Short-term Interest Rates and the State of Liquidity in the Russian Money Market under Conditions of the Global Financial Crisis

Abstract

During recent years the Russian money market has undergone substantial changes. The period of abundant liquidity was followed by temporary contraction in the end of 2007 and then by rapid deterioration of liquidity conditions in the second half of 2008. This paper provides the analysis of these developments, their causes and consequences. We then proceed by constructing a comprehensive model of the overnight rate on rubles on the Moscow interbank market (MIACR). We use martingale hypothesis to analyze the process of market interest rate determination and identify the liquidity effect. For this purpose we estimate the non-linear EGARCH model and calculate the contribution of different categories of explanatory variables to the interest rates dynamics and volatility. We find that, although volatile, the deviation of interbank overnight rate from BoRs policy rates can largely be explained by liquidity shocks. At the same we find the empirical confirmation of importance of exchange rate and foreign interest rates variables.