IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/wbrobs/v12y1997i1p19-32.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Housing and Income Distribution in Russia: Zhivago's Legacy

Author

Listed:
  • Buckley, Robert M
  • Gurenko, Eugene N

Abstract

The inadequacy of housing and its effect on the quality of life go a long way toward explaining many aspects of Russian life, but little data has been available to determine how housing affected the relative well-being of the citizenry. This paper presents comprehensive data examining for the first time the effect that seventy years of a socialist housing allocation scheme had on the distribution of income. It seems clear that housing provided by the government or by employers has a value that can be measured to yield useful inferences about the distribution of income and wealth. This article shows that housing allocation had a progressive effect on the distribution of income in Russia. In addition, when the imputed value of housing is added to household income, the increase in income inequality that occurred in recent years is significantly reduced. The analysis concludes with a discussion of how housing policy could be used to address poverty concerns, an important aspect of the transition process.

Suggested Citation

  • Buckley, Robert M & Gurenko, Eugene N, 1997. "Housing and Income Distribution in Russia: Zhivago's Legacy," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 12(1), pages 19-32, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:wbrobs:v:12:y:1997:i:1:p:19-32
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.worldbank.org/research/journals/wbro/obsfeb97/pdf/artcle~2.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robert M. Buckley, 1996. "Housing Finance in Developing Countries," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-0-230-37660-1.
    2. Youri Ivanov & Boris Rjabushkin & Tatjana Homenko, 1993. "Introduction Of The Sna Into The Official Statistics Of The Commonwealth Of Independent States," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 39(3), pages 279-294, September.
    3. Atkinson,Anthony Barnes & Micklewright,John, 1992. "Economic Transformation in Eastern Europe and the Distribution of Income," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521438827, January.
    4. Horioka, Charles Yuji, 1994. "Japan's Consumption and Saving in International Perspective," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 42(2), pages 293-316, January.
    5. repec:bla:revinw:v:39:y:1993:i:3:p:279-94 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. repec:bla:revinw:v:37:y:1991:i:3:p:249-66 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Henry Morton, 1980. "Who gets what, when and how? Housing in the Soviet Union," Europe-Asia Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(2), pages 235-259.
    8. JoAzsef Hegedüs & Iván Tosics & Stephen K. Mayo, 1996. "Transition Of The Housing Sector In The East Central European Countries," Review of Urban & Regional Development Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 8(2), pages 101-136, July.
    9. Daniel, Zsuzsa, 1985. "The effect of housing allocation on social inequality in Hungary," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(4), pages 391-409, December.
    10. James Alm & David L Sjoquist, 1995. "Social Services and the Fiscal Burden in Russia," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 37(4), pages 19-30, December.
    11. MarkA. Prell, 1989. "The Measurement Of Housing Output: U.S. And Soviet Case Studies," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 35(3), pages 297-315, September.
    12. Alexeev, Michael, 1988. "The effect of housing allocation on social inequality: A soviet perspective," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(2), pages 228-234, June.
    13. Judith Yates, 1994. "Imputed Rent And Income Distribution," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 40(1), pages 43-66, March.
    14. Poterba, James M, 1992. "Taxation and Housing: Old Questions, New Answers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(2), pages 237-242, May.
    15. Denis Kessler & Edward N. Wolff, 1991. "A Comparative Analysis Of Household Wealth Patterns In France And The United States," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 37(3), pages 249-266, September.
    16. Kakwani, Nanak, 1995. "Income inequality, welfare, and poverty : an illustration using Ukranian data," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1411, The World Bank.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Anderson, Kathryn & Pomfret, Richard, 2000. "Living Standards during Transition to a Market Economy: The Kyrgyz Republic in 1993 and 1996," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 502-523, September.
    2. Carlos Felipe Balcázar & Lidia Ceriani & Sergio Olivieri & Marco Ranzani, 2017. "Rent‐Imputation for Welfare Measurement: A Review of Methodologies and Empirical Findings," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 63(4), pages 881-898, December.
    3. Danny Ben-Shahar & Jacob Warszawski, 2016. "Inequality in housing affordability: Measurement and estimation," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 53(6), pages 1178-1202, May.
    4. Flemming, J.S. & Micklewright, John, 2000. "Income distribution, economic systems and transition," Handbook of Income Distribution, in: A.B. Atkinson & F. Bourguignon (ed.), Handbook of Income Distribution, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 14, pages 843-918, Elsevier.
    5. Maksim Yemelyanau, 2009. "Second agriculture in Belarus and Ukraine:subsistence or leisure?," BEROC Working Paper Series 08, Belarusian Economic Research and Outreach Center (BEROC).
    6. Dániel, Zsuzsa, 1997. "Lakástámogatás és társadalmi újraelosztás [Housing subsidies and social redistribution]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(10), pages 848-877.
    7. Alexeev, Sergey, 2020. "The role of imputed rents in intergenerational income mobility in three countries," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(C).
    8. Frick, Joachim R. & Grabka, Markus M. & Smeeding, Timothy M. & Tsakloglou, Panos, 2010. "Distributional Effects of Imputed Rents in Five European Countries," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 19(3), pages 167-179.
    9. Seeth, Harm Tho & Chachnov, Sergei & Surinov, Alexander & Von Braun, Joachim, 1998. "Russian poverty: Muddling through economic transition with garden plots," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 26(9), pages 1611-1624, September.
    10. Buckley, Robert & Cartwright, Kim & Struyk, Raymond & Szymanoski, Edward, 2003. "Integrating housing wealth into the social safety net : the elderly in Moscow," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3115, The World Bank.
    11. Lukiyanova, Anna & Oshchepkov, Aleksey, 2012. "Income mobility in Russia (2000–2005)," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 46-64.
    12. Figari, Francesco & Paulus, Alari & Sutherland, Holly & Tsakloglou, Panos & Verbist, Gerlinde & Zantomio, Francesca, 2012. "Taxing Home Ownership: Distributional Effects of Including Net Imputed Rent in Taxable Income," IZA Discussion Papers 6493, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Anna Abalkina & Alexander Libman, 2020. "The real costs of plagiarism: Russian governors, plagiarized PhD theses, and infrastructure in Russian regions," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 125(3), pages 2793-2820, December.
    14. Hai-Anh H. Dang & Michael M. Lokshin & Kseniya Abanokova & Maurizio Bussolo, 2020. "Welfare Dynamics and Inequality in the Russian Federation During 1994–2015," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 32(4), pages 812-846, September.
    15. Christoph Bühler, 2003. "Additional work, family agriculture, and the birth of a first or a second child in Russia at the beginning of the 1990s," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2003-012, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    16. Shireen Kanji, 2011. "Labor Force Participation, Regional Location, and Economic Well-Being of Single Mothers in Russia," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 32(1), pages 62-72, March.
    17. Alexandre BERTIN & Matthieu CLEMENT, 2007. "Poverty and shortage economy: a reappraisal with the capability approach (In French)," Cahiers du GREThA (2007-2019) 2007-16, Groupe de Recherche en Economie Théorique et Appliquée (GREThA).
    18. Buckley, Robert & Cartwright, Kim & Struyk, Raymond & Szymanoski, Edward, 2003. "Integrating housing wealth into the social safety net for the Moscow elderly: an empirical essay," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 202-223, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dániel, Zsuzsa, 1997. "Lakástámogatás és társadalmi újraelosztás [Housing subsidies and social redistribution]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(10), pages 848-877.
    2. Susan Goodrich Lehmann & Blair A. Ruble, 1997. "From 'Soviet' to 'European' Yaroslavl: Changing Neighbourhood Structure in Post-Soviet Russian Cities," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 34(7), pages 1085-1107, June.
    3. Simone Pellegrino & Massimiliano Piacenza & Gilberto Turati, 2011. "Assessing the Distributional Effects of Housing Taxation in Italy: From the Actual Tax Code to Imputed Rent," CESifo Working Paper Series 3368, CESifo.
    4. Dawkins, Casey J., 2023. "The geography of US homeownership tax expenditures," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(PA).
    5. Robert M. Buckleyand & Sasha Tsenkova, 2001. "Housing Market Systems In Reforming Socialist Economies: Comparative Indicators Of Performance And Policy," European Journal of Housing Policy, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 1(2), pages 257-289.
    6. Robert M. Buckley & Eugene N. Gurenko, 1998. "Housing demand in Russia: Rationing and reform1," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 6(1), pages 197-209, May.
    7. Erlend Eide Bø, 2020. "Taxation of Housing: Killing Several Birds with One Stone," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 66(3), pages 534-557, September.
    8. Flemming, J.S. & Micklewright, John, 2000. "Income distribution, economic systems and transition," Handbook of Income Distribution, in: A.B. Atkinson & F. Bourguignon (ed.), Handbook of Income Distribution, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 14, pages 843-918, Elsevier.
    9. Dániel, Zsuzsa, 1996. "A bérlakás-privatizáció paradoxona. Nemzeti ajándék vagy ráfizetés? [The paradox of privatizing rented housing: a national gift or a bad bargain?]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(3), pages 204-230.
    10. Figari, Francesco & Paulus, Alari & Sutherland, Holly & Tsakloglou, Panos & Verbist, Gerlinde & Zantomio, Francesca, 2012. "Taxing Home Ownership: Distributional Effects of Including Net Imputed Rent in Taxable Income," IZA Discussion Papers 6493, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. Zsuzsa Dániel, 1997. "The paradox in the privatization of Hungary's public housinhg: a national gift or a bad bargain?1," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 5(1), pages 147-170, May.
    12. Buckley, Robert & Cartwright, Kim & Struyk, Raymond & Szymanoski, Edward, 2003. "Integrating housing wealth into the social safety net for the Moscow elderly: an empirical essay," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 202-223, September.
    13. Wodon, Quentin, 2014. "Comparing Itemized Tax Deductions across States: A Simple Decomposition Applied to Mortgage Interest Deductions," MPRA Paper 56940, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Markus M. Grabka, 2006. "Codebook for the $PEQUIV File 1984-2005: CNEF Variables with Extended Income Information for the SOEP," Data Documentation 12, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    15. Juan Luis Londoño & Miguel Székely, 2000. "Persistent Poverty and Excess Inequality: Latin America, 1970-1995," Journal of Applied Economics, Universidad del CEMA, vol. 3, pages 93-134, May.
    16. Alberto Chilosi, 2014. "The Economic System as an End or as a Means, and the Future of Socialism: An Evolutionary Viewpoint," Palgrave Studies in the History of Economic Thought, in: Riccardo Bellofiore & Ewa Karwowski & Jan Toporowski (ed.), Economic Crisis and Political Economy, chapter 1, pages 10-28, Palgrave Macmillan.
    17. Iga Magda & Ewa Cukrowska-Torzewska, 2019. "Gender wage gap in the workplace: Does the age of the firm matter?," IBS Working Papers 01/2019, Instytut Badan Strukturalnych.
    18. Cem Baslevent & Meltem Dayoglu, 2005. "The Effect of Squatter Housing on Income Distribution in Urban Turkey," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 42(1), pages 31-45, January.
    19. Klugman, Jeni & Braithwaite, Jeanine, 1998. "Poverty in Russia during the Transition: An Overview," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 13(1), pages 37-58, February.
    20. Frick, Joachim R. & Grabka, Markus M. & Smeeding, Timothy M. & Tsakloglou, Panos, 2010. "Distributional Effects of Imputed Rents in Five European Countries," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 19(3), pages 167-179.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oup:wbrobs:v:12:y:1997:i:1:p:19-32. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/wrldbus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.