Russia’s growing wheat export business: What drives export growth, trade stability and pricing strategies?

在过去20年里，俄罗斯扩大了小麦出口业务，取代美国成为世界上最大的小麦出口国。尽管与俄罗斯军队入侵乌克兰有关，但据预测，俄罗斯仍将是世界市场的主要小麦供应国。俄罗斯的小麦贸易模式预计将维持向高度依赖进口的南方国家交付小麦，同时在世界市场上与西方出口商竞争。尽管俄罗斯正在塑造国际小麦贸易体系，但缺乏对俄罗斯小麦贸易的实证研究。特别是，俄罗斯经常限制其小麦出口，这减少了国际市场上的小麦供应，并加剧了价格上涨。此外，随着俄罗斯公司相对于跨国公司的重要性上升，参与俄罗斯小麦出口业务的出口公司的数量也增加了。现有的关于俄罗斯小麦贸易的文献建立在“传统的”贸易和产业组织理论的基础上，使用的是国家层面的汇总数据。因此，贸易公司的异质性对贸易绩效的作用尚未被考虑，例如在公司规模和垂直一体化程度方面。该项目旨在从全球粮食安全的角度对俄罗斯小麦出口业务进行实证评估。这些分析以梅里茨的“新”新贸易理论(NNTT)为基础，着眼于企业差异来解释贸易关系及其决定因素。关于俄罗斯小麦出口的独特的特定交易企业级海关数据为在NNTT背景下调查俄罗斯的国际小麦贸易关系提供了机会。该项目将从出口增长、贸易稳定和定价策略三个相互关联的方面来调查俄罗斯的贸易表现。计量经济学分析将按重力、持续期和定价与市场之比模型进行。由于与供给侧条件有关的粮食安全研究很少，俄罗斯小麦贸易对进口国粮食安全的贡献将在与贸易有关的粮食安全指数中进行考察。因此，该项目将NNTT的适用范围扩大到农产品贸易，并将梅里茨方法转移到纯贸易公司。此外，这项研究的独特之处在于，通过将三个单方程模型结合在一个联立方程系统中，解决了出口增长、贸易稳定和定价战略之间的潜在相互依存关系，这是以前从未在农产品贸易方面应用过的。从政策角度来看，该项目将有助于联合国消除营养不良和饥饿的可持续发展目标。最后，该项目的工作将为设计以出口为导向的总体增长战略提供见解，这对旨在发展其农产品出口部门的国家很有价值。

In the last two decades, Russia has expanded its wheat export business replacing the US as the world’s largest wheat exporter. Despite the circumstances related to the invasion of Russian forces in Ukraine, it is forecasted that Russia will remain a dominant supplier of wheat to the world market. Russia’s wheat trade pattern is expected to sustain and wheat deliveries intended for the highly import depending countries in the South, while competing with the Western exporters on the world market. There is a lack of empirical research on Russian wheat trade, although the country is shaping the international wheat trade system. Especially, Russia has frequently restricted its wheat exports which has reduced wheat availability on international markets and exacerbated price increases. Moreover, the number of exporting firms involved in Russia’s wheat export business has increased with the importance of Russian firms rising vis-à-vis multinational companies. The existing literature on Russia’s wheat trade builds on “traditional” trade and industrial organization theories using aggregated country-level data. Thus, the role of heterogeneity of trade companies, for example in firm size and degree of vertical integration, for trade performance is not considered yet. This project aims to empirically assess the Russian wheat export business in the context of global food security. The analyzes are based on Melitz's "New" New Trade Theory (NNTT) and focus on firm differences to explain trade relations and its determining factors. Unique transaction-specific firm-level customs data on Russia’s wheat export provide the opportunity to investigate Russia’s international wheat trade relations in the context of the NNTT. The project will investigate Russia’s trade performance in terms of three interrelated aspects: export growth, trade stability and pricing strategy. The econometric analyses will be conducted by gravity, duration and pricing-to-market models. Since studies on food security related to supply-side conditions are rare, the contribution of Russia’s wheat trade to food security in import countries will be examined within a trade-related food security index. The project therefore expands the application of the NNTT towards trade of agricultural commodities and transfers the Melitz approach to pure trading companies. Furthermore, the study is unique by addressing potential interdependencies between export growth, trade stability and pricing strategy by combining the three single equation models in a simultaneous equations system, which has not been applied in the context of agricultural trade before. From a policy perspective, the project will contribute to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal of eliminating malnutrition and hunger. Finally, the project work will provide insights in designing general export-led growth strategies, valuable for countries which aim to develop their agricultural export sector.