"This reliance on commodity exports makes Russia vulnerable to boom and bust cycles that follow the highly volatile swings in global commodity prices" (Introduction: Russia, Flag section, ¶ 3). In 2007, to boost the country's technology sectors, the Russian government launched an aggressive program to lessen its dependency. Few results, albeit, evolved come from the program. In the agricultural realm, Russia has begun to emerge as an exporter of grain, whereas in the past the country excelled as an importer of grain. Since 1998, when Russia experienced a financial crisis, it has averaged a 7% growth annually. This has doubled disposable incomes; consequently creating a middle class. "The Russian economy, however, was one of the hardest hit by the 2008-09 global economic crisis as oil prices plummeted and the foreign credits that Russian banks and firms relied on dried up" (Introduction: Russia, Flag section, ¶ 3). In late 2008, the Central Bank of Russia, the world's third largest bank, had to spend a third of the country's $600 billion international reserves to slow down the devaluation of the ruble.

Russia committed $200 billion for a rescue plan to enlarge liquidity in the banking industries to essentially aid the Russian banks not able to roll over major foreign debts soon due. "The economic decline appears to have bottomed out in mid-2009...

Future long-term challenges Russia still faces include high levels of corruption, a shrinking workforce, poor infrastructure and a significant need for large capital investments.
Business Cycles

Researchers who study the international correlation of output changes basically have evaluated the delivery of business cycles between industrial countries. In the book, Is Russia still driving regional economic growth?, Issues 2005-2192, Clinton Shiells, Marco Pani, and Etibar Jafarov recount that a number of previous practical studies "have investigated the determinants of economic growth within each country rather than regional growth linkages and mostly refer to the period prior to the Russian crisis" (p. 5). Havrylyshyn, Izvorski and van Rooden conducted a few studies on growth and regression in transition economies.

The studies conducted by the researchers focused on identifying an array of institutional, macroeconomics, and structural factors as grounds for economic growth in economies that are in transition. "In contrast to these previous studies, the present paper estimates the growth linkages between Russia and other CIS and Baltic countries econometrically and considers how these may have changed