Income and consumption inequality increased in all transition economies, albeit to very different levels. Existing findings suggest that countries that were slow to undertake promarket reforms experienced the largest increase in inequality, with the notable exception of Belarus, one of the least reformed ex-Soviet republics, that nevertheless has inequality comparable to the most advanced and least unequal transition countries of Central Europe. This article studies the evolution of inequality in Belarus in 1995-2005, decomposes inequality by region and source of income, and provides cross-country comparisons. Specifically, a comparison of Belarus and Ukraine, based on DiNardo-Fortin-Lemieux Counterfactual Kernel Densities, suggests that the large difference in inequality levels is due to different income policies of the two countries: Belarus is unusual not only in its lack of privatization, but also in that it kept many of the old-style Soviet social security features.
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Paper provided by The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economic Institute, Prague in its series CERGE-EI Working Papers with number
wp356.
Find related papers by JEL classification: D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement H55 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Social Security and Public Pensions O15 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
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