Premium
Russian Roller Coaster: Expenditure Inequality and Instability in Russia, 1994–98
Author(s) -
Jovanovic Branko
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
review of income and wealth
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.024
H-Index - 57
eISSN - 1475-4991
pISSN - 0034-6586
DOI - 10.1111/1475-4991.00015
Subject(s) - economics , roller coaster , inequality , shock (circulatory) , political instability , falling (accident) , demographic economics , population , politics , demography , mathematics , psychology , political science , mechanical engineering , mathematical analysis , engineering , medicine , psychiatry , sociology , law
This paper uses the second phase of the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey to investigate the changes in expenditure inequality and instability in Russia between the autumn of 1994 and the autumn of 1998. The expenditure distribution is stable in spite of the economic and political turmoil Russia is going through. However, that does not imply much stability. Households experienced considerable fluctuations in their expenditure, with over 60 percent of the population's expenditure either more than doubling or falling to less than half their previous levels. Only about 6 percent of all households experienced an expenditure shock of less than 10 percent. The inquiry in expenditure mobility suggests high levels of transitory variation in the expenditure and high levels of instability.