This paper looks at the effects of the trade wars that followed 2014 events in Ukraine on Belarus. The estimation of the model predicts the increase in the tarif revenue collected by Belarus. Because of ban on imports, the tari¤ revenue of Russian Federation declines. Being a part of Customs Union, Belarus needs to participate in the tarif revenue redistribution. The need to participate in the tarif revenue redistribution and the decline in the tarif revenue collected by Russian Federation lead to the decrease in the welfare of Belarus. To avoid this decrease, Belarus should argue for the modi…cation of the redistribution schedule.

Public Sector Performance Index (PSP) and Public Sector Efficiency Index (PSE) are the most accessible ways to estimate the comparative efficiency of public finance on the macroeconomic level. We construct PSP and PSE indices for Belarus and find that the efficiency of public expenditures in Belarus is high compared to other post-Soviet economies.

When a debt covenant is violated the lender has the right to demand immediate repayment of the loan. Using this right, the lender can extract certain concessions from the borrower (manager), which may be inefficient. I propose a theory that explains why, despite this inefficiency, tight and often violated debt covenants may be optimal. In a repeated moral hazard problem combined with an incomplete contract set-up, the debt overhang prevents the manager from exercising optimal effort. I deviate from the standard incomplete contract set-up by allowing outside market participants to observe the uncontractable outcome. I model the manager's outside option as the opportunity to refinance his debt on a competitive loan market. In this situation, the market independently evaluates the manager's performance based on observable parameters. The value of the outside option has an important impact on the covenant design. A strict covenant will severely punish the manager if his outside option is low. If the covenant is violated the lender will have control over the manager's assets and the manager will face a renegotiation game in which the lender has all the bargaining power. In this case a high outside option allows the manager to retain some rents. The manager will exercise effort to increase his chances to have a high outside option.