Russia and the effectiveness of economic sanctions between big players

Should Western powers take more significant actions against Russia to punish its hostilities with Georgia? This column, based on analysis of all major sanctions episodes in the 20th century, argues that sanctions against Russia would be futile.

VoxEU.org is a policy portal set up by the Centre for Economic Policy Research in conjunction with a consortium of national sites, including the Italian site LaVoce, the French site Telos and the Spanish site Sociedad Abierta. Vox aims to promote research-based policy analysis and commentary by leading scholars. The intended audience is economists in governments, international organisations, academia and the private sector as well as journalists specializing in economics, finance and business.