Income Distribution, Economic Systems and Transition

John Flemming and John Micklewright ()

Innocenti Occasional Papers, Economic Policy Series

Abstract: The differences in income distribution between market and planned economies are considered in two ways. First, using benchmarks from the OECD area, evidence from the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union during the socialist period is reviewed. Second, the authors consider the transitions currently being made by the latter countries. Three factors are then considered: (i) the distribution of earnings of full-time employees, (ii) the distribution of individuals’ per capita household incomes, and (iii) the ways in which non-wage benefits from work, price subsidies and social incomes in kind change the picture. For the socialist period long series of data, often covering several decades, are available and thus changes in distribution under the socialist system can be tracked and diversity between the countries shown. For the period of transition, the series of data are inevitably shorter, however, it is possible to avoid basing conclusions on evidence drawn from single years. During transition, as under socialism, the picture is varied. Russia has experienced very sharp increases in measured inequality to well above the top of the OECD range. The Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland have seen more modest rises. However, a satisfactory analytic framework encompassing enough features of the transition to help interpretation of the data is lacking.

Keywords: comparative analysis; economic transition; income distribution; Baltic States; Central Asia; Central Europe; Eastern Europe; Russia (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: P27 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 100
Date: 1999
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
Chapter: Income distribution, economic systems and transition (2000)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ucf:iopeps:iopeps99/69

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://www.unicef-i ... -and-transition.html
The price is All UNICEF Office of Research - Innocenti publications can be downloaded from our website free of charge. Printed copies of some titles can also be ordered from the United Nations Publications website https://shop.un.org/search/unicef/node/29892.

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Innocenti Occasional Papers, Economic Policy Series
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Patrizia Faustini ().