Ben Bernanke's regulatory models and solving urgent problems of the financial sector of the national economy: opportunities for adaptation and application

Reutov Roman Vladimirovich ORCID: 0009-0009-8891-1469 Junior Researcher; Kurgan Branch of the Institute of Economics of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences Maxim Gorky str., 149/1, Kurgan, Kurgan region, 640018, Russia reutovrv1975@gmail.com

Orlov Sergei Nikolaevich ORCID: 0000-0001-6042-8082 Doctor of Economics Doctor of Economics, Professor, Leading Researcher; Kurgan Branch of the Institute of Economics of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences Maxim Gorky str., 149/1, Kurgan, Kurgan region, 640018, Russia orlovsn@list.ru

Introduction

In 2022, D. Diamond, F. Dybwig, B. Bernanke were nominated by the Committee for the Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel (The Committee for the Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel) for scientific contributions in the field of "Financial Intermediation and the Economy" ^[13]. The works of the nominees for the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences are devoted to the study of the factors of the collapse of American banks, determining the impact of the insolvency of credit institutions on the duration of risk escalation and the deepening of the national economic downturn, as well as finding an answer to the question whether the bankruptcies of financial institutions are an independent, in fact, key factor in a deep and protracted recession, or become solely a consequence of the crisis itself.

In the current conditions of the ongoing recession in the global economy, as in the 30s of the last century due to the transition of the world economy to a new systemic cycle of capital accumulation, it seems not only interesting, but also advisable to consider the possibilities of applying the conclusions and results of B. Bernanke's work in the context of solving urgent problems related to the regulation of the national financial and banking sector. Since it was in the research of the future head of the US Federal Reserve System in the field of analyzing the causes and consequences of the Great Depression of the 30s of the last century that the problems and solutions to the problems of minimizing the risks of financial crises on a national and global scale were conceptually presented for the first time.

The purpose of this article is an attempt to implement the scientific results of B. Bernanke's work into the processes of finding solutions to the most important issues of the modern world and national economic agenda. The scientific novelty of the presented work consists in the authors' conclusions about the need to accelerate the adoption and implementation of decisions aimed at reducing the dependence of the national economy on the influence of the US dollar through the implementation of measures aimed at de–dollarization, i.e., to maximize the reduction of the share of the US dollar in the structure of reserves of the Bank of Russia and in cross-border settlements with trading partners.

The methods of scientific research on the basis of which the initial data were transformed by the author into the results obtained: retrospective and prospective analysis, comparative approach, assessment of the dynamics of ongoing processes, description of phenomena, comparative estimates, economic and statistical processing, grouping, forecasting, etc.

Review of regulatory models in the works of B. Bernanke

In B. Bernanke's 1983 article "Non-monetary consequences of the financial crisis in the spread of the Great Depression" ^[28], financial intermediation is defined as a key element in terms of the degree of impact on the situation in the real sector of the national economy. The paper concludes that the financial insolvency of a significant number of banks has led to the destruction of established business relationships, primarily between lenders and borrowers. As a result, it took some time to establish new business communications and relationships. As a result, a deep and prolonged credit crisis broke out, affecting primarily households, farms and small businesses, which aggravated and prolonged the Great Depression ^[13].

The author stated that the economic downturn during the Great Depression of 1929-1933 became deep and protracted, largely because the bankruptcies of American banks led to the destruction of very valuable economic relations, and the resulting reduction in the supply of loans left significant "scars" on the body of the real economy ^[13]. Earlier, in the works of other authors (D. Keynes "The General theory of employment, interest and money" ^[34]; M. Friedman, A. Schwartz "The monetary history of the United States 1867-1960" ^[33]), cases of financial insolvency of banks were considered exclusively as a natural result of the economic downturn and were important for the economy only in connection with the reduction money supply, and not as a result of direct damage to investments.

In the course of presenting the proposed approach, Bernanke introduces the concept of the price of credit intermediation (CCI – the Cost of Credit Intermediation), which means the cost of directing resources on loans from end depositors (lenders) to high-quality borrowers. CCI includes the costs of conducting customer inspections, monitoring the execution of agreements, accounting, as well as expected losses resulting from lending to low-quality borrowers ^{[28, p. 263]}. The author describes the influence of the banking crisis factor on the CCI indicator: the problems of banks in 1929-1933 caused disruptions in the processes of obtaining and issuing loans, acted as a catalyst for significant unplanned difficulties in the functioning of financial resource distribution channels. The growing fears of panic among depositors led to massive withdrawal of deposits, the preventive desire of credit institutions to maintain an inflated ratio of created financial reserves to the amount of attracted deposits and, as a result, preferences in making investment decisions in favor of more liquid and reliable assets. The effect of these factors contributed to a decrease in the intermediary role of the banking system in lending to the real sector of the economy ^{[28, p. 264]}.

Bernanke analyzes the role and significance of emerging problems of credit markets for the state of the aggregate national money supply. In the case of blocking credit channels, potential borrowers are unable to raise the funds necessary to maintain their current activities or invest. Having found themselves in a similar situation, depositors are forced to direct their own previously accumulated funds to consumption. These factors limit the production potential of the economy ^{[28, p. 267]}.

In discussing the causes of the duration of the Great Depression in the United States, the author points out that theoretically the duration of the described negative phenomena is determined by the period of time necessary to create new or restore former channels of distribution of credit resources that have lost their efficiency due to failures in the economy, as well as time for rehabilitation of insolvent debtors ^{[28, p. 272]}.

In the work "Financial instability and economic indicators", financial instability is considered as a consequence of the manifestation of deficiencies in the mechanism of distribution of national wealth: the financial system becomes less efficient and cannot cope with violations of macroeconomic equilibrium in cases when potential borrowers do not have a sufficient level of equity ^{[27, p. 36]}. The inefficiency of the capital market is overcome only as borrowers' financial investments approach the full provision of projects ^{[27, p. 31]}, i.e. when financing investment projects by an entrepreneur at his own expense.

The article "Agency costs, equity and fluctuations in business" ^{[31, p. 36]} indicates that financial difficulties are a consequence of the problem of information asymmetry, when entrepreneurs privately monitor and adjust the results of projects, while lenders are forced to allocate additional resources to monitoring in order to comply with the rules of support for loan agreements. The cost of monitoring makes financing investments by entrepreneurs through borrowing from external creditors more expensive compared to using their own funds ^[13].

The joint work "The Gold Standard, Deflation and the Financial Crisis during the Great Depression" published by B. Bernanke and D. Harold in 1991 ^[32] presents three main negative aspects of the influence of the Gold Standard in force in the first half of the last century on the spread and duration of the consequences of the Great Depression.

The first aspect is the asymmetry of the national monetary policy pursued by countries with an established surplus or deficit of the balance of payments, as a necessary monetary reaction of the regulator to manage the current flows of gold between countries. Countries experiencing an influx of gold had to increase the domestic money supply, which led to an increase in inflation, respectively, in cases of shortage, the money supply decreased, which, on the contrary, contributed to deflation ^{[32, pp. 36-37]}.

The second aspect is the pyramid of reserves. Within the framework of the current Gold Standard, countries that did not have reserves of reserve currency were recommended to create convertible foreign exchange reserves as a partial (in certain cases, complete) alternative to gold reserves. At the same time, in practice, these convertible reserves were only partially provided with precious metal ^{[32, p. 38]}.

The third aspect is the insufficient powers of the national monetary regulator, primarily concerning central banks in continental Europe, where open market operations were prohibited or limited ^{[32, p. 39]}.

The authors emphasize that deflation and compliance with the principles of the Gold Standard have become key triggers for the emergence of a banking panic, and considered the importance of additional factors causing the outflow of deposits:

a) The organizational structure of credit institutions, its vulnerability to the emerging panic of depositors. Countries with "nominal banking services", that is, with a significant number of small and relatively undifferentiated credit institutions, suffered significantly more from depositor panic. In turn, in countries where universal or mixed banking was dominant according to the German or Belgian model, vulnerability to deflation turned out to be higher ^{[32, pp. 54-55]}.

b) Banks' dependence on short-term foreign liabilities. The so-called "hot" money of non-residents turned out to be significantly more sensitive to adverse financial events and situations than domestic deposits of residents. The flight of foreign depositors led not only to the loss of functionality of the banking system, but also to the loss of national reserves ^{[32, p. 55]}.

c) The experience of the 20s of the last century: countries that were in a relatively worse financial situation turned out to be more vulnerable to the resulting banking panic. Austria, Germany, Hungary and Poland suffered from hyperinflation and economic shocks in the 1930s, and they also fully experienced the banking panic in 1931 ^{[32, p. 55]}.

In the work "Macroeconomics of the Great Depression: the comparative approach" by B.Bernanke ^[29] pointed out that monetary factors played an important causal role both in the decline in prices and global production, and in the post-crisis recovery. The opinion expressed is justified by the presence of the following observations ^{[29, p. 3]}.

Firstly, the results of the analysis of the practice of functioning of the Gold Standard in the period between the world wars indicate that a significant part of the reduction in the money supply in the early 1930s was not a passive reaction of the economy to a drop in production, but to a large extent an unintended result of the interaction of insufficiently qualitatively designed financial institutions, the consequence of insufficiently adequate policies, unfavorable the emerging political and economic conditions ^{[29, pp. 3-4]}.

Secondly, for reasons that were considered primarily non-economic (political, social, historical), the governments of individual countries promptly responded to the crisis of the 1930s by refusing to use the principles of the Gold Standard, while in many countries they preferred to maintain the former currency regime, despite the obviously unfavorable consequences for foreign economic activity conditions. As a result, the countries that refused to apply the Gold Standard adjusted their national monetary policy, adjusted the management of the dynamics of the money supply and prices, which contributed to the stabilization of the situation in the national economy. In turn, countries that remained committed to the Gold Standard were forced to carry out economic activities in conditions of increasing negative effects of deflation ^{[29, p. 5]}.

The banking panic has an economically and statistically significant impact on industrial production and employment, at the same time leads to a decrease in real and nominal wages, damages the competitiveness of national exports, leads to an increase in real interest rates, and contributes to a decrease in the value of shares ^{[29, pp. 19-20]}.

In the article "The real consequences of credit disruptions: evidence of the global financial crisis" published in 2018 ^[30], B.Bernanke provided evidence of the significance of changes in the functioning of financial channels for the depth and duration of the Great Recession (by which the future laureate understood the economic crisis of 2007 – 2009), and also analyzed the importance of studying the following events and mechanisms:

1) Investors' loss of confidence in financial institutions and securitized loans, which caused panic among depositors and contributed to a reduction in the supply of loans;

2) Reduction of household balance sheets, which led to a decrease in the share of borrowed funds and a decrease in household expenses ^{[30, p. 278]}.

In conclusion, it is concluded that the total economic losses as a result of the ongoing deep financial crisis, which include the consequences of a prolonged banking panic, are extremely high. In formulating recommendations to regulatory authorities, Bernanke prescribes conservatism in ensuring a sufficient level of capitalization of credit institutions so that banks do not rely on short-term external financing, but form adequate risk assessment and management systems. Financial regulators should strive to "shed light" on the "dark corners" of the banking system, while applying a systematic or macroprudential approach to risk assessment ^{[30, p. 308]}.

Among the Russian economists who turned to the works of B. Bernanke in their research, we highlight the most notable, in our opinion, works in the field under study:

- mechanisms of the impact of the banking crisis on the development of the Great Depression (Nureyev R.M., Latov Yu.V. ^[3]);

- risks associated with the functioning of systemically significant monopolistic financial institutions during the crisis of 2008 (O.O.Komolov ^[11]);

- the use of fiscal incentives in the economy (Luchenok A.I., Shuleyko O.L., Mukha D.V., etc. ^[12]).

At the current stage of the transition of the world economy to a new systemic cycle of capital accumulation, the Russian national economy remains dependent on the inflow of foreign currency (due to increased external constraints, there is no stable positive balance of payments) and the formation of necessary financial reserves denominated in foreign currency by a significant part of economic entities. In addition, the banking model of the financial market (bank based financial system) prevails in the national economy, which together allows us to conclude that the conclusions formulated in the works of B. Bernanke and the results obtained can be applied to modern both global and Russian economic reality.

Discussion

In the review of publications presented above, the following aspects, in our opinion, are of particular interest in the context of the current situation in the global and national economy:

- the impact of the Gold Standard rules on the American economy, which led to a decrease in the money supply and the realization of deflation risks, on the depth and duration of the Great Depression;

- deterioration of household welfare and financial stability as a likely cause of an economic recession;

- the possibility of extrapolating the presented conclusions and recommendations in relation to modern economic conditions and challenges of the Russian Federation.

The gold standard as the principle of functioning of the monetary system, in which the national monetary unit is provided with a precious metal, and a fixed exchange rate operates in settlements between countries based on establishing the ratio of national currency exchange rates to the unit of measurement of gold weight, ceased to exist in the last century (Britain refused to follow the principles of the Gold Standard in 1931, the United States in In 1933, the final complete abolition of the system in the world (gold-dollar standard) occurred in 1971.

The displacement of the Gold Standard and the priority use of the US dollar in the reserves of national banks and in international settlements led to the establishment of the dominance of the so-called dollar standard.

To date, the US dollar continues to play a dominant role in international reserves and settlements. According to SWIFT data, by the end of February 2024, the share of the US dollar in international settlements was 46.56%, the share of the euro was 23.25%) ^[7].

If during the period of the Gold Standard rules, deflation, inelasticity of wages and limitation of the powers of the monetary regulator were considered the key factors that caused the beginning of the Great Depression, then currently the use of the US dollar in international settlements by countries causes a record level of inflation in the global economy for several decades and, above all, in the country issuing the reserve currency. For example, in November 2022, the official growth rate of consumer prices (CPI) in the United States amounted to 7.1% year-on-year, while the cost of food increased by 10.6% (by 10.9%) ^[10].

According to the review of the Bank of Russia's asset management in foreign currencies and gold No. 1 (61) 2022 ^[18], the share of government securities of foreign issuers in the assets (reserves) of the Bank of Russia as of 30.06.2021 amounted to 38%, the share of deposits placed on the accounts of foreign counterparties and balances on the accounts of foreign correspondents reached 24.1%, the specific weight of gold was 21.7%.

The current state of the Russian economy, stability and pace of development are determined primarily by the dynamics of such macroeconomic and financial indicators as: the inflation index (including the so-called imported inflation); the exchange rate of the Russian ruble, determined by the state of the country's balance of payments and domestic demand for foreign currency to pay for imports, payment by residents of non-resident capital investments; the level of execution of income items the consolidated budget, including the volume and stability of foreign exchange earnings, financial instruments used in balancing within the approved boundaries of the country's budget deficit. Accordingly, dependence on the US dollar and other foreign currencies is determined primarily by the volume and structure of national reserves (savings), capital raising and borrowing denominated in foreign currencies, which has a direct impact on the state of the above-mentioned macroeconomic indicators, and the existing and emerging imbalances may lead to the activation of negative factors and the development of crisis phenomena in the functioning of the country's financial system and in the economy as a whole.

Securities and deposits denominated in US dollars held in the reserves of the Bank of Russia are characterized by the increasing risks inherent in such assets in conditions of economic turbulence. Due to the record increase in the inflation rate recorded in the United States in recent years, the currency risk against the US dollar as a financial asset is systematically realized. In addition, the probability of the issuer's default risk (asset seizure, refusal to fulfill obligations on securities, return of deposits, etc.) systematically increases. Thus, securities denominated in US dollars are characterized, in addition to currency, by country, market, interest rate, operational, liquidity and other risks. In other words, taking into account the exponential growth in recent years of the US government debt (currently more than $35.2 trillion) and the record value of accumulated unsecured liabilities in the economy (more than $ 218.4 trillion), the likelihood of a repeat of the banking panic of the Great Depression is rapidly increasing.

Taking into account the significant share of securities and deposits placed in foreign jurisdictions of the assets of the Bank of Russia, in 2022 there was the largest implementation of financial risks in the history of assets denominated in US dollars by a number of countries due to the refusal of issuers, depositories, counterparties to fulfill obligations on assets owned by the Bank Russia. The European Union announced the seizure of $24.5 billion (€23 billion) of assets of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation in the EU member states. The amount of seized funds of the Bank of Russia is approximately $ 300 billion, of which about $ 100 billion. – in US dollars ^[9].

Taking into account the above, permanent actions aimed at de-dollarization of assets and settlements should be taken as a priority in Russia, up to the suspension and subsequent abandonment of the use of the US dollar as a foreign currency used for international settlements and as a reserve asset of the Bank of Russia. The authors agree with those experts who consider the implementation of this scenario to be inevitable ^[23].

By analogy with the above review of the impact of the application of the principles of the Gold Standard on the aggregate money supply during the Great Depression, we present the results of the analysis of the dependence of the values of the indicator of the Russian gross domestic product, in current prices, billion rubles ^[20] and the indicator of the share of the US dollar in the assets of the Bank of Russia (according to the review of the Bank of Russia's asset management activities in in foreign currencies and gold, in %) ^[18] for the period from the 2nd quarter of 2006 to the 2nd quarter of 2021.

The analysis of the presented data allows us to draw preliminary conclusions about the potential in the form of an additional increase in national GDP (provided that the influence of other factors on the dynamics of the indicator values remains at the same level) in the case of a systematic continuous decrease in the indicator of the share of the US dollar in the reserve assets of the Bank of Russia. To date, the evidence and unambiguity of the conclusions about the need to accelerate the decline in the share of the US dollar and its exclusion from the register of assets of the Bank of Russia as a necessary condition for the growth of national GDP is perceived negatively by most experts or is not evaluated.

Figure 1.

Source: compiled by the authors according to the statistical data of the Bank of Russia ^{[18, 18]}.

Using correlation analysis, a relationship was built between the values of the Russian GDP indicator (in current prices) and the indicator of the share of the US dollar in the assets of the Bank of Russia for the period from the 2nd quarter of 2006 to the 2nd quarter of 2021, the following results were obtained: the correlation coefficient between gross domestic product and the share of the US dollar in The assets of the Bank of Russia amounted to (-)0.794, which characterizes the presence of a fairly close feedback.

Thus, the conditional degree of dependence of the value of the country's GDP indicator on the indicator of the share of the US dollar in the assets (reserves) of the Central Bank has been revealed. It should be noted that the country's GDP as a set of goods and services produced, as well as net exports, largely depends on the volume of foreign currency receipts into the country, as well as on the formation and use of national reserves by the regulator. Since incoming foreign exchange earnings directly determine the volume of net exports, imported inflation through incoming foreign currency affects the level of the final product created in the country. It is also necessary to take into account the variety of external restrictive measures imposed on our country, as well as the mechanisms for "freezing" assets of the Bank of Russia and private economic agents denominated in foreign currency accounted for in foreign depositories. An additional factor influencing reserves denominated in foreign currency is the saturation of the economy with monetary funds using channels of government spending and the monetary system, the redistribution of financial resources with the help of banking institutions and financial instruments distributed among economic agents of investment and consumer loans.

Many Russian economists actively support the idea of de–dollarization - the abandonment of US dollars in the calculations and reserves of the Bank of Russia. The authors of the article believe that the process of abandoning the use of the US dollar and the euro is irreversible for Russia. The de-dollarization of the economy as a system of economic and political measures aimed at limiting the use of foreign currency in a certain country ^{[14, p. 237]} is intended to form a new financial system in the world ^{[22, p. 113]}. According to Andronova N.E., effective de-dollarization is possible only in conditions of steady strengthening of the national currency. With the raw materials orientation of the Russian economy, the ruble will remain unstable and weak, subject to pressure from foreign currencies ^{[1, p. 548]}.

Bernanke considered the reduction of household balance sheets as one of the causes of the economic crisis of 2007-2009, which contributed to a decrease in consumer spending by economic entities.

The specifics of the Russian economic system is the continued dominance of the consumer model of household behavior over the savings model. During periods of crisis, as in the Bernanke model, there is a decrease in consumer spending of the population, while loan debt (consumer loans from banks, MFIs) increases significantly in part of the population, which is explained by the mechanism of replacing declining incomes with borrowed funds. The latter leads to a significant increase in the credit burden on the population on average in the country, the inability of part of the population to fulfill obligations on the loan received and, ultimately, to financial insolvency.

According to the Unified Federal Register of Legally Significant Information on the facts of the activities of Legal Entities, Individual Entrepreneurs and Other Economic Entities (Fedresurs), the number of citizens declared bankrupt in 2023 increased by 26.16% (350,788 people), in 2022 the growth rate was 44.23% (278,059 people) compared to 2021 ^[2].

According to the data of the Scoring Bureau, by the end of 2023, the share of Russian borrowers with five or more active loans reached 8.6%. In general, the number of Russian borrowers with multiple loans has been continuously increasing since 2019, with the largest increase in 2022 - then the proportion of customers with one loan agreement decreased by 4.5 percentage points, to 49.7%. At the same time, the share of borrowers with three loans increased by 1.1 percentage points, to 12.6%, with four loans – by 1.2 percentage points, to 6.7%, with five – by 2.4 percentage points, to 7.1%. In 2023, the main increase occurred in the group of customers with five or more loans. The share of borrowers who pay more than three loans at the same time has reached 28.6% ^[8].

Since the authors in the framework of this work did not set as a priority the task of analyzing the factors of the increase in the creditworthiness of the population, therefore, as indicators of the debt burden of the population, the article uses only the following data for the country as a whole: debt on loans granted to resident individuals, overdue debts of individuals, data on the average per capita income of the population and disposable household resources farms in Russia (annual data, percentage change from the previous period).

Table 1. Indicators of creditworthiness of the population

Source: compiled by the authors on the basis of statistical data from the Bank of Russia ^{[18, 19]}, the Federal State Statistics Service of the Russian Federation ^[20]

The presented analysis allows us to draw conclusions about the systematic excess of the values of loan debt indicators of individuals, including overdue debts, over the growth rates of per capita income of the population, household disposable resources over the analyzed period, which in the medium term may have a negative impact on the financial stability of households, since the growth rates of loan debt of individuals exceed the corresponding rates changes in the real disposable income of the population.

The above indicates the presence of a trend characterizing a gradual increase in the deficit of monetary incomes of the population to cover current needs, which contributes to the escalation of credit risks due to the insufficiency of income received by the population to cover the increasing obligations on serviced loans, as well as an increase in the number of potential bankruptcies of individuals, which, in turn, when additional negative factors arise and various types of implementation external threats contribute to the realization of a wide range of financial risks and exacerbation of crisis phenomena in the Russian economy.

The authors state agreement with the position expressed in the works of B. Bernanke on the independent significant role of banks in the country's economy, as well as the dependence of economic growth rates on the state and functioning of the financial market. An effective banking system, measures to overcome information asymmetry between borrowers and banking institutions, and restrictions on the supply of loans contribute to reducing the negative consequences of economic crises.

It should be emphasized that Bernanke's analysis of banking costs, which primarily includes screening costs (identification of high-quality borrowers in the context of information asymmetry) and their growth entails a compression and an increase in the cost of credit supply. It is necessary to strengthen control over banks by the mega-regulator over compliance with prudential norms, established standards for lending to borrowers, compliance with legislation and prevention of violations of consumer rights, including concealment of information about the full cost of loans, misseling, and other unfair practices.

The authors state that the problem of de-dollarization of the Russian economy, minimizing dependence on the availability of world currencies in settlements and national reserves, requires a speedy solution in the light of current geopolitical events and the counteraction policy and strict restrictions applied to our country (freezing of reserves, sanctions against the Moscow Stock Exchange, NCC, etc.). Following the policy of the Gold Standard in The 30s of the last century, rightly criticized by Bernanke, led many countries to a prolonged and deep economic crisis. Dependence on the US dollar, a significant share of national reserves in "toxic" currencies similarly affects the economic situation in Russia. Obviously, national reserves should be formed using other instruments based on real assets, including physical gold, other precious metals, securities of domestic companies primarily focused on production and consumption in the domestic market (enterprises of the space, nuclear and defense industries, agriculture, etc.).

Conclusions

The study presented by the authors attempts to draw historical parallels with the current situation in the global and national economies based on a review of the publications of Nobel Prize laureate B. Bernanke. The works of the former chairman of the Federal Reserve are devoted to research on the problems of the banking sector (depositor panic) in the United States in the 1930s, as well as the recession of 2007 - 2009 and the assessment of factors that determined the nature of the ongoing crisis phenomena in the global economy. Special attention is paid to the analysis of the application of the rules of the Gold Standard, the consequences of their compliance by countries, as well as the financial stability of households as an independent and important factor of key importance in the occurrence and development of economic recessions.

The results obtained are extrapolated to the current economic situation in Russia, characterized, among other things, by the continued high level of the share of the US dollar in the reserve assets of the Bank of Russia and a significant level of creditworthiness of the country's population with obviously insufficient rates of increase in real incomes.

The positive impact of the reserve policy pursued by the Bank of Russia aimed at reducing the share of the US dollar in the assets of the regulator on the dynamics of the Russian GDP indicator has been empirically proven, which confirms the validity of the proposed recommendations regarding the adjustment of national policy in the field of reserve asset management. Statistical calculations have proved the existence of a close correlation between the growth of the loan index, including overdue, debt of the country's population and the dynamics of per capita income values. The tendency of an increasing gap in the rate of change of indicators has been revealed. The analysis of the causes of this trend should be given increased attention, taking into account the escalating geopolitical situation and the current macroeconomic situation.

The results obtained within the framework of the conducted research confirm the need to accelerate the adoption and implementation of decisions aimed at reducing the dependence of the national economy on the influence of the US dollar through the implementation of measures aimed at de–dollarization, i.e., maximizing the reduction of the share of the US dollar in the structure of reserves of the Bank of Russia and in cross-border settlements with trading partner countries.

Obviously, the issues of creating effective mechanisms for de–dollarization of the Russian economy, minimizing the negative consequences of switching to settlements in national currencies with trading partner countries, lifting restrictions on "frozen" assets in foreign jurisdictions require additional detailed study and further elaboration in subsequent scientific research.

In the field of lending to the population, the results presented in the article indicate the need for state institutions to take measures aimed at preventing the occurrence of crisis phenomena in the national economy by: reducing the level of credit burden (including through the introduction of rational restrictions on the issuance of retail loans) and increasing the level of real incomes. These measures, according to the authors, should be implemented in a complex.

Currently, the Bank of Russia is taking measures to reduce the level of creditworthiness of the population by setting macroprudential limits on the issuance of consumer loans to borrowers who direct more than 80% of income to loan payments, as well as setting limits on long-term consumer loans (from five years) ^[19]. Obviously, it is necessary to continue conducting research on the problem of creditworthiness of the population in terms of determining the degree of influence of this factor on the occurrence and development of crisis phenomena in the financial market, as well as the development of scientifically sound mechanisms for reducing loan debt. Within the framework of macroprudential regulation, it seems advisable to introduce into the practice of banks the use of additional limits on lending to individuals based on a ratio similar to that used in business lending. In other words, it is possible for banks to set thresholds between loans to the public (consumer loans) and loans to legal entities (investment, commercial business loans), the excess of which is not allowed. Such a measure is designed to encourage credit institutions to focus priority attention on issuing loans to businesses, which, in turn, will contribute to the increase and development of production in the country and, as a result, increase the income level of the population. When introducing these limits, it is necessary to take into account the specifics of banks, whose corporate policy is usually based on a focus on servicing retail customers and for which lending to legal entities is not a priority for business development.

Since the situation in the global economy is interpreted by the authors as a stage of transition to a new systemic cycle of capital accumulation (Glazyev S.Yu. ^{[4, 5]}, Orlov S.N. ^{[15, 16]}, Orlov S.N., Pechonik O.I. ^[17], Arrighi G. ^{[25, 26]}, Dalio Ray ^[6], Piketty T. ^{[21, 35, 36]}, Stiglitz D., Akerlof D. ^[24]), it seems a fair analogy of the current economic situation in the country and in the world with the economic situation of the 30s of the last century. This means that the implementation of the described theoretical approaches, regulatory models, methodological recommendations, and practical solutions is not only acceptable, but it is critically important to use them correctly, adjusted for the present discrepancies in the parameters and directions of development of crisis phenomena occurring in the economy, as well as the vector of the implemented national financial policy. It is the presence of this causal relationship, in our opinion, that explains the interest shown by the expert community in the works of the Nobel laureates of 2022 in modern, essentially transitional, extremely tense and unstable financial, economic and geopolitical conditions.

Thus, in the current economic situation, it seems possible and necessary to use the results of B. Bernanke's work in relation to regulating the banking sector of Russia, aimed at maintaining the stability of the banking system, reducing costs, effectively regulating interest rates and market credit supply, minimizing the impact of the multiplier effect of strengthening unfavorable credit conditions, reducing the value of net assets of borrowers, household debt farms.