Exploring the relationship between drinking preferences and recorded and unrecorded alcohol consumption in Russian regions in 2010-2016.

In recent years, Russia has seen a decline in alcohol consumption per capita (APC) accompanied by a significant reduction in the share of spirits in total APC. Our aim was to investigate regional variation in alcohol consumption and the association between the share of spirits in APC, and recorded and unrecorded APC. Data on recorded APC were taken from Rosstat. Our estimates on unrecorded APC were based on the guidelines of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation and data on alcoholic psychoses and mortality from external causes (546 observations for 78 regions from 2010 to 2016). We estimated fixed effects models with the dependent variables of recorded and unrecorded APC of the population 15+. Independent variables included share of spirits in recorded APC, vodka prices, average income, duration of alcohol sales hours, and others. During the 2010-2016 period, recorded APC varied by regions from 1.1 to 17.8 litres; unrecorded - from almost zero to 21 litres; the share of spirits in recorded APC - from 20.6% to 89.3%. A 1% increase in the share of spirits was attributed to a 0.2% increase in recorded APC and to a 2.1% increase in unrecorded APC. Various factors were related to regional APC: vodka prices (with elasticity coefficient -0.46 for recorded and 1.67 for unrecorded APC); income (0.23 for recorded and -2.23 for unrecorded APC); duration of sales hours (-0.9 for unrecorded APC); and shares of working age and of urban population. Taking into account a strong correlation between the share of spirits in the recorded APC and consumption of recorded and unrecorded APC, the price of spirits should be increased. In the regions with pronounced preference for spirits, stricter availability restrictions on the alcohol sales are needed, along with strict control of shadow markets.