COVID and Sanctions Resiliency in a Russian Region: The Case of Rostov Oblast 2010–2022

Using convergence estimations, the economies of the towns and districts of Rostov Oblast are shown to be resilient to four shocks to the economy–initial sanctions (2019), initial COVID and continuing sanctions (2020), continuing sanctions and worsening COVID (2021), war, harsher sanctions and declining COVID (2022). Agricultural output is resilient and represents an important growth sector for the Russian economy. Housing and floor area construction are resilient with even gross production being maintained. Labor indicators show a severe shock to unemployment and vacancies in 2020 followed by recovery in 2021 and a much tighter labor market in 2022.