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СОДЕРЖАНИЕ


Введение
1. Пьянство и уровень смертности в России
2. Роль цены на алкогольную продукцию
Заключение
Литература

По книге на (англ.языке)

Finally, he comes to the conclusion that heavy drinking is quite widespread along Russia for quite a time. Every time something happens in the country Russians can find a reason to drink. I will add to purely statistical date of Treisman some concept information. There are such Russian proverbs as ‘Again no reason not to drink’, ‘It is better to drink a liter of vodka than not to drink a liter of vodka’.
Historical data suggests that heavy drinking was a real problem in Russia already in the XIXth century. Peasants used to celebrate state and church holidays which together enumerated up to 100 days a year and every holiday was accompanied by drinking. Different observations also show that an average sum of money for vodka spent by a peasant through year could sufficiently provide food forhis whole family for at least half a year. They frequently didn’t have any bread left as early as the New Year and were to live on quite a scarce vegetable menu but still didn’t try to economize on high spirits. These facts together with the statistics collected by Treisman show that even when the price was high the people were drinking, hence the situation could become worse if the price went down.
2. The Role of High Spirits Price
Treisman suggests that the main reason for heavy drinking in Russia is the affordability of vodka. He brings together very interesting facts to prove this idea, for example: “In December 1990, the average monthly income in Russia would buy 10 liters of vodka; four years later, it would buy almost 47 liters. During the same period, the number of liters of domestic beer one could buy with average monthly income fell from 278 to 209 liters”4.
The very beginning of the last decade of the XX century was also connected with several political decisions connected with the economy of high spirits. Roughly the situation was as follows:
1991 vodka is sold only with ration cards (1 liter per month)
January 1992 a Presidential decree allows all Russians to engage in trade
June 1992 the state monopoly for alcohol production and trade abolished
1993 state monopolization of the vodka market
It looks quite natural to say that after seizing the consumption by the use of ration cards the people could start to consume a bit more when they found a source of the previously restricted food. It is still quite common in Russia to remember the 1990s and at any threat of social catastrophe start to buy and conserve food (the latest example is the denomination in Belarus which is a former Soviet republic).
Taking into consideration such characteristics of the social and economic life as unemployment rate, rate of job turnover, crime rate, poverty rate, healthcare and vodka price Treisman concludes that “increases in the affordability of vodka were associated with statistically significant increases in mortality”5. There is only one exclusion in the named tendency in Russia: “Because of the Islamic proscription of alcohol, one would not expect the affordability of liquor to affect mortality in the same way within the Muslim population”6.
Here Treisman suggests that the common law of that addictive products consumption is insensitive to price. Here we can see that the relative decrease in vodka price suggest the growth of consumption.
The last but the most important issue of the article is the issue on the reasons for the vodka price depreciation. Treisman investigates several reasons: market competition, drop in taxes and government regulation.
As was already mentioned the year of 1992 started both the market economy in Russia and de-monopolization of many markets including high spirits market. Even when it was obvious that the market was oversaturated new producers were keen to enter it because the incomes were quite high. However the competition that time didn’t act precisely how it acts in the market economy, moreover Treisman suggests that the first rapid decrease in vodka price was felt as early as in 1991, i.e. before the declarations of the president of the new country.
Speaking about taxation even within the analyzed decade it is necessary to mention that the system was changed several times. The main reason for changes was that the taxes were never fully collected: at least half of the market was illegal. This fact was very quickly understood by the Russian government and in 1993 the state started the reverse process of de-monopolization.
However Treisman states that “a third possible explanation is that the fall was caused not by fierce market competition or weakness of the state, but the misguided policy – specifically the imposition of regulation to prevent the price raising too rapidly”7.
Further Treisman is even more concrete in looking for the vodka price fall reasons in the government policy: “The Soviet leadership had certainly learned from Gorbachev’s anti-alcohol campaign in the mid 1980s that trying to take away Russians’ vodka bottle would elicit loud protest”8.
The main reason for this governmental decision most probably was connected with quite unstable social situation in the country where vodka was treated as the last resort. So, as Treisman suggests, “governments may have been correct in believing they would be punished at the ballot box if they raised vodka prices”9.
Summarizing his observations Treisman says: “Excessive drinking of hard liquor, especially by middle-aged men, has been a major cause of Russia’s mortality crisis in recent years <…> the increase in such drinking resulted from a sharp drop in the real price of vodka relative to other goods, including beer”10.
Although Treisman underlines that the fact of high alcohol consumption and high mortality rate and their dependence is not uni que for Russia it is still particularly extreme.
This is a final conclusion of Treisman which however brings altogether to quite a heavy result: the government keeps the prices for vodka low to make the population loyal to it but at the same time this act kills the population of the country. Hence, choosing between disloyal and dead population Russian government still chooses the last.
That is why this problem needs urgent attention of the government of the Russian Federation, Today’s attempts in the country are connected with the restriction of selling alcohol at certain periods of time and restricting the price. However these specific measures still don’t show enough level of efficiency.
The restriction of the time period is usually connected with nights: in many regions people are not allowed to sell or to buy alcohol between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m. (these time borders may differ from region to region). But this restriction deals only with high spirits like vodka and cognac. Whereas beers and alcohol cocktails (some of which contain even harder and more harmful liquids than vodka) are still allowed to be sold at any times.
The restrictions of prices usually deals only with vodka and here we can observe a very interesting tendency. In 1990s the trend was to restrict the highest possible price. Treisman provides the following information: “As of November 1992, the Moscow City Government limited the price for vodka to 296 rubles per liter. That this was far below the market-clearing level is suggested by the fact that inspectors found some private shops charging 500 rubles or more, despite the risk of being fined”11. However in recent years the Government is trying to restrict the lowest possible price which looks like an attempt of “soft” regulation of high spirits consumption in the country.
Anyway, the conclusion of Treisman looks very appealing: really, Russian Government still treats vodka pricing as an effective leverage in social policy and is reluctant to refuse from such a convenient method of the country management.