A natural field experiment on the effectiveness of economic sanctions before and after the Russian invasion of Ukraine

Abstract Here, using two rounds of natural field experiments based on an audit-study approach, we investigated whether sanctioned Russian government officials retain access to the international financial system. Researchers sent 7,081 email solicitations to intermediary firms in 202 countries and jurisdictions to establish shell companies and set up corporate bank accounts. Responses to sanctioned names (middle initial modified) are compared with equivalent solicitations from non-sanctioned placebo names. Round 1 results in December 2020 reveal no statistically significant difference in financial access for the sanctioned names compared with placebo. Round 2 findings in May 2022, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, indicate that sanctioned individuals’ access to international corporate services and banking was significantly reduced (drop in non-compliant response rates: 4.0 percentage points, 95% confidence interval 1.2–6.8, P = 0.006, Cohen’s d = 0.207). The results suggest that factors related to the war and not sanctions law proved decisive in constricting sanctioned individuals’ access to the global financial system.