Russian economic reforms of the 1990s triggered off the massive economic transformation that went hand in hand with worsening of the life prospects of the population, rising of unemployment, inflation, personal debts and creating social unrests among other security issues. The new economic perspectives offered by the free and open market created the previously unthinkable incentives for many people. Borrowing and lending became fully legal endeavors and the new economic order offered unprecedented opportunities and a variety of consumer goods and services that were previously unavailable. One of the outcomes of this process was the sharp increase in the number of debts and personal insolvency issues. It appears that many Russian citizens lacked the financial literacy and healthy judgement in their financial management that led to the problems of economic insolvency debt. This paper focuses on the issue of personal economic and financial security in Russian Federation. We analyze the available data before and after the economic crisis of the 2007-2009 and the recent sanctions to demonstrate the patterns of borrowing behavior of the Russians. Our results show that borrowing decreased in the recent months following the introduction of economic sanctions which can be explained by the overall feeling of uncertainty and the fear of economic collapse of various households. We argue that good financial literacy might increase the basic economic awareness and contribute to the better security in the everyday life in the Russian Federation.
Our paper tackles the issue of the European energy security and economic growth. Specifically, it evaluates the relationship between natural gas consumption and economic growth in the European Union (EU). Channels along which natural gas is supplied to the EU energy markets yield dependence from the Russian Federation which presents a threat to the European energy security. Our sample includes panel time series data over the period from 1997 to 2011 for a 26 EU countries. Based on neoclassical growth model, we create a multivariate model including gross fixed capital formation and total labor forces of a country as additional explanatory variables. Using panel cointegration tests, we found that there exists a long-run relationship between economic growth, natural gas consumption, labor and capital. In the short-run there is bidirectional causality between natural gas consumption and economic growth. The causality running from economic growth to natural gas consumption is positive. On the other hand, the causality, which runs from natural gas consumption to economic growth, is negative.