All-Russian Survey of Consumer Finance
Surveys of household finances are a key source of data for research on current issues of monetary policy, financial stability, and the development of the financial market.
This biannual survey of Russian households has been conducted since 2013. The first four first waves were organised by the Ministry of Finance of Russia. Wave 5 was conducted in 2022 by the Bank of Russia. LLC Demoskop has acted as the coordinating and executing contractor for all waves of the survey, including the field work.
A ‘household’ is people who live together at the same address and share income and expenses. ‘Survey respondents’ are all members of a household aged 18 and older who resided at their place of residence at the time of the survey.
The survey helps provide crucial insights into finance and financial behaviour at the household (family) level. Given that consumer decisions on spending, savings, asset acquisition, and the assumption of debt are made as a family, research into financial behaviour patterns is rightly focused on households rather than individual consumers.
Another benefit this type of survey offers is that its several rounds cover a significant proportion of households. Changes in the behavior of the same respondents can thus be measured over time, further enhancing opportunities for research and analysis.
The resulting database provides a dynamic view of households’ financial and non-financial assets, their financial liabilities, income and expenses, the various aspects of financial behaviour patterns and their changes, as well as of trends emerging in the financial behaviour and strategies of Russian households.
The probabilistic nature of the sample ensures that the survey is representative. Its design is described in the attached ‘Methodology for the All-Russian Survey of Consumer Finance (Wave 5)’.
The responses to the household questionnaire provide insights in the following areas:
- the social and demographic characteristics of households
- housing conditions, including fully owned real estate properties, the financial sources used to purchase such properties, and their estimated value
- real estate loans
- plans/intentions to purchase housing/land
- household income and expenses, and their structure
- stability of income
- saved income, its structure, and financial planning horizon
The questionnaire for individual consumers allows insights into:
- the assessment of the economic situation and sentiment expectations as to future incomes, inflation, exchange rates, and interest rates
- employment
- the amount and structure of financial assets
- preferences with regard to the desired structure of financial assets by type
- the payment instruments in use
- the volume and structure of financial liabilities including current and planned demand for loans
- preferences with regard to the amount of savings out of income (saving behaviour) or the amount of outstanding financial liabilities
- the value and structure of other non-financial assets (vehicles)
- financial literacy
- financial health
- financial inclusion
The survey creates value for research and the analysis of a wide range of current issues.
They include, first, the sources for the financing of consumer demand, which usually account for about 70% of GDP. This involves the analysis of consumer and saving behaviour, demand for loans, and the role of income, interest rates, financial inclusion, and financial literacy in financial decision making.
Second, they include the study of household finance imbalances and the assessment of financial stability risks by measuring the volume, structure, and trends of debt.
The third promising venue of research is to analyze how households adapt to economic shocks and crises and how they are affected by policy measures.
The fourth focal area is supply-side constraints and household preferences on the demand side, which is essential to strategies for financial inclusion and the development of the financial market.
Data access
The Bank of Russia welcomes economic research by the academic community on current issues presented in Research agenda based on granular data from the All-Russian Survey of Consumer Finance.
The survey data are in the .csv format and need to be cleansed of outliers and omissions.
The data are in the form of a common file with the survey results of all waves, with a separate view of the 2022 wave. The information for 2022 in the merged data file is identical to that in the 2022 file.
In the Household Questionnaire files, the variable id_w is consistent with the year of the survey wave. The variable id_h represents the household code in the corresponding survey wave. id_h may change depending on the wave of the survey. Household data from other waves are added using variables aid_h, bid_h, cid_h, did_h, and eid_h. The first letter of the variable name corresponds with the wave: a — 2013, b — 2015, c — 2018, d — 2020, e — 2022.
For example, to merge data from 2018 and 2013, each wave needs to be filtered first. The data are then merged such that the value of variable id_h in the 2013 wave data coincides with that of variable aid_hin the 2018 wave data.
Variable redidh stands for the household number in one wave. Cross-wave matches are not meaningful.
In the Individual Questionnaire file, variable id_w also indicates the year of the survey. Idind is continuous across all waves. This variable enables the merging of individual consumers’ data from different waves.
Variable id_h can be used to merge data for individual consumers and households in a single wave. The variable indicates the individual’s household in the wave. To merge individual and household data from several waves, each wave must be merged separately, since id_h can vary from wave to wave.
Variables id_i and redidi represent the number of a household in a given wave. Cross-wave matches are not meaningful.
The merged databases for the Household and Individual questionnaires for Waves
The constituent entity of the Russian Federation of the household is indicated by variable psu. The locality attribute of the constituent entity is not presented in the databases.
Anonymised respondent data in Wave 5 survey forms (Bank of Russia data):
Anonymised data for respondents’ answers, all five waves of the survey (Bank of Russia data):
The information obtained from the household survey is used in research by both Bank of Russia staff and by external researchers.
Publications based on the data of the All-Russian Survey of Consumer Finance of the current wave (5) and of previous waves:
Bessonova, E. and Tsvetkova, A. Financial behaviour of households during the pandemic.
Analytical note of the Department of Research and Forecasting, Bank of Russia, 2022 [in Russian]
Tishin, A. The impact of demography on the development of the financial sector in the Russian Federation.
Analytical Note of the Department of Research and Forecasting, Bank of Russia, 2020 [in Russian]
Mamedli, M. and Sinyakov, A. Household Finance in Russia: income shocks and consumption smoothing.
Voprosy Ekonomiki No. 5, 2018 [in Russian].
Sinyakov, A. and Ushakova, Yu. Two Russian credit booms and current expansion of mortgage lending: lessons for policymaking.
Analytical note of the Department of Research and Forecasting, Bank of Russia, 2018
Artyomova, M., Mamedli, M., and Sinyakov, A. Regional heterogeneity of household lending based on the findings of the household finance survey: regional features and potential risks.
Analytical note of the Department of Research and Forecasting, Bank of Russia, 2018.
Mamedli, M., and Sinyakov, A. Consumer lending in Russia: prospects and risks based on household finance survey.
Analytical Note of the Department of Research and Forecasting, Bank of Russia, 2017.