RESIDENTIAL-MOBILITY IN MOSCOW DURING THE TRANSITION

Earlier work documented an increase in residential mobility in Russian cities in the early years of the economic transition - 1992 and 1993. This paper extends this work for Moscow by confirming the higher mobi lity rates in 1994, indicating that the early surge in mobility was no t a brief one-off phenomenon produced by pent-up demand. The paper als o documents that a large share of the movers are one family nuclei fro m a multi-nuclei household. By 1994, the majority of movers were acqui ring their new housing through market methods; waiting list procedures for state housing accounted for only about one-fifth of new occupant households. The determinants of mobility among market movers are consi stent with economic theory, being a blend of dissatisfaction with the current unit (overcrowding) and ability to pay, as indicated by curren t income and assets. Overall, the results show a clear movement of the Moscow housing sector toward operating along market principles.