Are Books Luxury Goods in Russia or not?

Nataliya Kochkina () and Evgeniya Popova ()
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Nataliya Kochkina: Research Group for Applied Markets and Enterprises Studies, National Research University Higher School of Economics
Evgeniya Popova: Research Group for Applied Markets and Enterprises Studies, National Research University Higher School of Economics
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Evgeniya Shenkman

No AWP-06-2017, ACEI Working Paper Series from Association for Cultural Economics International

Abstract: In the times of Soviet Union books were a luxury good. This paper examines whether books are still a luxury good in Russia. For this purpose data from one of the Russian book retail chains is used to empirically estimate a general book demand and separate demand models for genres. We focus on estimating income elasticity. For this reason we construct a covariate on the basis of monthly wages of working individuals that reveals consumer income. Moreover, this paper is one of the few which addresses in detail the influence of books content quality on book demand. The main result is that books on average are not luxury goods anymore in Russia. However two genres: foreign prose and poetry are exceptions and can be called luxury goods. We also conclude that quality control covariates (book rating and number of people who rated the book) are important determinants of book demand as they influence significantly the general book demand and the demand models for different genres as well.

Keywords: Russian book market; demand function; income elasticity; luxury goods; price elasticity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L21 L23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 23 pages
Date: 2017-07, Revised 2017-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cis, nep-ind and nep-tra
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cue:wpaper:awp-06-2017

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