IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/54356.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Consumption and Income Inequality During the Transition to a Market Economy: Poland, 1985–1992

Author

Listed:
  • Keane, Michael
  • Prasad, Eswar

Abstract

This paper challenges the conventional wisdom that income and consumption inequality in Poland increased substantially following the economic transition in 1989–90. Using microdata from the 1985–92 Household Budget Surveys, we find that overall income inequality increased in 1989 but subsequently declined to pretransition levels. The distribution of consumption reveals a similar pattern. Social transfers are shown to have played an important role in mitigating increases in overall income inequality during the transition. However, the relative well-being of different socioeconomic groups was altered and, despite the reasonably good targeting of transfers, there were clear winners and losers in the transition process.

Suggested Citation

  • Keane, Michael & Prasad, Eswar, 2001. "Consumption and Income Inequality During the Transition to a Market Economy: Poland, 1985–1992," MPRA Paper 54356, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:54356
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/54356/9/MPRA_paper_54356.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Shorrocks, Anthony F, 1984. "Inequality Decomposition by Population Subgroups," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(6), pages 1369-1385, November.
    2. Torrey, Barbara Boyle & Smeeding, Timothy M & Bailey, Debra, 1999. "Income Transitions in Central European Households," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 47(2), pages 237-257, January.
    3. Blanchard, Olivier Jean, 1994. "Transition in Poland," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 104(426), pages 1169-1177, September.
    4. Peter K. Cornelius & Beatrice S. Weder, 1996. "Economic Transformation and Income Distribution: Some Evidence from the Baltic Countries," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 43(3), pages 587-604, September.
    5. Atkinson, Anthony B., 1970. "On the measurement of inequality," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 244-263, September.
    6. McClements, L. D., 1977. "Equivalence scales for children," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 191-210, October.
    7. Robert J. Flanagan, 1995. "Wage Structures in the Transition of the Czech Economy," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 42(4), pages 836-854, December.
    8. Ms. Beatrice Weder & Mr. Peter Cornelius, 1996. "Economic Transformation and Income Distribution: Some Evidence From the Baltic Countries," IMF Working Papers 1996/014, International Monetary Fund.
    9. Olivier Jean Blanchard & Kenneth A. Froot & Jeffrey D. Sachs, 1994. "The Transition in Eastern Europe, Volume 1, Country Studies," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number blan94-2.
    10. Milanovic, Branko, 1993. "Social costs of the transition to capitalism : Poland, 1990-91," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1165, The World Bank.
    11. Brunon Gorecki, 1994. "Evidence of a New Shape of Income Distribution in Poland," Eastern European Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(3), pages 32-51, June.
    12. Commander, Simon & Coricelli, Fabrizio, 1992. "Output decline in Hungary and Poland in 1990-91 : structural change and aggregate shocks," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1036, The World Bank.
    13. Adam Szulc, 1995. "MEASUREMENT OF POVERTY: POLAND IN THE 1980s," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 41(2), pages 191-205, June.
    14. Olivier Blanchard & Kenneth Froot & Jeffrey Sachs, 1994. "The Transition in Eastern Europe, Volume 2, Restructuring," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number blan94-3.
    15. Olivier Jean Blanchard & Kenneth A. Froot & Jeffrey D. Sachs, 1994. "Introduction to "The Transition in Eastern Europe, Volume 1"," NBER Chapters, in: The Transition in Eastern Europe, Volume 1, Country Studies, pages 1-18, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    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. Guanghua Wan, 2002. "Income Inequality and Growth in Transition Economies: Are Nonlinear Models Needed?," WIDER Working Paper Series DP2002-104, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).

    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. Michael P. Keane & Eswar S. Prasad, 2002. "Inequality, Transfers, And Growth: New Evidence From The Economic Transition In Poland," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 84(2), pages 324-341, May.
    2. repec:lic:licosd:22108 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Sweder J. G. van Wijnbergen & Tim Willems, 2016. "Learning Dynamics and Support for Economic Reforms: Why Good News Can Be Bad," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 30(1), pages 1-23.
    4. Michał Myck & Monika Oczkowska, 2018. "Shocked by therapy? Unemployment in the first years of the socio‐economic transition in Poland and its long‐term consequences," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 26(4), pages 695-724, October.
    5. Žídek Libor, 2016. "Economic Transformation in Slovenia: From a Model Example to the Default Edge," Review of Economic Perspectives, Sciendo, vol. 16(3), pages 159-186, September.
    6. Anders Åslund, 2017. "Lessons from the Collapse of the Ruble Zone," CESifo Forum, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 17(04), pages 12-18, January.
    7. Kennedy, Robert E., 1997. "A tale of two economies: Economic restructuring in post-socialist Poland," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 25(6), pages 841-865, June.
    8. Justin Yifu Lin, 2005. "Viability, Economic Transition and Reflection on Neoclassical Economics," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(2), pages 239-264, May.
    9. Dobrescu, Emilian, 1996. "Macromodels of the Romanian transition Economy," MPRA Paper 35810, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. repec:bla:etrans:v:11:y:2003-03:i:1:p:3-23 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Anders Aslund, 2012. "Why a Breakup of the Euro Area Must Be Avoided: Lessons from Previous Breakups," Policy Briefs PB12-20, Peterson Institute for International Economics.
    12. Laurila, Juhani & Singh, Rupinder, 2000. "Sequential reform strategy : The case of Azerbaijan," BOFIT Discussion Papers 8/2000, Bank of Finland, Institute for Economies in Transition.
    13. Oana-Ramona SOCOLIUC (GURIȚĂ) & Andreea-Oana IACOBUȚĂ-MIHĂIȚĂ & Elena CIORTESCU, 2021. "Private property - the inclusive institution which shaped dissimilar economic dynamics. Evidence from the Czech Republic and Romania," Eastern Journal of European Studies, Centre for European Studies, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, vol. 12, pages 213-243, December.
    14. George F. DeMartino, 2015. "Harming Irreparably: On Neoliberalism, Kaldor-Hicks, and the Paretian Guarantee," Review of Social Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 73(4), pages 315-340, December.
    15. Christian Sellar & Rudolf Pástor, 2015. "Mutating Neoliberalism: The Promotion of Italian Investors in Slovakia before and after the Global Financial Crisis," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(2), pages 342-360, March.
    16. Kogut, Bruce & Macpherson, J. Muir, 2011. "The mobility of economists and the diffusion of policy ideas: The influence of economics on national policies," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(10), pages 1307-1320.
    17. Peter Grajzl & Valentina Dimitrova-Grajzl & Katarina Zajc, 2016. "Inside post-socialist courts: the determinants of adjudicatory outcomes in Slovenian commercial disputes," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 41(1), pages 85-115, February.
    18. repec:zbw:bofitp:2000_008 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Ulla Grapard, 1997. "Theoretical Issues of Gender in the Transition from Socialist Regimes," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(3), pages 665-686, September.
    20. Luděk Sýkora & Stefan Bouzarovski, 2012. "Multiple Transformations," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 49(1), pages 43-60, January.
    21. Ferdaus Hossain & Helen Jensen, 1999. "Economic reform and inequality: evidence from Lithuania," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 6(8), pages 491-495.
    22. Dobrescu, Emilian, 1998. "Macromodels of the Romanian transition economy, Second edition," MPRA Paper 35825, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    23. repec:lic:licosd:15304 is not listed on IDEAS
    24. Marianne Afanassieva, 2015. "Survival Through Networks: The 'grip' of the administrative links in the Russian post-Soviet context," Public Management Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(9), pages 1261-1281, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Transition Economies; Poland; Inequality; Social Transfers; Income Distribution;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
    • P2 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Socialist and Transition Economies

    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:pra:mprapa:54356. 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.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.