News and narratives: A cointegration analysis of Russian economic policy uncertainty

Russia has become more integrated and dependent on global developments over the last decades, despite being ruled by an increasingly autocratic regime. How does Russian media cover the inherent economic and policy challenges? To answer, we use economic policy uncertainty indexes as proxies for media coverage, together with a limited set of variables reflecting both domestic and international developments. By applying a cointegration approach on a monthly dataset from 2001 to 2021, we confirm the key role that domestic media coverage can play in supporting autocratic regimes. However, our novel results suggest that popular support for the Russian incumbent president does not depend entirely on domestic media coverage, nor on the extent and type of official narratives; it also depends on global market forces, as well as on how foreign media and governments act to restore global risk valuations, therefore leaving important levers beyond the control of the current regime.