Benchmarking Russian' Government Bond Market
This article describes how the Russian government has tried to create a liquid government bond market by using auctions to concentrate its domestic debt in key maturities. The maturity structure of bonds for 2005-2017 is calculated and explored in absolute and relative terms. For comparison the author uses the Italian Treasury issuance policy. Bonds with maturity 3, 5, 10 and 15 years dominate the Russian government's debt portfolio. However issuance is characterized by bonds' long-life cycle, unstable auction cycles and long distances between the last auction of an outgoing bond, the first auction of the incoming one and other shortfalls, while Italian issuance is determined by “extreme regularity, transparency, and predictability”. To reduce exposure to volatility and liquidity risks auction participants reduce their bids.