs to the Russian scientist N. D. Kondratiev (the theory of "long waves"). See chapter 4.

It should be emphasized that J. Schumpeter's idea of ​​a three-cycle scheme, that is, oscillatory processes in the economy, carried out, as it were, at three levels, as the most suitable for describing many phenomena occurring in the economy. He named these cycles after N. D. Kondratiev, K. Zhuglyar and J. Kitchin, the scientists who discovered these cycles. Schumpeter believed that the interconnection and interdependence of all three cycles is manifested in the economic system.

It is impossible not to say about the contribution of K. Marx to the development of the theory of cyclicity. He studied short cycles, called periodic cycles or crises of overproduction.

“The ultimate cause of all real crises is always poverty and limited consumption of the masses, which counteracts the desire of capitalist production to develop the productive forces in such a way as if the limit of their development was only the absolute consumption capacity of society” K. Marx.

P. Samuelson in his famous book "Economics" defines the economic cycle as a common feature of almost all areas of economic life and for all countries with a market economy. It is this cyclicality that characterizes the development of all industrialized countries. Through ups and downs, they inevitably follow the same path for almost two centuries, at least from this stage, when society began to move towards a higher level of a developed monetary economy based on the close interdependence of all its links.

Fluctuating economic dynamics has been observed for 170 years. The first economic crises date back to 1825 in England and 1840 in Germany.

PHASES OF THE CYCLE.

1. CRISIS.

The term business cycle refers to successive ups and downs in economic activity over a period of several years. Individual economic cycles differ significantly from each other in duration and intensity. There is no exact formula for predicting the duration and time sequence of economic cycles. In their irregularity, economic cycles are more like weather changes. However, they all have the same phases, which are named differently by different researchers. Q
0 T

Recession (reduction) is a state of the economy when the gross national product, with a steady decline, becomes smaller, which indicates a decline in production or a slowdown in its development.

The crisis of the market system of the economy is characterized by a sharp decline in production, which begins gradually with a contraction, a reduction in business activity (trade transactions are less often concluded, the volume of business transactions carried out both on credit and in cash decreases). The crisis is distinguished by an imbalance between supply and demand for any product or in any particular sector of the economy, in that it arises as a general overproduction, accompanied by a rapid drop in prices, bank failures and a halt in production enterprises, an increase in loan interest, unemployment.

Let us present a general picture of the industrial crisis of the 19th and early 20th centuries.

The market, which has absorbed without hindrance all the commodities produced, at some time becomes overcrowded; goods continue to arrive, meanwhile demand gradually decreases, lags behind supply, and finally stops altogether. Anxiety is spreading throughout the market. Demand disappears, meanwhile there are still huge stocks of goods everywhere, and many enterprises continue to work at full capacity due to inertia and throw more and more masses of goods onto the market. A sharp fall in prices follows.

Truly heroic efforts are being made to save the day. But all means are fruitless. Many businesses are unable to withstand the sharp price cuts. Liquidations and collapses begin. First of all, banks and credit institutions are dying. The trust of market economy entities to each other is undermined. All require cash payment. Bills of exchange, which only yesterday raised no doubts, are acquiring the value of plain paper. The interest rate goes up. The largest enterprises are ruined, cars stop, factories are closed. Crowds of unemployed appear on the street. Famine begins, an epidemic of suicides.

The first crisis broke out in England in 1825, then in England and the USA in 1836, in 1841 in the USA, in 1847 in the USA, England, France and Germany. Then followed the crises of 1873, 1882, 1890. The most devastating was the crisis of 1900-1902. It began almost simultaneously in Russia and the USA and first of all hit the metallurgical industry. Having hit the American metal market, the crisis spread first to England, then to the European continent. The textile industry was the first to suffer, followed by the construction, chemical, machine and electrical industries. With incredible speed, the crisis spread to all European countries: France, Austria, Germany, Italy, Belgium, and soon became general. Prices plummeted down. Solid enterprises were uprooted. The ruin of industry was accompanied by a rapid rise in unemployment.

The global world economic system has a non-linear, cyclic or wave nature of its development, which was determined by science during the 20th century. Its dynamics is set by the periodicity of fluctuations of different structure and duration, which form cyclical processes, the totality of which can explain the complex structure of the global, both temporal and spatial dynamics of the world economic system as a whole. Cyclicity as an objective pattern of economic development is multifaceted in its content. If the classification criterion is based on duration, then it, first of all, will include the following six types of cycles:

1. Agrarian ultra-small cycles for up to 1 year - seasonal short-term fluctuations in agriculture;

2. Financial and economic small cycles for a period of 3-5 years (on average 4 years) - short-term fluctuations in financial and business activity;

3. Industrial (business) average cycles for a period of 7-11 years (on average 9 years) - medium-term fluctuations associated with the renewal of the active part of fixed capital in industry;

4. Construction average cycles for a period of 16-20 years (on average 18 years) - medium-term fluctuations associated with the renewal of the passive part of fixed capital, primarily housing;

5. Large cycles of the conjuncture for a period of 50-60 years (on average 54-55 years) - long-term "long waves" of changes in technological patterns (TS);

6. Super-large secular cycles - long-term fluctuations for a period of 100-120 years (108-112 years on average), for example, secular cycles of change in economic and political leadership.

Although the criterion for the duration of cycles is only one of the possible ones, the types of cycles differ in the ambiguity of the material basis, the nature of the impact on economic processes, the analysis of which in the world economy is the subject of this work. In addition, various cycles are superimposed one on top of the other, a synchronization effect occurs between them, their differentiation becomes more complicated, especially when their crisis phases are synchronized, when the negative consequences of the crisis increase to catastrophic proportions. This happened during the Great Depression of 1929-1939, the accumulated contradictions of which led to the Second World War, which lasted exactly six years (from September 1, 1939 to September 1945), giving the United States the opportunity to reach the pre-crisis level of their GDP in 1941. , and at the end of the war - in 1945, against the background of the destroyed European and a number of Asian economies, the US GDP was already almost half of the world's gross domestic product (GDP).

The idea of ​​industrial (business) cycles was first formulated by the French scientist Clement Juglar, who made their calculations in the middle of the 19th century (1862). In the structure of the cyclical paradigm of co-evolutionary development, industrial (business) average cycles are most clearly expressed. They most interact both with small short-term financial and economic cycles, discovered already in the early 1920s American economists of Russian origin by John Kitchin and financial cycle researcher V. Kram, and with long-term large conjuncture cycles, also discovered in the early 1920s by the outstanding Russian scientist Nikolai Kondratiev. Business (industrial) medium cycles most effectively affect the development of economic processes and that is why they are defined as basic.

So, at the end of the XIX century. in economic science, an idea was formed about the existence of a single "industrial" or "business" cycle 7-11 (on average nine) years long, which, with reference to the authorship of Juglar, was described in detail and comprehensively analyzed in Karl Marx's "Capital", thanks to which it is widely included in the problems of world economic theory and practice. It was on average a nine-year interval that was inherent in the average cycles of fluctuations in the volumes of the world gross product (GDP) on the downward component of the fourth Kondratieff "long wave", in the last quarter of the 20th century. and in early XXI century, which corresponds to the so-called "fourth empirical correctness" of the great cycles of the conjuncture of Nikolai Kondratiev, thanks to their author.

It should be noted that even before studies of the medium-term business cycle in the second half of the 19th century, at the end of the first half of it, the English economist Hyde Clark in the Railway Register in 1847 drew attention to long 60-year fluctuations in the price level, linking them with periodicity. appearance of sunspots. The world scientific community learned about this primary source thanks to the reference to it by one of the founders of the theory of marginalism - also an English economist William Stanley Jevons, who was the first among economists to study the relationship between economic cycles and solar activity cycles, the average duration of the most famous of which - Schwabe cycles - Wolf - averages 11 years. Exploring the nature of the business cycle and the periodicity of the occurrence of financial crashes in the study of money circulation and finance, published in 1884, Jevons drew attention to an interesting phenomenon noticed by Clark, and even gave a periodization of 30-year periods of rising and falling prices, however, the analysis this phenomenon was not included in his plans. This work was published only two years after the tragic death of Jevons, when in 1882 he drowned in the Thames. Thus, long-term cyclical fluctuations in the economy were identified by economists as early as the middle of the 19th century, but were not clearly defined, as the outstanding Russian economist Nikolai Kondratiev managed to do for the first time in the early 1920s.

Already more than half a century after the discovery of the first economic cycles of Clement Juglar, the future Nobel laureate in economics Semyon Kuznets (Simon Kaznets), who in the 20s of the twentieth century. emigrated from Ukraine to the USA (first he left Kharkov, where he studied at the university, returned to the city of his birth - Pinsk in Belarus, which, according to the Riga Treaty, went to Poland, with which he then moved to Germany and France and left in 1927 for the USA to his father, who emigrated there 5 years before the outbreak of the First World War), analyzed investment in fixed assets as a source of economic growth and created the theory of the leading sector. He came to the conclusion that investments in the industrial sector are formed in a certain cluster of related industries with a fairly clear 30-year periodicity. Moreover, under the leading sector, he defined a group of technologically and organizationally interconnected industries. In his study, Kaznets identified two main leading sectors - primary (extractive industries, agriculture) and secondary (manufacturing industries). The dynamics of economic growth, according to Kaznets, was explained by a change in periods during which the ratio of prices for the products of these sectors contributes to an increase in income in industry, periods when this ratio is more favorable for the development of primary sectors. Such mirror price dynamics in two interconnected sectors of the economy generates discreteness in the size and direction of investment flows.

Thus, Kaznets made a very important conclusion that investments in the industrial sector are subject to clustering with a fairly clear 30-year periodicity, and thereby explained the mechanism of large cycles of the conjuncture of the outstanding Russian economist Nikolai Kondratiev, with whom he had correspondence through Kondratiev’s wife during the time of the conclusion of the latter in the Suzdal political isolator. As a direct student of the American researcher of economic cycles, William Mitchell, Kaznets also discovered "building cycles" with an amplitude of fluctuations of 16-25 years (an average of 20 years), i.e. cycles are approximately twice as long as the Juglar cycles and associated with the restoration of the passive part of fixed assets, primarily housing.

It should be noted that the concept of the leading sector has its origins in the ideas of the outstanding Ukrainian economist Mikhail Tugan-Baranovsky. Back in 1894, he created a systemic theory of the periodicity of industrial crises, due to the cyclical investment process, which ensures a long-term recovery by the rapid expansion of one or more key sectors. His research was highly appreciated by prominent economists of the first half of the 20th century. John Maynard Keynes and Joseph Alois Schumpeter. And already at the beginning of its second half, Alvin Hansen, who was called "American Keynes", in his fundamental monograph "Economic Cycles and National Income" expressed the opinion that Tugan-Baranovsky's book on the periodicity of industrial crises, like Adam Smith's book on the nature and causes of welfare nations, "turned economic theory upside down".

According to Tugan-Baranovsky's theory, the history of crises in England reveals the ebb and flow of economic life, which are cyclically repeated. The cycle is long-term or short-term, depending on the specific economic conditions that develop in each historical period. The cycle is not a phenomenon governed by a mathematical law, since the crises in nineteenth-century England repeated at intervals of 7 to 11 years. Movement is periodic in the sense that there is a change in successive phases of prosperity and depression, the emergence and disappearance of which have a cyclical form. In essence, the industrial cycle can be thought of as a law inherent in the very nature of the capitalist economy.
As Tugan-Baranovsky points out, thanks to the availability of money and credit, all fluctuations in the economy are much larger. But the factors of money circulation only intensify the cycle, since money is not its main cause. The industrial cycle is deeply rooted in the very nature of the capitalist economy. The inherent features of the modern economy make the cycle inevitable. But this still does not explain why the phases of prosperity and depression follow each other with such amazing regularity. The answer to this question stems precisely from the history of industrial cycles in Great Britain.

According to Tugan-Baranovsky, the most characteristic feature of industrial fluctuations is the fact that changes in iron prices coincide with the phases of the cycle. The price of iron is invariably high in times of prosperity and invariably low in times of depression. The prices of other products fluctuate far less naturally. This indicates the existence of a close relationship between iron demand fluctuations and cycle phases. The demand for iron increases during periods of prosperity and decreases during periods of depression. But iron is the main material used in the manufacture of tools of production. By the state of demand for iron, one can also judge the demand for means of production in general. This means that the ascending phase of the cycle is characterized by an increase in demand for means of production, the descending phase is characterized by a reduction in this demand.

A century later, in the early 1990s, well-known Russian scientists and economists of our time Leonid Abalkin, Sergey Glazyev, Vladimir Mayevsky, Stanislav Menshikov, Yuri Yakovets restored the school of Russian cyclism, which also has a Ukrainian component and whose beginning in economic sciences is precisely from the works of Mikhail Tugan-Baranovsky (1865-1919). For most of his life he taught political economy at St. Petersburg University and raised a worthy student, Nikolai Kondratiev (1892-1938). The latter, having studied and processed by mathematical regression methods a vast empirical material reflecting the socio-economic development of Germany, France, Britain and the United States from the end of the 18th to the 20s of the 20th century, and comparing commodity price indices, securities rates, wage levels, turnover indicators foreign trade, etc., came to the conclusion that in the dynamics of socio-economic processes there are regular large cycles of the conjuncture, each of which "has two waves - upward and downward", but it would be more accurate to talk about the upward and downward components of each wave or a large conjuncture cycle. Kondratiev determined the approximate time frame for each of the cycles and described the patterns of both types of components of the "long waves" (simultaneously describing the medium and short waves of the economic situation, which have different patterns).

Moreover, the combination of different curves for different countries created certain time lags between different indicators, i.e. their deviations from the weighted average "long wave", which was also taken into account by him in the final conclusions. In his report "Large cycles of conjuncture", which he prepared for a public discussion in 1926, Kondratiev wrote:
Considering it impossible yet to determine with absolute certainty the years of a turning point in the development of large cycles and taking into account the inaccuracy in determining the moments of such turning points (for 5-7 years), resulting from the method of data analysis itself, we can nevertheless outline the following most probable boundaries of large cycles:

I-th big cycle of conjuncture

1. The upward wave of the first cycle - from the late 80s - early 90s. 18th century up to the period 1810 - 1817;

2. The downward wave of the first cycle - from the period 1810 -1817. up to the period 1844 - 1851;

II-nd big cycle of conjuncture

1. The upward wave of the second cycle - from the period 1844 - 1851. up to the period 1870 -1875;

2. The downward wave of the second cycle - from the period 1870 - 1875. up to the period 1890 - 1896;

III-rd big cycle of conjuncture

1. The upward wave of the third cycle - from the period 1891 - 1896. up to the period 1914 - 1920;

2. Probable downward wave of the third cycle - from the period 1914 - 1920. ".

In fact, he was able to predict the Great Depression of 1929-1939 as early as 1922, i.e. 7 years before its start, ahead of the forecasts of the prominent Austrian economists Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich von Hayek, who warned of the onset of a major crisis during 1925-1929. .

Nikolai Kondratiev was one of the theorists of the NEP in the USSR, opposed forced industrialization and the rejection of market mechanisms. As early as the 1920s, his texts became well known in the world. In 1989, during the "perestroika", Kondratiev's works were finally republished in the USSR. The long cycles of economic development studied by him (50-60 years long) are large cycles of the conjuncture and are called "Kondratiev's". In 1939, Joseph Schumpeter called them "long waves" of Kondratiev, later they were called abbreviated as K-waves.

The greatest merit of Kondratiev is the fact that the economic conjuncture (by his definition, it is a synonym for economic dynamics) is a constant process, in which there are two types of movement - one reflects undulating, spontaneous reversible processes, and the second is irreversible, evolutionary, reflecting a gradual development of the productive forces of society. But Kondratiev noted that in addition to short and medium fluctuations of the market economy, in practice there are very short and longer fluctuations. As noted by E.V. Belyanova and S.A. Komlev in his article “Problems of Economic Dynamics in the Works of Kondratiev” - a preface to the first reprint of his works in 1989, “studying the reversible processes of economic dynamics, N. D. Kondratiev singled out fluctuations in economic activity with different periods - less than a year (seasonal), three and a half years [Kitchin cycles, [Juglar's] commercial and industrial cycles at 7-11 years, and, finally, large conjuncture cycles [Kondratieff long waves] of 50-60 years."

The Austro-American economist Joseph Schumpeter put forward the idea of ​​overaccumulation of capital, linking this phenomenon with technological progress. He believed that economic growth is a cyclical process due to the spasmodic nature of innovation (innovation), and also broke the large cycles of the conjuncture into two other components - innovation and imitation. In addition, in 1939, he made a hypothesis that six medium-term Juglar cycles are embedded in one Kondratiev long wave, and each of the latter includes three short-term Kitchin cycles, i.e. about the phenomenon of fractality, discovered by the American mathematician Benoit Maldebrot already in 1975, that is, only 36 years after the presentation of the Schumpeterian hypothesis. It was fully confirmed over the next 70 years of economic development, with the exception that not three, but two Kitchin cycles are sometimes invested in one Juglar cycle, since the duration of the latter is from 36 to 59 months.

As a generalization of the anti-crisis measures of various countries during the Great Depression, the publication of John Maynard Keynes' work "The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money" (1936) marked the beginning of the Keynesian theory of the cycle. In this study, where some provisions of previous theories were used, a new macroeconomic concept is presented that explains the mechanism market economy in general, the reasons for its deviations from equilibrium, as well as the direction of state intervention in the market system. Further development of Keynesian theory is associated with the names of Alvin Hansen, Roy Harrod, John Hicks and Paul Samuelson, who, based on the main provisions of this theory, wrote in 1945-1948. the world's first textbook on a new branch of economic science - macroeconomics, which was born thanks to the Keynesian revolution.

In the early 1970s, Keynesian theory was already being contrasted with Milton Friedman's monetary cycle theory. According to it, the main role in the dynamics of national income and the cycle is played by the instability of money supply, the blame for which is placed on the state. The monetarists consider the volume of money supply to be the main stabilizer of the economy.

Against the backdrop of the monetary and financial and oil crises of the 1970s, with the release in 1975 of the book “Technological stalemate: innovation overcomes depression” by the German scientist Gerhart Mensch, who lived at that time in the United States, the scientific community became interested in studying the mechanism of the economic crisis, to which “pseudo-innovations” (it was Mensch who introduced this definition into circulation), reducing the efficiency of production and leading the economy to a crisis.

In 1989, after the scientific rehabilitation of Kondratiev in the USSR, a book by Russian scientists Stanislav Menshikov and Larisa Klimenko “Long Waves in Economics. When Society Changes the Skin” , where their main concepts were indicated: innovation theory (Schumpeter, Kaznets, Mensch, Kleinknecht, Van Dyne), overaccumulation theory in the capital sector (Forrester), labor force theories (Freeman), price theories (Rostow , Berry), monetary (Delbeke, Schokert, Korpinen, Batra) and sociological concepts (Perez-Perez, Millendorfer, Screpanti, Olson, Wiebe, Gattei, Silver, Weidlich) and even the theory of military cycles (Goldstein).

In the early 90s of the XX century. The Russian geophysicist Spartak Afanasiev processed the economic statistics used by Kondratiev in the 1920s using modern methods of spectral analysis. Afanasiev proved that two "K-waves" are synchronized with the geological-cosmic obscured-perihelion cycle, which lasts 108 years (two K-waves). But back in the late 1980s, American scientists George Modelski and William Thomson put forward their theory of cycles 100-120 years long (which, like Afanasiev, are based on two Kondratieff K-waves), which arise as a result of changes in the leaders of world politics . At the same time (1991), the hypothesis of the existence of a secular Kondratiev cycle, which includes two adjacent dissimilar K-waves of the beginning and middle of the century, was expressed in their works by Russian scientists Mikhail Korolkov and Sergey Glazyev. Moreover, the latter referred to the hypothesis of the well-known scientist from Luxembourg A. Grubler, who expressed it in a private conversation with him. According to the concept of M. Korolkov, K-waves, which begin at the beginning of the century, focus on innovative changes in the basic technologies of the technological order (TS), which further develop in K-waves of the middle of the century, the main purpose of which is changes in the social the economic structure of the society corresponding to this TU (at the end of the 1st K-wave, such changes were brought about by the Bourgeois Revolution of 1848, and at the end of the 3rd K-wave - by the Second World War), and the resource structure that provides it for a century. Therefore, the main energy resource throughout the XIX century. was coal, and only the twentieth century. - already oil. What will replace them in the 21st century is still unknown, although various forecasts regarding the future of the superenergy resource are being actively put forward by various scientists today.

Thus, with a duration of 50-60 years (on average 54-55 years), the material basis of long waves is certain energy resources and the corresponding technological method of production, which is formed due to the introduction of a cluster of basic innovations. It is carried out in two ways: first, evolutionarily, when existing technologies are improved and improved; secondly, it is revolutionary when qualitative changes occur in the materialization of scientific knowledge through basic innovations. These two paths complement each other.
The evolutionary path makes it possible to use the potential of existing technologies and prepare the conditions for a leap in the development of a technological system. Scientific and technical revolutions (NTR) mean the transition to new technical and economic paradigms (TEP), which then spread evolutionarily. Scientific and technological revolutions become the core of development in the productive forces. At the same time, leaps are being made in the development of man (human capital) as the main productive force, in the growth of the efficiency and productivity of its labor.

The cyclic renewal of the technological structures of the productive forces of society is periodically repeated, but, in the end, the cyclical development of the productive forces is carried out under the influence of socio-economic factors. Starting with the first industrial revolution of the late XVIII - first third of the XIX century. Qualitative jumps in changing the basic generations of machines and technologies were carried out within a time frame of 50-60 years, which corresponds to the duration of K-waves and determines the frequency of long-term socio-economic cycles discovered by Nikolai Kondratiev. The basis of these cycles is a change in the technological structure (TU) - a more fundamental change than in the 9-year Juglar cycles, a change in the productive forces of society. After all, they do not simply replace the active part of fixed capital through its depreciation, or even replace the passive part of fixed capital according to the Kaznets cycles, but a fundamental change in basic technologies.

Since the time of the first industrial revolution at the end of the 18th century. and until the middle of the XX century. three long waves (large cycles of the conjuncture) passed, which Kondratiev described (the third incomplete, since he made their discovery in the early 1920s, and the third wave ended with the Great Depression and the Second World War, which began already in the late 1930s, the devastating consequences (Kondratiev was executed by Stalin’s satraps in 1938.) Back in 2009, at the Kondratiev Readings in Moscow, my report on the confirmation of the predictions of Nikolai Kondratiev and Pitirim Sorokin at the beginning of the 21st century ended with the words: “The main thing is that the current The Great Recession did not end with what the Great Depression ended in 1939. "Today, for example, the Russian author N. Starikov expresses the idea that the current financial and economic crisis is organized artificially, and this is confirmed by separate facts. But in order to realize explosion of the system, a certain tension must accumulate in it, that is, a crisis must ripen. Some scholars, including N. Starikov, see the crisis in detente in the war.

With the beginning of the modern scientific and technological revolution, the post-war fourth cycle began, which continued until recently. The modern Great Recession ends it, simultaneously starting a new long-term Kondratieff cycle. As already mentioned, in the structure of long-term cycles of economic development, Kondratiev himself singled out two components - ascending and descending, which Schumpeter called stages or phases of development, highlighting two more phases in K-waves: an accelerated rise (boom or prosperity) and a crisis (which is at the bottom crisis can develop into depression), which in short cycles almost smoothes out.

The descending component of the big cycle is the period of change in basic technologies and technological structures of the production system of society, which is preparing for the next innovative breakthrough by creating a cluster of basic technologies, which corresponds to the first empirical correctness of K-waves. At this time, acute economic crises of medium cycles occur, as evidenced by the fourth empirical correctness of the K-wave theory. In general, Kondratiev identified just four empirical correctnesses, the third of which speaks of an agrarian crisis preceding the general economic one. Before the Great Recession of 2008-2009 there was a world food crisis in 2007, which has not ended today.

As a rule, the period of the descending component of a large cycle lasts 25-30 years, and in the last K-wave, due to a certain amortization of the global economic recession through the mechanisms of suction of world finances to the leading countries of the world, primarily the United States, by provoking local financial crises and regional wars, having a semi-global character (since all NATO countries and even some of those that are not included in this bloc, such as Ukraine, took part in the war with the Islamic countries - Afghanistan and Iraq), it lengthened. Thus, this period lasted almost 40 years from the beginning of the 1970s until the unfolding of the global socio-economic crisis with a recession in the world economy in late 2008–2009. These regional wars delayed the global crisis by a nine-year Juglar cycle, but at the same time accumulated contradictions in the world economic system. They collapsed the American and world economy in 2009, economically undermining the countries of the Muslim world, which led them to socio-political crises in early 2011. The further development of events both for these Islamic countries and for the world political and economic system (the world economic and political order) becomes destructive, possibly irreversible, and requires its urgent reform.

At the same time, it should be taken into account that on the border of two adjacent Kondratiev large cycles of the conjuncture, a starting point is formed for the largest investments in technical improvements that were accumulated by the previous development and take on the greatest burdens in the restructuring of the economic, and in the next cycle, the socio-political infrastructure. a society that is adequate to the technological renewal of production during the previous K-wave in a secular 108-year cycle. Although wars and revolutions are also observed on the descending component, according to the second empirical correctness of the K-wave theory, their largest exacerbations accompanied and expect further humanity already on the ascending component of the large cycle of the Kondratiev conjuncture, which in the third cycle (K-wave) were the first world war, three Russian revolutions and "civil war", and in the fourth cycle - already the second "hot" world war. After its completion in 1945, two years later it resumed in the form of the already global Cold War, the peak of which fell on the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, and the end was associated with the “perestroika” in the USSR, which ended in its collapse and disintegration. socialist system” of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA).

Unlike industrially developed market countries, where the cyclical crisis factors of the downward component of the fourth long K-wave manifested themselves in the mid-1970s - early 1980s, in the countries of the command-administrative system they have shifted by about a decade. The main factor behind this lag in them was the lower level of development of engineering and technology.

Thus, there is also an objective conditionality of the commonality of a number of transformations of management mechanisms, organizational and economic structures and forms of ownership in countries with different economic structures. The question is not in the problem itself, but in the forms and methods of its resolution. As for Ukraine, here the deep economic crisis is, first of all, internal, which began as a transformational one back in the 1990s, and in fact, was neither cyclical nor long-wave then, although their components are present here through the influence of the world economy, which includes the Ukrainian economy. But it occupies in the world economy, with the official exchange rate of the national currency against the US dollar about 8 hryvnia per dollar, only 0.2% (113 billion dollars in 2010 against about 60 trillion of the world gross product (GDP), and its ratio to US GDP is 0.9% It is part of an all-encompassing crisis that follows:

Firstly, from the structural transformation of the national economic proportions in connection with the collapse of the former single economic space within the USSR and the destruction of production cooperation ties between the Union republics, as well as their failure to replace the corresponding internal closed production cycles;

Secondly, from the transformation of the economic system as a whole;

Thirdly, because of the practical uncontrollability of these transformational processes at the macro level in conditions when the national state is only being formed very slowly.

Speaking about the structural-cyclical crisis that took hold of the economy of Ukraine, it should be noted that in any country it usually began with a financial crisis, and it was precisely such a crisis that befell the economy of Ukraine back in the early 1990s (it repeated itself at the end of 2008). - early 2009 and led to a fall in GDP in 2009 by 15%), when funds were not enough not only for depreciation and renewal of fixed assets, but also for the purchase of working capital. This crisis, in fact, did not have an evolutionary character, but was largely due to the unsuccessful "revolutionary" actions of the Ukrainian government in the fight against hyperinflation in 1993. to a "shock" state of both the production and social spheres of Ukraine and collapsed its 1994 GDP by 24%. But, in many ways, they were also due to the recommendations of international financial organizations, which, through the mechanisms of globalization of the world economy, caused very large losses to the economy of Ukraine. After all, local financial markets today are united into a single global financial network. The financial market, the lion's share of which is the market of financial speculation, has become truly universal and only an innovative economy can overcome its shortcomings.

The world economy after the Great Depression of 1929-1939 went through one more up and one down component of the long K-wave. It has been empirically proven that these two types (components) of waves have specific features. The duration of these components of the K-waves in the period 1789-2008 fluctuated approximately in the range of 25-30 years and ended today with the Great Recession of 2009, which was moved away from the developed countries by as much as two Juglar cycles. First, the permanent wandering financial crises of the 90s hit the social sphere of developing countries in Latin America and Southeast Asia, as well as the CIS countries, incl. through coercive "assistance" mechanisms from the IMF and WB. And at the beginning of the new millennium, the catastrophic events of September 11, 2001 allowed the US and other NATO countries to start wars with the Islamic world in Afghanistan and Iraq. These wars activated the military-industrial complex sectors in them and, through inter-industry relations, did not allow the economy of these countries to fall, which was in a state of stagnation in 2001-2002, and forecasts regarding its future indicated that a recession awaited them, which took place in reality only after another Juglar cycle, already in 2009. Thus, even such a non-economic factor as regional wars with the Islamic world has become a means of revitalizing the economies of developed countries. But these wars at the beginning of 2011 responded with a systemic crisis in the political systems of Islamic states, which are based on problems in the economic and social spheres of Muslim countries.

The global economy is a historically new reality that is different from the traditional world economy. According to the definition of one of its apologists, the famous French-American sociologist of Spanish origin Manuel Castells, “the global economy is something else: it is an economy that can work as a single system in real time on a global scale” . The process of globalization of the world economy is extremely uneven. This applies both to areas of activity and industries, and macroeconomic regions, united by groups of countries and civilizations. It is globalization that allows the developed countries of the world, primarily the United States, with the help of the IMF and WB tools to carry out a certain transfer of crises, solving the problem of overcoming the socio-economic crisis in these countries at the expense of other states. And protection from such negative impacts of the national economy is a very important issue of the economic security of the state. But even such measures, in the end, did not save the most developed countries of the world from the global financial and socio-economic crisis, which is increasing its negative social consequences in our time.

A high level of globalization has been achieved in the financial and investment sphere. Indeed, today it has become well known that the financial and monetary flows of the annual turnover of the world economy (more than $ 600 trillion) exceed by an order of magnitude compared to its material flows, including the markets for goods and services, reflecting the global gross product (GDP 2008 - about $ 60 trillion). ) And the value of the accumulated fictitious capital generally exceeds it by several orders of magnitude. Thus, this released fictitious money capital has no material support and is in free float, having billions of dollars worth of exchange transactions every second, ensuring their growth over the past 30 years by two orders of magnitude. And this financial bomb has been hanging over the production capacities of the real economy of countries all over the globe for decades, periodically destroying financial markets in one area or another of the world through the mechanisms of wandering financial crises, the most famous of which were the Mexican crisis of 1994-1995, the crisis in the South -East Asia 1997 - 1998 with its significant impact on world financial markets, the internal default of 1998 in Russia, which especially affected the CIS countries, including Ukraine, the external default of 2001 in Argentina. And in the light of the current crisis of 2008-2011. we can say that the default occurred in the banking sector of Iceland, in the public sector of Greece and Ireland, and is quite possible in various countries of the world, including Ukraine.

Thus, the economic cycle is the movement of production from the beginning of the previous one to the beginning of the next crisis. Each cycle consists of four main phases: crisis, depression (bottom of the crisis), recovery and rise (prosperity), as Joseph Alois Schumpeter defined them in 1939. The most dangerous of them is depression, in which the crisis phases of several cycles are synchronized, so deepening the negative consequences of the crisis. Schumpeter was the first to explain the Great Depression precisely by the synchronization of the crisis phases of the three cycles of Kitchin, Juglar and Kondratiev known at that time. Alvin Hansen was of the same opinion. And scientists define today's Great Recession as a systemic civilizational crisis, explaining by the synchronization of the crisis phases of even more cycles, since today they take into account not only economic, but also political and even civilizational systemic cycles of Pitirim Sorokin and Fernand Braudel. The latter, by the way, wrote in his work “Time of Peace”:

“To distinguish cycles, they were named after economists: the Kitchin cycle is a short, three-four-year cycle; the Juglar cycle, or a cycle that fits within the framework of a decade ... As for the hypercycle, or the Kaznets cycle (the double Juglar cycle), it would last two decades. The Kondratiev cycle took half a century or more ... Finally, there is no longer cyclical movement than the secular trend, which in reality is very little studied ... Until it is completely studied, until it is reproduced in everything its meaning, the history of conjunctures will remain extremely incomplete, despite the many works inspired by it. "It is inspired by the thoughts of this outstanding French scientist that a unified theory of socio-economic cycles and crises is developing, the studies of which take into account both age-related and millennial historical cycles of human development.

Summing up the results of our research, we can say that the current global financial and socio-economic crisis was predicted by us almost two decades ago, based on the cyclical patterns that govern the development of the world economy and the global migration of capital, discovered at the end of the 19th century. outstanding Ukrainian scientist Mikhail Tugan-Baranovsky on the example of studying the dynamics of industrial crises in the economy of the most developed country of that time - Great Britain, according to which the sequence of phases "expansion" - "swelling" - "landslide compression" is inevitable. In fact, in the last third of the XX century. marked the average 9-year cycle of global financial crises: the global financial crisis of 1997-1998. preceded by the financial crises of 1970-1971, 1980-1981. and 1987-1988 Moreover, the financial crisis precedes the general economic one, which he wrote about at the end of the 19th century. Mikhail Tugan-Baranovsky, and in the last 30 years of the twentieth century. between financial crises and general economic recessions, there was an approximately three-year interval of the short-term financial and economic cycle of Kitchin. So after:

The global financial crisis of 1970-1971. there was a recession in 1973-1974, provoked by the "oil shock";

The financial crisis of 1980-1981 with a maximum oil price of $ 90 per barrel - a recession in 1982 (in the US, a 3% decline in GDP), after which an anti-crisis policy called "Reaganomics" was introduced in the US;

The financial crisis of 1987-1988, when in just one day (October 19, 1987) the Dow Jones fell by 22.6% - the recession of 1990-1991. with an absolute decline in the GDP of the USSR, and in the post-industrial USA, where industry fell by 8-9% in these years, the GDP did not have an absolute recession due to the developed infrastructure, but these economic turmoil still had political consequences in the form of losing the US elections to J. Bush - the father of the collapse of the USSR;

Financial crisis 1997-1998 - recession 2000-2001

An analysis of the chronology of these crises shows that between recessions in the dynamics of world GDP, there was approximately a 9-year interval of the Juglar cycle. Thus, within the framework of these patterns, after the financial crisis of 2006-2008. (real estate markets, stock exchange and banking crisis) one should have expected a recession in the world economy in 2009-2010, which actually happened. Even 15 years ago, in an interview with the head of the science department of the Kievskiye Vedomosti newspaper, Natalia Kurolenko, “The next 15 years we will be shaken, flooded and ... crushed by depressions”, based on the theory of natural-environmental and socio-economic cycles, I made a forecast about strengthening frequency of natural disasters at the end of the twentieth century. - the beginning of the XXI century. and the onset of a global crisis in the first decade of the new millennium, which, unfortunately, has already happened not only in economic but also in political reality. Moreover, in the form of depression of the world economy, the global crisis of 2008-2011 may drag on for several more years due to the imposition of the crisis phase of the large cycle of the Kondratiev conjuncture (K-wave), which manifested itself already at the beginning of the millennium - in the form of stagnation of the world economy in 2001 -2002 But instead of restructuring the world economy on a new innovative K-wave, the leading countries of the world, led by the United States, focused their attention on new forms of regional semi-global wars of the NATO countries in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, which activated the military-industrial complex of these states and, through intersectoral relations, revived the world economy. Thus, these wars postponed the global economic crisis by one Juglar cycle, but the restructuring of the technological order on the new innovative K-wave did not take place. Therefore, the world economy still has to go through a phase of innovative renewal and ride a new K-wave.

Summarizing, we can say that each decline of the wave (both long-term and medium-term) is the threshold of innovation. Therefore, in a crisis, as you know, there is also a catharsis of cleansing from everything obsolete and the arrival of a new one in the form of innovation. The countries that will be the first to reach the "innovative horse" of the new K-wave will be able to make an innovative leap, which has been much talked about in Ukraine lately, but little has been done. It is small states with a high innovative potential (for example, Norway and Finland in Europe or South Korea and Hong Kong in Asia), which will be the first to do this, that are able to quickly overcome the crisis. And for Ukraine, the activation of work on the creation of the National Innovation System (NIS-Ukraine) remains relevant.

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23. Friedman M. Quantitative theory of money / Milton Friedman. - M.: Elf press, 1996. - 131 p.; Friedman M., Schwartz A. Monetary history of the United States. 1867-1960 / Milton Friedman, Anna Schwartz. — K.: Vakler, 2007. — 880 p.; Friedman M. Capitalism and freedom / Milton Friedman. — K.: Duh i litera, 2010. — 319 p.

24. Hansen E. Economic cycles and national income / R. Harrod, E. Hansen. Keynesian classics. In two volumes. - M .: Economics, 1997. - T.1. — c. 195-415; T. 2. - 431 p.

25. Harrod R. To the theory of economic dynamics. New conclusions of economic theory and their application in economic policy/ Roy Harrod, Alvin Hansen. Keynesian classics. In two volumes. - M .: Economics, 1997. - T.1. — c. 39-194.

26. Hicks J. R. Cost and capital. An Investigation of Some Fundamental Principles of Economic Theory / John Richard Hicks. - M .: Thought, 1993. - 488 p.

27. Schumpeter J. A. Theory of economic development / Joseph Alois Schumpeter. - M.: Thought, 1982. - 455 p.; Scumpeter J. Business Cycles: A Theoretical, Historical and Statistical Analysis of the Capitalist Process / Joseph Aloiz Scumpeter. - N.Y.-L., 1939.

28. Jevons W. S. Investigation in Carrency and Finance / William Stanley Jevons. — London, 1884.

29. Juglar C. Des crises commerciales et de leur retour periodigue en France< en Angleterre et aux Etats-Unis / Clement Juglar. - Paris, 1862.

30. Kitchin J. Cycles and Trends in Economic Factors / J. Kitchin // Review of Economic Statistics. - 1923. - Preliminary. — Vol. V. - January. - P. 10-16; Crum W. Cycles of rate on Commercial Paper / W. Crum // Review of Economic Statistics. - 1923. - Vol. V. - January.

31. Kuznets S. S. Cyclical Fluctuations: Retail and Wholesale Trade, United States, 1919-1925 / Simon Smith Kuznets. — New York, 1926; Kuznets S. S. Secular Movement in Production and Prices / Simon Smith Kuznets. — Boston, 1930; Kuznets S. S. Modern Economic Growth: Rate, Structure and Spread / Simon Smith Kuznets. — New Heaven, 1966.

32. Mensh G. Stalemate in Technology: Innovation Overcome the Depression / G. Mensh. — Cambridge, Mass., 1979.

According to the theory of financial cycles, the crisis itself not only does not disappear, but it creates itself. Claudio Borio, who is one of the most popular and recognizable macro economists working for the international bank BIS, has written a policy essay. In it, he outlined in great detail a new theory that concerns the causes of the current crisis. According to this essay, cyclical financial imbalances, which resulted in very rapid credit growth, caused the crisis. It was passed by all the world's Central Banks, as the crisis did not fit into the models that were "standard" at the time. However, even after five years, he is treated fundamentally wrong. So easing, which has no end and edge, only worsens the situation, driving the disease deep into the economy.

For the past 5 years, waves of crisis have been rolling in different countries, which economists cannot explain within the framework of neoclassical and neo-Keynesian standard theories of business cycles. Claudio Borio writes that to explain the causes of the crisis, it is necessary to apply the outdated and forgotten theory of financial cycles.

When Japan in the nineties plunged into an illogical and incomprehensible situation, this theory was first remembered, which is based on the views of the Austrian school, but it went much further from it. But even the study of this issue did not allow saving the world from the sad Japanese path.

The knowledge that we have accumulated over a couple of decades makes it clear that even the softest policies of the world's central banks and the Fed will not help here. Only if governments take on all the private debt is there a way out of the crisis, says this financier at BIS Bank.

Financial cycle - what is it?

For economists, Boriot wrote a short instruction, thanks to which they, who are accustomed to thinking of the financial system as a normal system of resource reallocation, will be able to understand the concept that takes into account only the costs of transactions. Here is the instruction:

• You should think not about the short term, but about the long term, since financial cycles are much longer than business standard cycles;
• Since the financial system itself creates purchasing power, and does not just allocate resources, one should think about the monetary nature of the economy. The financial system has a life of its own in some way;
• It is necessary to think globally, since the world economy with its food, financial and intermediate markets is already quite well integrated at the moment;

As Claudio writes, at the forefront of this new theoretical direction, the financial cycle has no generally accepted definition.

The definition has a close meaning - "the relationship between our ideas about risks, the value of assets, financial restrictions, which are self-producing, lead first to a boom, and then to a fall in financial markets."

Our current position in the financial cycle most accurately reflects the cost of credit and real estate prices. Usually, these two components are interconnected, since lending is especially important when buying or building real estate. Equity prices have much less correlation with these two benchmarks. Interest rates, risk premiums, volatility, bad loans, and the like also play a role in the study of financial cycles. Business cycles change more often than financial cycles. The frequency of their repetition is five to eight years. According to measurements that have been carried out since the 1960s, the average value of the length of the financial cycle for the 7 most developed economies is 16 years.

The crisis follows immediately after the peak of the financial cycle. Often, a banking crisis begins at the moment when the cycle approaches its high point. If the crisis was caused by external losses of financial institutions and the losses of banks, then it did not immediately follow the peak - these conclusions were drawn on the basis of a study of the same seven developed economies. Thus, the recent problems in the German and Swiss banking systems were related to the finance cycles of the United States and European countries;
After an economic crisis, a recession is much easier than after a financial crisis. So often a downturn is 50 percent more hurtful than a downturn caused by the business cycle;

You can predict a crisis. The theory of modern financial cycles allows us to detect signs of a crisis in the future. At the same time, risks can be determined in real time and quite accurately. One of the clearest benchmarks is the positive deviation from historical norms of credit to gross domestic product and asset prices, especially real estate, which occurs simultaneously. These two deviations together give a very clear signal for the approach of the peak and the imminent onset of the crisis;
The role of the international component of cycles is growing along with globalization. This is determined, for example, by the size of the share of loans that foreign banks issue to non-financial enterprises;

Government policy affects the duration of the cycle. Increasing the freedom of financial policy makes the downward and upward part of the cycle more pronounced;
Open macroeconomic policies in the context of globalization also lead to a boom - there is more room for credit and asset prices to grow, economic potential grows and there is a potential for lower inflation. And this last feature makes central banks, which are concerned with inflation targeting, not notice the boom and not tighten monetary policy. A little later, it only gets worse, as “suddenly” a crisis is coming after the boom;

To understand financial cycles, you need to forget something

Models, according to Borio, which make it possible to select the right policy and predict crises, must necessarily contain the following 3 aspects:

• A boom in finance causes a crisis, not just precedes it. A crisis is the consequences of a system vulnerability that appears during the boom stage;
• Debt and lending in general are the engine of any boom, as companies give themselves the right to buy and spend more. And this leads in turn to a misallocation of resources - both labor and capital. Then, when cash flows and asset prices in the downturn begin to decline, all debt becomes a force holding back the recovery - businesses, governments, and households seek to save to rebuild their balance sheets;
• There are differences to consider between potential release models:
  according to the standard theory, this is output at a level where full employment is provided and inflation is not accelerating. In this case, it is assumed that the economy, having reached its potential, will remain here indefinitely until the moment when it is knocked out of here by an external shock. In such a model, inflation is a reliable indicator of the current output - it is below or above its potential;
• inflation, according to the theory of financial cycles, can be very stable, while output will either rise or fall rapidly - financial imbalances play a role here. At the same time, inflation cannot report anything about output;

As a result, we need to get out of our heads everything that we know from the theory of the rational behavior of markets, which died during the crisis:

1. It is necessary to get away from the idea that economic agents have complete information about the state of the markets and the behavior of these agents is rational. It should be understood that agents have incomplete information;
2. It should be remembered that the attitude to risk varies depending on the information about the state of the economy;
3. In addition, the financial system - it itself creates purchasing power, and still serves as a resource transfer system.

Alex Breumer, one of the UK's leading financial journalists, writes in his book The Crisis (2008):

“The cold snap in the financial markets, which began on August 9 and followed the global financial system until the spring of 2008, led to an emergency stop. Uncertainty is the main enemy of financial stability, and in such an atmosphere, banks have been rampantly preoccupied with bad debts of competitors and stopped lending to each other. Nervousness soon spread from the intra-banking sector to other financial markets. Shares, and not only banks, have collapsed significantly. And this was not surprising: since loans were often combined into mortgage-backed financial instruments, which were then sold around the world, many companies from the FTSE-100 most likely had them in their portfolio. In this situation, the infection quickly spread to the stock markets, and stocks began to fall sharply…”1

The cyclical nature of economic development was discovered as early as the 18th century, and the first crises appeared along with capitalism. The study of the crisis as one of the stages of the cyclical process in the economy was devoted to many economists of the past and the present.

However, each crisis is not like the previous one. Therefore, to a question like “Is economic recovery likely?”2 (“Is economic recovery possible?”), the answer is known - it will recover. The only question left is when?

The economic theories developed by the great economists of the 19th and 20th centuries concerning cyclical processes, such as the cycles of Kitchin, Zhuglyar, Kuznets, Kondratiev, do not give an unambiguous answer in the conditions of the modern world global market.

In this abstract, I would like to present both general information regarding the issue of the cyclical development of a market economy, as well as more up-to-date information regarding the current global financial crisis and its possible prospects and consequences.

Historical digression

The theory of economic cycles, along with the theory of economic growth, belongs to the theories of economic dynamics, which explains the movement National economy. If the theory of growth explores the factors and conditions of growth as a long-term trend, then the theory of the cycle - the causes of fluctuations in economic activity over time. The direction and degree of change in the set of indicators characterizing the equilibrium development of the economy form the economic conjuncture.

The nature of the cycle is still one of the most controversial and poorly understood problems. Researchers involved in the study of market dynamics can be conditionally divided into two areas:

Some do not recognize the existence of periodically repeating cycles in social life;

Others take a deterministic position and argue that business cycles ebb and flow with regularity.

Representatives of the first direction, to which the most authoritative scientists of the modern Western neoclassical school belong, and whose opinion I share, believe that cycles are the result of random influences (impulses or shocks) on economic system, which causes a cyclic response model, that is, cyclicity is the result of a series of independent impulses affecting the economy. The foundations of this approach were laid in 1927 by the Soviet economist E.E. Slutsky (1880-1948). But, this direction received wide recognition in the West only after 30 years.

Representatives of the second direction consider the cycle as a kind of fundamental principle, an elementary indivisible "atom" of the real world. The cycle, in their opinion, is a special, universal and absolute formation of the material world. The structure of the cycle is formed by two opposite material objects that are in it in the process of interaction.

It is interesting to note that the idea of ​​cyclicality as the fundamental principle of the world has been in the world science since the times of Ancient Greece and Ancient China (especially in the writings of Chinese Taoists).

If the problem of cyclicality has been of interest to philosophers for many centuries, then economists have paid attention to it quite recently, only at the beginning of the 19th century. The first studies of crisis phenomena in the economy appeared in the works of J. Sismondi (1773-1842), K. Rodbertus-Yagentsov (1805-1875) and T. Malthus (1766-1834). Moreover, the problems of the crisis and the cycle, as a rule, were dealt with by representatives of side currents of economic thought. Economists of the orthodox direction rejected the idea of ​​cyclicity as contrary to Say's law, according to which demand is always equal to supply. Therefore, the old classics A. Smith, D. Riccardo, J.St. Mill, A. Marshall, the phenomenon of the cycle, if considered, then casually, as a private and fleeting movement. In addition, neither A. Smith nor D. Riccardo were witnesses of economic cycles.

Phases of cyclic development

The economic cycle is usually divided into separate periods, or phases. There are two main classifications of the phases of the cyclical development of the economy: four-phase and two-phase models.

Four-phase business cycle model

The four-phase structure of the cycle, usually called the classical one, includes the phases of crisis, depression, recovery and recovery. Each of them is characterized by certain quantitative characteristics and qualitative features.

The main quantitative parameter of the cycle is the change in volume indicators such as gross domestic product (GDP), gross national product (GNP) and national income (NI). In the past, the first place was given to the volume of industrial production. However, at present, taking into account the significant reduction in the share of both industrial and total material production in the total GDP, it is more preferable to consider changes in the level of GDP as a whole (the latter, of course, does not mean that the dynamics of its individual components are not revealed within this indicator). It is the general change in the volume of manufactured products (both tangible and intangible) that serves as the basis for dividing the classical cycle into four phases (see Fig. 1).

Rice. 1. Four-phase business cycle model3

I - crisis, II - depression, III - recovery, IV - rise.

A is the point of the first (pre-crisis) maximum rise in production.

B is the point of maximum decline in production.

A1 is the point of the second rise, at which the pre-crisis output is reached.

A2 - the point of the second maximum rise in production.

In the first phase (crisis) there is a fall (reduction) in production to a certain minimum level; in the second (depression), the decline in production stops, but there is still no growth; in the third (revival) there is an increase in production to the level of its highest pre-crisis volume; in the fourth (rise), production growth goes beyond the pre-crisis level and develops into an economic boom. In this case, the three phases (crisis, depression and revival) represent a kind of "failure" on the way of ascent of production to a higher quantitative mark. It is obvious that any cycle and each of its phases have a certain duration. Consequently, even a purely quantitative description of the cycle, together with the phases included in it, makes it possible to determine the spasmodic dynamics of the economy of both a single country and a group of countries.

Moreover, each of the four phases is distinguished by specific and rather typical features.

During the crisis, the demand for the main factors of production, as well as for consumer goods and services, decreases, and the volume of unsold products increases. As a result of a decrease in sales, prices, profits of enterprises, household incomes and state budget revenues decrease, loan interest increases (money rises in price), loans are reduced. With an increase in defaults, credit ties are disrupted, the prices of stocks and other securities are falling rapidly, which is accompanied by a panic on the stock exchanges, mass bankruptcies of firms occur and unemployment rises sharply.

During the period of depression, stagnation occurs in the economy, the reduction in investment and consumer demand stops, the volume of unsold products decreases, mass unemployment persists at a low level of prices. But the process of renewal of fixed capital begins, more modern technologies production, the prerequisites for future economic growth are gradually formed when so-called “growth points” appear.

During the period of recovery, the demand for factors of production and consumer goods increases, the process of renewal of fixed capital accelerates, the loan interest decreases (money becomes cheaper), sales of finished products and prices increase, and unemployment decreases.

During the uphill period, acceleration affects the dynamics aggregate demand, production and marketing, on the renewal of fixed capital. In this phase, there is an active construction of new enterprises and the modernization of old ones, interest rates are falling, prices are rising and profits, household incomes and state budget revenues are increasing. Cyclical unemployment is falling to its minimum.

Two-Phase Business Cycle Model

When describing the phase structure of the cyclicity itself, modern economists usually use another version that differs from the classical one.

In this version, the cycle breaks down into the following elements:

1) peak (the point at which the actual output reaches its highest volume);

2) reduction (the period during which there is a decrease in the volume of output and which ends with a bottom, or sole);

3) bottom, or sole (the point at which the real output of production reaches the smallest volume);

4) rise (the period during which there is an increase in real output).

With such a structuring of the economic cycle, in the end, only two main phases are distinguished in it: ascending and descending, i.e. rise and fall in production, its "rise" and "fall" (see Fig. 2).

Rice. 2. Two-phase business cycle model4

I - downward wave (reduction in production),

II—upward wave (rise in production)

The wave-like curve shown in the graph reflects the cyclical fluctuations in output (GDP) with peaks B and F and the lowest point of decline (bottom) D. The time interval between two points that are in the same stages of fluctuations (in this case, between points B and F) is determined by as one period of a cycle, which, in turn, consists of two phases: descending (from B to D) and ascending (from D to F).

At the same time, the wave-like curve of cyclic fluctuations is located on the chart around a straight line of the so-called “secular” trend, depicting a long-term trend in the economic growth of gross domestic product and having a positive slope (the trend line always goes in the direction from “southwest” to “northeast” ). As for the intensity of fluctuations, it is measured by their amplitude, which is determined by the deviation of the peak and bottom points from the trend line (these are the distances BG, DH and FI on the chart). Depending on the amplitude of fluctuations, it is customary to distinguish three main varieties (three forms) of the economic cycles themselves: first, converging (or damping) cycles, characterized by a decreasing amplitude over time; second, divergent (or explosive) cycles with increasing amplitude; thirdly, constants with a constant amplitude over a certain period of time.

It should be added that in the course of considering specific elements and periods of cyclicity, the economic literature uses rather variegated terminology, which sometimes differs in content from the definitions of the classical phases of the cycle. In particular, this applies to such concepts associated with the downward phase of the cycle as depression, recession, stagnation and stagflation. The term depression is identified, for example, with a long-term decline in production lasting several years, which is accompanied by a high level of unemployment. Hence the world crisis of 1929-1933. called the "Great Depression". A recession is also understood as a decline in production, but observed for six or more months in a row. The period of recession, characterized by stagnant phenomena in the economy, is often called stagnation, and in the case of intertwining crisis processes with accelerated inflation (rising prices), it is denoted by the hybrid concept of stagflation.

Types of business cycles

All cycles in reality are not similar to each other, each has its own specific features, interweaving. At the same time, each crisis arises as if unexpectedly and is caused by some completely exceptional circumstances. In the period between crises, as well as at sea in clear weather, disturbances are possible, “lambs” in the form of partial, small and intermediate recessions, which gave reason to talk about different types of economic crises.

Economic science, based on the analysis of economic practice throughout the history of its development, distinguishes several types of economic cycles, which are called waves. They are usually given the names of scientists who have devoted special studies to this problem. The most famous are the cycles of N.D. Kondratiev (50-60 years), called "long waves", the cycles of S. Kuznets (18-25 years), i.e. “medium waves”, cycles of K. Zhuglyar (10 years) and short cycles of J. Kitchen (2 years and 4 months).

The development of the theory of long waves began in 1847, when the English scientist H. Clark, drawing attention to the 54-year gap between the crises of 1793 and 1847, suggested that this gap was not accidental. W. Jevons was the first to use the statistics of oscillations in the analysis of long waves in order to explain a phenomenon new to science. The original statistical processing of materials is contained in the works of the Dutch scientists J. Gederen and S. Wolf when considering technical progress as a factor of cyclicity.

It is impossible not to note the contribution of K. Marx to the development of the theory of economic crises. He studied short cycles, called periodic cycles, or crises of overproduction.

A special place in the development of the theory of cyclicity belongs to the Russian scientist N.D. Kondratiev. His study covers the development of England, France and the United States over a period of 100-150 years, in which material is summarized from the end of the 18th century. (1790) on indicators such as the average level of trade, the extraction and consumption of coal, the production of pig iron and lead, that is, in essence, he carried out a multivariate analysis of economic growth. As a result of these studies, N.D. Kondratiev identified three large cycles: cycle 1 from 1787 to 1814 - an upward wave and from 1814 to 1951 - a downward wave; II cycle from 1844 to 1875 - an upward wave and from 1870 to 1896 - a downward wave; III cycle from 1896 to 1920 - upward wave.

The concept of "long waves" N.D. Kondratiev in the 1930s caused a sharp controversy in Russia. Supporters of the “automatic” collapse of capitalism accused Kondratiev of apologetics of capitalism, since according to his theory, the capitalism of a developed market economy was recognized as having mechanisms of self-propulsion and a way out of economic crises. N.D. Kondratiev was arrested and killed as an enemy of the people. Reality has proven him right.

In the current century, such world-famous scientists as Schumpeter, S. Kuznets, K. Clark, W. Mitchell, P. Boccara, D. Gordon and others have been studying long waves. In Russia, these processes are being studied by Yu. Yakovetsu L. Klimenko, S. Menshikov and others.

Crises in the 20th century

RIA Novosti on its website5 provides a history of economic crises.

Yes, in 1914 The international financial crisis was triggered by the outbreak of the First World War. The reason is the total sale of securities of foreign issuers by the governments of the USA, Great Britain, France and Germany to finance military operations. This crisis, unlike others, did not spread from the center to the periphery, but began almost simultaneously in several countries after the warring parties began to liquidate foreign assets. This led to a collapse in all markets, both commodity and money. The banking panic in the US, UK and some other countries was mitigated by the timely intervention of central banks.

The next world economic crisis, associated with post-war deflation (an increase in the purchasing power of the national currency) and a recession (a decline in production), occurred in 1920-1922. The phenomenon was associated with banking and currency crises in Denmark, Italy, Finland, Holland, Norway, the USA and Great Britain.

1929-1933 - during the Great Depression

On October 24, 1929 (Black Thursday), the New York Stock Exchange experienced a sharp decline in stocks, marking the beginning of the largest economic crisis in the history of the world. The value of securities fell by 60-70%, business activity dropped sharply, and the gold standard for major world currencies was abolished. After the First World War, the US economy developed dynamically, millions of shareholders increased their capital, consumer demand grew rapidly. And all at once collapsed. The most solid stocks of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, the General Electric Company and the General Engine Company lost up to two hundred points during the week. By the end of the month, shareholders had lost over $15 billion. By the end of 1929, the fall in stock prices reached a fantastic amount of 40 billion dollars. Firms and factories closed, banks burst, millions of unemployed wandered in search of work. The crisis raged until 1933, and its effects were felt until the end of the 1930s.

Industrial production during this crisis decreased in the US by 46%, in the UK by 24%, in Germany by 41%, in France by 32%. Stock prices of industrial companies fell in the US by 87%, in the UK by 48%, in Germany by 64%, in France by 60%. Unemployment reached colossal proportions. According to official data, in 1933 there were 30 million unemployed in 32 developed countries, including 14 million in the USA.

The first post-war world economic crisis began at the end of 1957 and continued until mid-1958. It covered the USA, Great Britain, Canada, Belgium, the Netherlands and some other capitalist countries. Industrial production in the developed capitalist countries fell by 4%. The army of unemployed has reached almost 10 million people.

The economic crisis that began in the United States at the end of 1973, in terms of breadth of coverage of countries, duration, depth and destructive power, significantly surpassed the global economic crisis of 1957-1958 and, in a number of characteristics, approached the crisis of 1929-1933. During the crisis in the United States, industrial production fell by 13%, in Japan by 20%, in Germany by 22%, in Great Britain by 10%, in France by 13%, in Italy by 14%. Share prices in just one year - from December 1973 to December 1974 - fell in the USA by 33%, in Japan by 17%, in the FRG by 10%, in Great Britain by 56%, in France by 33%, in Italy by 28%. The number of bankruptcies in 1974 compared with 1973 increased by 6% in the USA, by 42% in Japan, by 40% in the FRG, by 47% in Great Britain, and by 27% in France. By mid-1975, the number of completely unemployed in the developed capitalist countries had reached 15 million. In addition, more than 10 million were placed on part-time work or temporarily laid off from enterprises. The real incomes of working people have fallen everywhere.

In 1973, there was also the first energy crisis, which began with the filing of the OPEC member countries, which reduced the volume of oil production. Thus, black gold miners tried to raise the cost of oil on the world market. On October 16, 1973, the price of a barrel of oil rose by 67% - from $3 to $5. In 1974, the cost of oil reached $12.

Black Monday 1987. On October 19, 1987, the US stock index Dow Jones Industrial collapsed by 22.6%. Following the American market, the markets of Australia, Canada, and Hong Kong collapsed. Possible cause of the crisis: the outflow of investors from the markets after a strong decline in the capitalization of several large companies.

The Mexican Crisis occurred in 1994-1995.

In the late 1980s, the Mexican government pursued a policy of attracting investment to the country. In particular, officials opened a stock exchange and brought most of the Mexican state-owned companies to the site. In 1989-1994, a flood of foreign capital poured into Mexico. The first manifestation of the crisis was the flight of capital from Mexico: foreigners began to fear an economic crisis in the country. In 1995, $10 billion was withdrawn from the country. A crisis in the banking system began.

In 1997 - Asian crisis

The biggest drop in the Asian stock market since World War II. The crisis is a consequence of the departure of foreign investors from the countries of Southeast Asia. The reason is the devaluation of the national currencies of the region and the high level of deficit in the balance of payments of the countries of Southeast Asia. According to economists, the Asian crisis has reduced global GDP by $2 trillion.

In 1998 - Russian crisis

One of the most severe economic crises in the history of Russia. Reasons for the default: a huge public debt of Russia, low world prices for raw materials (Russia is a major supplier of oil and gas to the world market) and a pyramid of government short-term bonds, which the Russian government could not pay on time. The exchange rate of the ruble against the dollar in August 1998 - January 1999 fell 3 times - from 6 rubles. per dollar up to 21 rubles. per dollar.

Experts predicted the beginning of another powerful economic crisis by 2007-2008. In America, the collapse of the oil markets was predicted, in Eurasia - the complete defeat of the dollar.

Features of economic fluctuations in the 20th century

A general idea of ​​the course of the cyclical development of the economy after the Second World War is given by information on quantitative fluctuations in industrial production in a number of leading countries where the market economy system has long been established (Table 1).

Table 1. Duration and depth of fall

Industrial production (highest to lowest)

During the post-war world crises*6

From the second half of the 50s of the XX century. economic crises usually took on global proportions, embracing to varying degrees the leading countries of America, Europe and Asia. An exception was the first post-war crisis of 1948-1949, which seriously hit the US economy, at the same time as rapid economic growth was observed in the FRG and Japan. The 1990s were marked by uneven growth and large discrepancies in its rates in the leading countries of the modern world. So, in 1993, Germany, France and some other states of Western Europe experienced a recession in the economy, and in 1995-1996. - stagnation. Japan in 1997-1999. engulfed a real crisis, which manifested itself in a reduction in production and financial shocks, which was replaced in 2000 by a very sluggish recovery in the economic situation.

It should be noted that since the 1980s 20th century Financial crises have become an essential element of economic cycles. During this time they shook national economies 93 countries (5 developed and 88 developing). The most acute financial crises were characteristic of the 1990s, which include, first of all, the Western European crisis of 1992, the Mexican one of 1994–1995, the Asian one of 1997–1998, and the Russian and Latin American crisis of 1998–1999. and Argentine 2001

Observed in the 70's and 80's. a certain synchronization of economic cycles clearly gave way in the 1990s to their desynchronization. Against this background, for 10 years there has been a powerful recovery of the US economy, the longest in the history of the country, which accounts for almost a third of world GDP. Such a long rise is in many ways unlike the previous upward phases of the cycle. The decisive influence on it is now exerted by such internal factors as the mass development of new resource-saving technologies, an increase in the share of science-intensive products, and the priority nature of investments in education, healthcare, science and technology. At the same time, one of the main external factors of the unusually long rise in PITA was the very desynchronization of the world cycle, in which other countries experienced either weak economic growth or crisis and stagnant processes.

Global financial crisis of the 21st century

US economy

America's economy generates $11 trillion in GDP7. Chart 1 clearly shows the growth of the US economy from the beginning of the century to the present.

Diagram 1. US GDP and its spending structure

For clarity, let's look at this chart in logarithmic form (diagram 2):

Chart 2. Logarithmic US GDP and its spending structure

As you can see from the diagram, growth is constant.

According to Yegor Gaidar8, “the American economy has been the motor of the world conjuncture over the past 50 years.” Now its share in global GDP (according to purchasing power parity) is about 20%, in the capitalization of world financial markets - 40%.

“With an open capital market, any recession in America affects the economies of other countries. This influence has been growing in recent years. The reaction of financial markets to economic problems in America is paradoxical. The trigger for a slowdown in global growth is usually a recession in the United States. It would seem, based on common sense, that when the American economy is bad, capital should flow to other markets. The reaction of investors is usually the opposite. Capitals in the conditions of unfavorable world conjuncture come to the markets of US treasury bonds. The year 2001 clearly showed this.”9

Economy of Russia

The economic growth in Russia began in 1997 after overcoming the post-socialist recession associated with the collapse of the Soviet economy, the restructuring of the most important economic institutions. In 1998, it was interrupted by a sharp deterioration in the world economic situation, the outflow of capital from many emerging markets (including Russia), the fall in oil prices (in real terms) to an unprecedented low level over the past 30 years. Growth recovered in 1999 and has continued for 9 years since then. Its average rate over this period is 6.9% per year.

In the beginning, growth was of a recovery nature. Its main source was the use of production facilities created during the Soviet era. But starting from 2003-2004, it increasingly acquired an investment character. The growth rate of investment in fixed capital is at a consistently high level. In 2007 they exceeded 20%.

The Russian economy, a market economy (and predominantly private), integrating into the system of global markets, since 1992 has a currency convertible for current, and since 2007 for capital transactions, a stable situation in the financial and monetary system. At the same time, the incomes of the population (in real terms) over the past 8 years have been growing at a rate exceeding 10% per year.

The global financial crisis and its aftermath

Alex Breumer writes: “A long period of rapid real estate inflation and historically low interest rates led to a surge in consumer credit during the period 1997-2007. In an atmosphere of ease and freedom of handling money, there was an increase in self-esteem and the availability of mortgages, amounting to £ 16 billion at 8% per annum. But even in such market conditions, firms that specialize in mortgages for people with bad credit have raised rates significantly - in some cases, increasing standard rates by 2.5%. This meant that lenders increased rates to an astounding 11.5%, doubling the Bank of England's base rate. Other companies have refused mortgages. Leading ratings agency Standard & Poor's has warned that for borrowers with bad credit, the rate could go up to 60%.

This is how the crisis developed in America, and this is how it continued to develop in Russia. All the most interesting things in the Russian economy began to happen by the end of the third quarter of 2008: the shutdown of blast furnaces at metallurgists, the fall of stock markets, etc. Alexander Laputin, head of the investment consulting department at FC Otkritie.

Everyone is interested in the question raised by the American journalist “Is economic recovery likely?” (“Is economic recovery possible?”). However, there are already positive forecasts “The recession will be tough, but it is possible to avoid depression. Governments have taken steps to avoid the collapse of the banking sector. Rising unemployment and business failures are inevitable. However, governments cannot afford to lose the battle to restore banking stability. If previous measures prove ineffective, others will be taken.”10

Conclusion

According to the baseline forecast prepared by UN economists, the global economy in 2009 expects a decline of 0.4 percent in the pessimistic scenario, and growth of 1.6 percent in the optimistic scenario.11 The forecast for the Russian economy is growth of 3-3.5 percent. And this is at best. According to FBK experts, GDP will not be able to grow at all, and, quite possibly, will decrease by 4 percent compared to 2008. Such a negative trend Russian economy already predetermined by a number of factors. “First of all, this is a significant drop in the Russian stock market, which has had an impact on the real sector of the economy,” said Igor Nikolaev, director of the strategic analysis department at FBK. - The next factor is the decline in world prices for the main raw materials of Russian exports. After all, due to the contraction of global aggregate economic demand, there is no reason to increase these prices. Another factor is the accelerated indexation of tariffs of natural monopolies, which has a depressing effect on the economy.”

As a result, due to the complete uncertainty about the coming year, financiers expect a lot of surprises from 2009, and not the most pleasant ones.

When asked by a journalist about the timing of the end of the global crisis, Yegor Gaidar replied: “The basic hypothesis, which is followed by a significant part of the expert community, is that this can happen between the fourth quarter of 2009 and the first half of 2010 ... It is now obvious that the current crisis became the most severe since the Great Depression. They need to be managed. The world will be different now."

Bibliography

Alex Brummer. The crunch. Random House Business Books, 2008.

Deloitte. global economic outlook. 1st quarter 2009. http://deloitte.com/dtt/article/0.1002.cid%253D241892.00.html, 2009.

R. Preston McAfee. Introduction to Economic Analysis. http://www.introecon.com, 2006.

Introductory course in economic theory. M.: INFRA-M, 1997.

Gaidar E. "The dollar will not collapse under any circumstances." Interview with the Izvestia newspaper, February 10, 2009.

Gaidar E. Russia and the global economic crisis // Bulletin of Europe, volume XXII-XXIII, 2008.

History of world economic crises. Reference. http://www.rian.ru/crisis_spravki/20080917/151357556.html, 2008.

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Mamedov O.Yu. Modern economy. M: Phoenix., 1996.

Savin A. Obstacle race. Who and how finished in 2008 // Financial director. - 2009. No. 1.

Economic Theory: Textbook. - Ed. correct and additional / Under vol. ed. academician V.I. Vidyapina, A.I. Dobrynina, G.P. Zhuravleva, L.S. Tarasevich.-M: INFRA-M, 2005 (Higher education).

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www.minfin.ru

1 Alex Brummer. The crunch. P.143

3 http://www.zepul.com/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=29

4 http://www.zepul.com/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=30

5 http://www.rian.ru/crisis_spravki/20080917/151357556.html

6 http://www.zepul.com/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=30

7 R. Preston McAfee. Introduction to Economic Analysis. p.56

8 Gaidar E. What a recession, creator!

9 Ibid.

10 David Kern. Is economic recovery likely?

11 http://www.financialdirector.ru/reader.htm?id=780