Russian Food Import Ban – Impacts on Rural and Regional Development in Finland

This paper investigates the economic effects of the food import ban that Russia imposed vis-à-vis the European Union in 2014 on the development of two structurally different rural regions in Finland. A detailed, rural-urban dataset was compiled for use with a recursive dynamic computable general equ...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:European Countryside
Main Author: Hyytiä Nina
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Sciendo 2020
Subjects:
geo
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.2478/euco-2020-0027
https://doaj.org/article/f70fffb9cf34419984481a03c9398a3d
Description
Summary:This paper investigates the economic effects of the food import ban that Russia imposed vis-à-vis the European Union in 2014 on the development of two structurally different rural regions in Finland. A detailed, rural-urban dataset was compiled for use with a recursive dynamic computable general equilibrium model. In the medium run, the overall economic effects of the trade ban were negative for both regions, and the value added of agriculture and food industries fell notably. When the rigidities of capital availability were relaxed, regional GDP and employment increased in South Ostrobothnia as, for instance, metal industry and construction accelerated economic growth. In North Karelia, where agriculture and food industry account for a minor share of economy, other industries could not compensate the losses the ban caused. Accordingly, the impacts were dependent on the economic structure of the region.