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Housing and Income Distribution in Russia: Zhivago's Legacy

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  • 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.

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  • 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
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    2. 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.
    3. Maksim Yemelyanau, 2009. "Second agriculture in Belarus and Ukraine:subsistence or leisure?," BEROC Working Paper Series 08, Belarusian Economic Research and Outreach Center (BEROC).
    4. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. 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.
    7. 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.
    8. 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.
    9. 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.
    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. 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.
    12. Lukiyanova, Anna & Oshchepkov, Aleksey, 2012. "Income mobility in Russia (2000–2005)," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 46-64.
    13. 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.
    14. 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.
    15. Alexeev, Sergey, 2020. "The role of imputed rents in intergenerational income mobility in three countries," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(C).
    16. 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.
    17. 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.
    18. 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).

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