National system of price indicators: From theory to practice

Under the conditions of sanctions against the Russian Federation, foreign price indicators, which were previously widely used by both business and regulators, have become difficult to access and generally less relevant due to changes in the direction of commodity flows. There is a need for a national system of price indicators, the design of which is currently being decided, and the concept, despite more than two years of discussion and a high degree of priority, has not yet been adopted. The purpose of the article is to outline the subject field of the problem of constructing a national system of price indicators both from the point of view of the theory of the issue and in terms of its application to the problems of antimonopoly policy. The approaches of the new institutional economic theory and Austrian economic theory serve as the methodological basis of the study, and its methods are comparison of structural alternatives. The information base of the study was made up of data from the Federal Antimonopoly Service on law enforcement practice. The results of the study emphasize that in order to fulfill their functions, national price indicators must be formed in the conditions of the market (not quasi-regulation) and competition. The volume and frequency of data collected to calculate the indicators should be determined taking into account the power of the regulator as a guarantor, the characteristics of companies and transactions as factors in demand for long-term formula-based contracts, the risks of concerted actions and tacit collusion (as a broader category). The findings enable participants in the debate both within and outside the academic community to understand the scope of what is possible in constructing a national price indicator system, both in terms of the alternatives available and the price that would have to be paid for the preferred alternative.