شهاب الدین شکری

This paper is an empirical attempt to investigate bilateral trade flow between Iran and Russia. To this end, we used statistical analyses on macroeconomic series over the period of 1991-2017. Results revealed that there is a significant statistical difference in terms of exports between Iran and Russia, and that there has always been a buyer-seller dialogue between the two countries. According to the Export-Import Similarities (EIS), Iran and Russia represented low potential complementarity between the years 2001 and 2017, which indicated that there is more trade competitiveness rather than trade complementarities between the two countries. Results from the statistical tests of Friedman and Kruskal-W revealed that the service sector has played an important role in creating value in Russia’s economy. In addition, there is a statistical significant difference with respect to Iran’s exports to Russia in terms of Iran and Russia’s sanctions and Russia’s membership to WTO. During the sanctions imposed by the West, when Russia and Iran’s GDP always decreases, they find each other as regional allies and try to strengthen their bilateral economic relationship. However, there is an obvious lack of diversity in Russian and Iranian export supplies and the volume of bilateral trade between them is not expected to increase in the future. Russia and Iran have failed to establish adequate economic, technical and educational ties and there is no active economic diplomacy between them. As a result, developing a clear program for the promotion of bilateral trade is a strategic priority, which must be operationalized by politicians.

One of the most important issues in the world economy is the concept of energy security and the study of its various dimensions in different countries. It is of great importance for Russia as one of the largest oil and gas producing countries in Northern Asia and the world. This study seeks to measure various aspects of energy security in Russia using the factor analysis model. The results show a high degree of interdependence between the two variables of economic growth and energy intensity in Russia. The results of the EFA also show that the two factors, including the general factor and the investment science factor, can explain about 85% of the variance of the observed variables. Moreover, the results of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and its impact on energy security demonstrate the need to separate the short-term effects of the conflict on energy security from the long-term effects. Russia suffers from the problem of energy stickiness due to its economic and political structure and will lag behind the West in the medium- and long-term renewable energy replacement program.

The main purpose of this research was to examine the key metrics of the Russian digital economy and influencing factors affecting the digital economy development in Russia during the period of 2010-2020. One-way ANOVA was conducted to compare the three indicators of e-government. Results from LSD statistics indicated that there was a significant difference between the telecommunications indexes and human capital. The correlation matrix of economic influencing factors in Russia in terms of ICT application revealed that there has been a balance between the various economic sectors. Results of the Kruskal–Wallis test demonstrated that there was a significant difference between Russian financial institutions in terms of cyber-attacks. Based on the refinery methods of factor analysis, Pearson's correlation coefficient, and multiple regression model, five variables GDP, GDP per capita, R&D expenditure, cyber security, and consumer price index were removed from the analysis, and the results showed that the human capital has a significant positive impact on the development of the digital economy in Russia. Despite the significant explanatory role of the human capital index, this study strongly recommended considering the other variables, both predictive and control variables, to explain the variance in the development of digital economy in Russia.