Trust in the society promotes cooperative behavior outside inner circle and can be associated with socio-economic development. This paper considers the current level and dynamics of trust in Belarusian society, the interaction of trust and the quality of institutions, and the role of trust in achieving economic growth. A number of mechanisms promoting the development of trust are presented.

This policy paper deals with the perspectives of the national economy development in 2018-2020. The study emphasizes that fluctuations around equilibrium growth rate is the most likely scenario. The study uses the estimate of 2.5% of equilibrium growth rate for Belarus, which is a compromise among different approaches and methodologies. The scenario of higher growth may become possible due to positive external shocks. However, even in case of permanently strengthening external environment, the growth rate of the national economy is still likely to be unsustainable.

This policy paper deals with Belarusian macroeconomic situation in 2017. The study admits that a long period of adjustment to new institutional environment, which was associated with structural slowdown, has ended in 2017 and catch-up growth began. This growth mainly stemmed from favorable external environment. The policies enhancing price and external stability also contributed into growth. In 2017, Belarus has displayed historical (or 10 year) records in inflation rate and current account balance. This allowed quitting from restrained economic policies thus emancipating domestic demand.

This work is devoted to the analysis of output downturn in Belarus in 2015. It is shown that economic downturn is not the consequence of only cyclical hesitations, but also of structural compression. Moreover, the structural component of recession in 2016 began to dominate.

This paper studies the wage inequality in Belarus' districts from 2000 till 2015 following the multi-step and multi-mechanism framework. The empirical results show: first, that wage disparities across the districts decreased in the 2000-2012 period and then increased from 2013 to 2015; second, there is the spatial dependency in district wages and increasing separation between districts, and between rural and urban population in Belarus; third, the main economic factors that contribute to decrease in district wage inequality are industrial development, retail trade and agricultural development. Finally, from theoretical point of view this research rejects the inverted U-shaped relationship between spatial inequality and economic development for Belarus and supports the hypothesis made by French economist Thomas Piketty that slow growth rates lead to rising inequality.

Weak potential growth has sustained as the key challenge for Belarusian economy. In 2014, there has not been any substantial progress in this field, although the government declared a start in a preparatory stage for structural reforms. In current macroeconomic policy, the regime of exchange rate targeting has been preserved as the core element.