 Poverty, inequality, and social policy in transition economiesNo 1530, Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank Abstract: In examining what happens to poverty and income inequality during the early period of transition to a market economy, the author covers the period up to 1993. His analysis includes almost all transition economies that were not affected by wars, blockades, or embargoes. (In economies so affected, the intrinsic issues of transition are overshadowed by more basic issues of war or quasi-war economy and survival). The two key issues of social policy in transition economies are pension reform and better targeting of social assistance. Pensions represent 70 to 80 percent of cash social expenditures. No reduction of current levels of social spending (which is unsustainable) can be envisaged without pension reform. Better targeting of social assistance is needed because many universally or enterprise-provided benefits have been terminated, poverty has increased, and social programs lack funding. If poverty is on the rise and money is scarce, better targeting is the only option. Keywords: Health Monitoring&Evaluation; Services&Transfers to Poor; Environmental Economics&Policies; Public Health Promotion; Poverty Impact Evaluation; Environmental Economics&Policies; Safety Nets and Transfers; Services&Transfers to Poor; Rural Poverty Reduction; Health Monitoring&Evaluation (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:1530 Access Statistics for this paper More papers in Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank 1818 H Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20433. Contact information at EDIRC. |
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