New Indicators of Business Uncertainty in the Russian Economy

The purpose of the article is to present the main results of the study on the development of methods and testing of tools necessary for continuous monitoring of the business environment in Russia by measuring the level of its uncertainty and identifying the degree of its influence on the dynamics of economic activity based on the analysis of business tendency surveys. This methodology was tested for the first time to assess the level of uncertainty in the business environment and its impact on the digital and technological development of domestic industrial enterprises.The source of data for the study is regular sample surveys of business leaders for the period from 2009 to 2022. Two independent databases are used: quarterly surveys of business activity of organizations of various types of economic activity to build national and industry indicators of uncertainty in the business environment and annual pilot surveys of digital activity of industrial enterprises to construct an indicator of uncertainty in the field of digital and technological development of industry.All calculated composite indicators were able to identify significant features of the economic situation for the Russian economy associated with shock events. When analyzing the fluctuations of the indicators under study, «spikes» are clearly detected in response to the shocks of the business tendencies in 2020 and 2022. In general, the period from 2020 to the present is characterized as a period of prolonged crisis associated with growing uncertainty in the Russian economic environment, the unprecedented scale of which was demonstrated by the constructed indicators.According to the authors, the proposed composite indicators expand the analytical capabilities of business tendency surveys data, creating the prerequisites for regular monitoring of changes in the level of uncertainty in the business environment and increasing the operational value of the information provided by companies. This allows to develop more accurate socio-economic scenario forecasts.