IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hes/wpaper/0267.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Did living standards actually improve under state socialism? Real wages in Bulgaria, 1924-1989

Author

Listed:
  • Matthias Morys

    (University of York)

  • Martin Ivanov

    (Sofia University)

Abstract

We challenge the view that Centrally Planned Economies functioned well until the early 1970s, delivering high economic growth and better living standards. Judged by real wages as the most widely used historical living standard indicator, only in the 1970s did Bulgarian living standards surpass levels achieved already four decades earlier. Our findings are particularly discomforting for the rural population which was the big loser of collectivization and forced industrialization policies after 1947. Wages increased throughout the 1970s and the 1980s, but far less so than Maddison’s GDP per capita estimates which are often used as a proxy for living standards.

Suggested Citation

  • Matthias Morys & Martin Ivanov, 2024. "Did living standards actually improve under state socialism? Real wages in Bulgaria, 1924-1989," Working Papers 0267, European Historical Economics Society (EHES).
  • Handle: RePEc:hes:wpaper:0267
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.ehes.org/wp/EHES_267.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Anton Cheremukhin & Mikhail Golosov & Sergei Guriev & Aleh Tsyvinski, 2017. "The Industrialization and Economic Development of Russia through the Lens of a Neoclassical Growth Model," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 84(2), pages 613-649.
    2. Guriev, Sergei & Tsyvinski, Aleh & Golosov, Mikhail & Cheremukhin, Anton, 2013. "Was Stalin Necessary for Russia?s Economic Development?," CEPR Discussion Papers 9669, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Ivanov, Martin & Tooze, Adam, 2007. "Convergence or Decline on Europe's Southeastern Periphery? Agriculture, Population, and GNP in Bulgaria, 1892–1945," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 67(3), pages 672-703, September.
    4. Paul Castañeda Dower & Andrei Markevich, 2018. "Labor Misallocation and Mass Mobilization: Russian Agriculture during the Great War," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 100(2), pages 245-259, May.
    5. Easterly, William & Fischer, Stanley, 1995. "The Soviet Economic Decline," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 9(3), pages 341-371, September.
    6. Lampe, John R., 1975. "Varieties of Unsuccessful Industrialization: The Balkan States Before 1914," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 35(1), pages 56-85, March.
    7. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/382e4c7la19qb8m0mtvar753ei is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Bergson, Abram, 1987. "Comparative Productivity: The USSR, Eastern Europe, and the West," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(3), pages 342-357, June.
    9. Allen, Robert C. & Khaustova, Ekaterina, 2019. "Russian real wages before and after 1917," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 23-37.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Leonard Kukić, 2021. "The Nature Of Technological Failure: Patterns Of Biased Technical Change In Socialist Europe," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(3), pages 895-925, July.
    2. Leonard Kukić, 2024. "Technical change and the postwar slowdown in Soviet economic growth in a long run perspective, 1885–2019," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 77(2), pages 644-674, May.
    3. Kufenko, Vadim & Khaustova, Ekaterina & Geloso, Vincent, 2022. "Escape underway: Malthusian pressures in late imperial Moscow," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    4. Tamás Vonyó & Alexander Klein, 2019. "Why did socialist economies fail? The role of factor inputs reconsidered," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 72(1), pages 317-345, February.
    5. Peter Drysdale & Yiping Huang, 1997. "Technological Catch‐Up and Economic Growth in East Asia and the Pacific," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 73(222), pages 201-211, September.
    6. Bayarsaihan, T. & Coelli, T. J., 2003. "Productivity growth in pre-1990 Mongolian agriculture: spiralling disaster or emerging success?," Agricultural Economics, Blackwell, vol. 28(2), pages 121-137, March.
    7. Boško Mijatović & Milan Zavadjil, 2023. "Serbia on the path to modern economic growth," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 76(1), pages 199-220, February.
    8. Kukic, Leonard, 2021. "Technical change and the postwar slowdown in Soviet economic growth," IFCS - Working Papers in Economic History.WH 33259, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Instituto Figuerola.
    9. Ark, Bart van, 2000. "Economic growth and labour productivity in Europe: half a century of East-West comparisons," Research Report 00C01, University of Groningen, Research Institute SOM (Systems, Organisations and Management).
    10. Bjarne S. Jensen, 2004. "Pareto Efficiency, Relative Prices, and Solutions to CGE Models," DEGIT Conference Papers c009_006, DEGIT, Dynamics, Economic Growth, and International Trade.
    11. Ivanov, Martin & Kopsidis, Michael, 2023. "Industrialisation in a small grain economy during the First Globalisation: Bulgaria c. 1870–1910," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 76(1), pages 169-198.
    12. Ron Moomaw & Lee Adkins, 2007. "Regional Technical Efficiency in Europe," Economics Working Paper Series 0709, Oklahoma State University, Department of Economics and Legal Studies in Business.
    13. Hirakata, Naohisa & Sunakawa, Takeki, 2019. "Financial frictions, capital misallocation and structural change," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 1-1.
    14. Adam Tooze & Martin Ivanov, 2011. "Disciplining the ‘black sheep of the Balkans’: financial supervision and sovereignty in Bulgaria, 1902–38," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 64(1), pages 30-51, February.
    15. Ilya B. Voskoboynikov, 2023. "Sources of productivity growth in Eastern Europe and Russia before the global financial crisis," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 59(3), pages 225-241, June.
    16. Thorvaldur Gylfason & Gylfi Zoega, 2006. "Natural Resources and Economic Growth: The Role of Investment," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(8), pages 1091-1115, August.
    17. Kholodilin, Konstantin A. & Limonov, Leonid E. & Waltl, Sofie R., 2021. "Housing rent dynamics and rent regulation in St. Petersburg (1880–1917)," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 81.
    18. Liu, Xianda & Hou, Wenxuan & Main, Brian G.M., 2022. "Anti-market sentiment and corporate social responsibility: Evidence from anti-Jewish pogroms," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    19. Antonela Miho & Alexandra Jarotschkin & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, 2024. "Diffusion of Gender Norms: Evidence from Stalin’s Ethnic Deportations," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 22(2), pages 475-527.
    20. repec:dgr:rugsom:00c01 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Cai, Wenbiao, 2015. "Structural change accounting with labor market distortions," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 54-64.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    real wages; state socialism; structural transformation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E01 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General - - - Measurement and Data on National Income and Product Accounts and Wealth; Environmental Accounts
    • N14 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - Europe: 1913-
    • N54 - Economic History - - Agriculture, Natural Resources, Environment and Extractive Industries - - - Europe: 1913-
    • N64 - Economic History - - Manufacturing and Construction - - - Europe: 1913-
    • P2 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Socialist and Transition Economies
    • P51 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Comparative Economic Systems - - - Comparative Analysis of Economic Systems

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:hes:wpaper:0267. 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: Paul Sharp (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ehessea.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.