Cuba, Myanmar, Iran, Syria, Russia… Trade and financial sanctions are some of the favorites in the toolbox of (Western) foreign policy. Meant to hurt the target country’s economy through artificial trade barriers in the form of restrictions or bans on trade of certain goods and services, severance of financial ties, or an all-out embargo, sanctions are used when diplomacy fails yet military options appear too drastic. Following involvement in separatist movements in eastern Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea after the so-called Maidan revolution of December 2013, the EU along with other allied countries levied sanctions on the Russian Federation starting in March of 2014. Russia retaliated in August 2014 by imposing an embargo on imports of agricultural and food products from Western countries.
Matthieu Crozet and Julian Hinz propose an empirical analysis aiming to assess the consequences of these diplomatic sanctions on French exports. The study (in French) has been published as a Lettre du CEPII. It is available here. A more complete research paper will come soon.