Russian roller coaster: Expenditure inequality and instability in Russia, 1994-98

This paper uses the second phase of the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Sur vey 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 Russi a is going through. However, that does not imply much stability. Households experienced considerable fluctuations in their expenditure, with over 60 p ercent of the population's expenditure either more than doubling or falling to less than half their previous levels. Only about 6 percent of all house holds experienced an expenditure shock of less than 10 percent. The inquiry in expenditure mobility suggests high levels of transitory variation in th e expenditure and high levels of instability.