Following our previous post comparing Russia and Ukraine, we have checked the Russian population estimates from the Total Economic Database of the Conference Board and the OECD. Comprehensive data comparison includes population counting because it is used in the per capita estimates, which is an economic variable best describing the real economic performance of a given economy. As we reported, the TED likely includes the population of Crimea in the total Russian population. Figure 1 shows the evolution of the total population in Russia since 1960. There is a significant step in the total population between 2013 and 2014, i.e. the year of Crimea reunification with the Russian Federation.
Since we compare three major sources of economic information (TED, Maddison Project Database, and the OECD) it is instructive to present the OECD estimates. As mentioned before, the MPD and TED population estimates for Russia are identical. In Figure 1, includes the OECD population estimates for Russia and demonstrates the deviation from the TED in 2014. There was no reunification according to the OECD. It is another example of a political approach to economic data. As more independent economic sources, the TED and MPD demonstrate an economic approach to economic parameters. The OECD is driven by the policies of the state parties of the organization. At the same time, the MPD and TED do not exclude Crimea from the Ukrainian economy. The OECD does not publish data for Ukraine but one can suggest that the Crimean economy is somehow included in the Ukrainian economic statistics. Such an approach would introduce significant bias in the Ukrainian economic statistics due to the large differences in economic performance. Figure 2 presents the annual population increment and highlight the spike in 2014 in the TED data.
Figure 1. Total
population in Russia since 1960. There is a step from 2013 to 2014 in the TED
estimate.
Figure 2. Annual
population increment in Russia as reported by the TED and OECD.
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