Analysis of Alcohol Consumption Factors in Russian Regions

This paper examines the relationship between the level of alcohol consumption and socioeconomic factors characterizing the level of development of Russian regions. For this purpose, an analysis of foreign and Russian literature is conducted, which studies the causes of alcohol consumption and interregional differences in socioeconomic factors. Next, the current situation of alcohol consumption in Russia is considered: volume, structure and their dynamics. The next stage is the construction of panel models for each type of alcoholic beverages in order to assess the impact of socioeconomic factors on the level of their consumption in different regions. The last step of the study is to conduct clustering of Russian regions by per capita monetary income in order to study in more detail the influence of this factor on alcohol consumption. The work uses data on 77 regions of Russia for 2009-2022. The data for the study was collected from the website of the Federal State Statistics Service. In the models, the dependent variables are the volume of retail sales of alcoholic beverages per capita in liters of ethanol for various types of alcoholic beverages, and for all together. The independent variables are various socio-economic factors, which are selected based on the analysis of scientific literature. As part of the analysis of panel data, three models are built: a Pooled model, a random effects model and a fixed effects model. Based on the conducted tests and substantive considerations, a fixed effects model is chosen as the most optimal. According to the results of the work, it was possible to identify the following: 1. The factor of per capita monetary income has a positive effect on alcohol consumption, which is most pronounced in middle- and low-income regions. 2. The level of economic development of the region has a positive effect on alcohol consumption. 3. The unemployment rate has a negative effect on alcohol consumption. 4. The crisis of 2020-2022 has significantly affected alcohol consumption.