IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wbk/wbrwps/1176.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Cash social transfers, direct taxes, and income distribution in late socialism

Author

Listed:
  • Milanovic, Branko

Abstract

The author analyzes the impact of direct taxes and cash social transfers on income distribution in Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland and Yugoslavia in the years before the collapse of communism. He contrasts the results for socialist and market economies. Cash social transfers accounted for about a fifth of gross income, a proportion comparable with that in developed welfare economies. Generally, cash transfers were unrelated to income in socialist countries, in marked contrast with market economies, where such transfers go mainly to low income households. Direct taxes played almost no role in income redistribution. They were small - 1 to 2 percent of gross income, except in Hungary - and proportional to income. Most taxes were paid by enterprises, as payroll taxes, and most workers were unaware of the taxation and that public spending could not permanently exceed public revenues from taxation. In socialist countries, social support was built into the system through full employment guarantees, state run pension schemes, and free public education and health care. The only explicit policy toward poverty involved alcoholics, handicapped people, and other special categories. This system is being replaced by a market system in which the labor market is key and those who cannot earn enough must be supported by the state. To counteract increasing income disparities, social transfers must be focussed more on the poor. Eastern European states are ill prepared for this role. They have no experience in identifying the needy and targeting support to them. The question is, toward which world of welfare capitalism are the formerly socialist countries likely to evolve? The author contends that the Central European countries will probably evolve toward the corporatist model of continental Europe. Capitalist countries in Europe tend to have large social transfers that are often related to previous earnings, so they have relatively limited roles in income distribution. Transfers are closer to social insurance than to social assistance. The evolution of more agricultural Balkan countries and the Slavic republics of the former Soviet Union is more difficult to predict. Poorer and more agriculture based countries are generally less able to administer welfare schemes, gauge individual incomes, deliver social support - and their finances may be even more strained than those of their Central European counterparts.

Suggested Citation

  • Milanovic, Branko, 1993. "Cash social transfers, direct taxes, and income distribution in late socialism," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1176, The World Bank.
  • Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:1176
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/1993/09/01/000009265_3961005072504/Rendered/PDF/multi0page.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Adam, Jan & Nosal, Miloslav, 1982. "Earnings differentials and household-income differentials in Hungary--Policies and practice," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 6(2), pages 173-203, June.
    2. Morrisson, Christian, 1984. "Income distribution in East European and Western countries," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 121-138, June.
    3. Okrasa, W., 1988. "Redistribution and the two dimensions of inequality : An east-west comparison," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 32(2-3), pages 633-643, March.
    4. Phelps Brown, Henry, 1988. "Egalitarianism and the Generation of Inequality," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198286486.
    5. Mchel O'Higgins & Guenther Schmaus & Geofrey Stephenson, 1989. "Income Distribution And Redistribution: A Microdata Analysis For Seven Countries," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 35(2), pages 107-131, June.
    6. Bergson, Abram, 1984. "Income Inequality under Soviet Socialism," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 22(3), pages 1052-1099, September.
    7. O'Higgins, Michael & Schmaus, Guenther & Stephenson, Geoffrey, 1989. "Income Distribution and Redistribution: A Microdata Analysis for Seven Countries," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 35(2), pages 107-131, June.
    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. Avram, Silvia, 2013. "Social assistance in Central and Eastern Europe: features and characteristics," ISER Working Paper Series 2013-19, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    2. Pritchett, Lant, 2005. "The political economy of targeted safety nets," Social Protection Discussion Papers and Notes 31498, The World Bank.
    3. Milanovic, Branko, 1995. "Poverty, inequality, and social policy in transition economies," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1530, The World Bank.
    4. Mihail Arandarenko & Dušan Pavlović, 2023. "Egalitarianism And Redistributive Reform In Serbia After 2000," Economic Annals, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Belgrade, vol. 68(237), pages 7-36, April – J.
    5. Chu, Ke-young & Davoodi, Hamid & Gupta, Sanjeev, 2003. "Income distribution and tax, and government social spending policies in developing countries," Sede de la CEPAL en Santiago (Estudios e Investigaciones) 34918, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL).
    6. Cristina Matos, 2013. "The Shifting Welfare State in Hungary and Latvia," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 72(4), pages 851-891, October.
    7. Vanesa Jorda & Jose M. Alonso, 2020. "What works to mitigate and reduce relative (and absolute) inequality?: A systematic review," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2020-152, 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. Milanovic, Branko, 1992. "Eastern Europe and Russian Federation - Distributional impact of cash and in-kind social transfers in Eastern Europe and Russia," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1054, The World Bank.
    2. Günther Rehme, 2007. "Education, Economic Growth and Measured Income Inequality," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 74(295), pages 493-514, August.
    3. Frank Denton & Dean Mountain, 2004. "Aggregation effects on price and expenditure elasticities in a quadratic almost ideal demand system," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 37(3), pages 613-628, August.
    4. Frank T. Denton & Dean C. Mountain, 2016. "Biases in consumer elasticities based on micro and aggregate data: an integrated framework and empirical evaluation," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 50(2), pages 531-560, March.
    5. Tim Callan & Brian Nolan, 1990. "Income Distribution and Redistribution: Ireland in Comparative Perspective," Papers WP017, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    6. Frank Denton & Dean Mountain, 2014. "The implications of mean scaling for the calculation of aggregate consumer elasticities," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 12(3), pages 297-314, September.
    7. Frank T. Denton & Dean C. Mountain, 2011. "Aggregation and Other Biases in the Calculation of Consumer Elasticities for Models of Arbitrary Rank," Quantitative Studies in Economics and Population Research Reports 447, McMaster University.
    8. Filip Novokmet, 2018. "The long-run evolution of inequality in the Czech Lands, 1898-2015," World Inequality Lab Working Papers hal-02878212, HAL.
    9. Ron Crawford & Grant Johnston, 2004. "Household incomes in New Zealand: The impact of the market, taxes and government spending, 1987/88–1997/98," Treasury Working Paper Series 04/20, New Zealand Treasury.
    10. Tim Callan & Brian Nolan, 1993. "Income Inequality and Poverty in Ireland in the 1970s and 1980s," Papers WP043, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    11. Filip Novokmet, 2018. "The long-run evolution of inequality in the Czech Lands, 1898-2015," PSE Working Papers hal-02878212, HAL.
    12. Frank T. Denton & Dean C. Mountain, 2004. "Aggregation effects on price and expenditure elasticities in a quadratic almost ideal demand system," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 37(3), pages 613-628, August.
    13. 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.
    14. Paweł Bukowski & Gregory Clark & Attila Gáspár & Rita Pető, 2022. "Social Mobility and Political Regimes: Intergenerational Mobility in Hungary, 1949–2017," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 35(4), pages 1551-1588, October.
    15. Thomas S. Nesslein, 2003. "Markets versus Planning: An Assessment of the Swedish Housing Model in the Post-war Period," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 40(7), pages 1259-1282, June.
    16. Paweł Bukowski & Filip Novokmet, 2021. "Between communism and capitalism: long-term inequality in Poland, 1892–2015," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 26(2), pages 187-239, June.
    17. Denton, Frank T. & Mountain, Dean C., 2001. "Income distribution and aggregation/disaggregation biases in the measurement of consumer demand elasticities," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 21-28, October.
    18. Koyuncu, Murat, 2011. "Can progressive taxation account for cross-country variation in labor supply?," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 35(9), pages 1474-1488, September.
    19. Filip Novokmet, 2018. "The long-run evolution of inequality in the Czech Lands, 1898-2015," Working Papers hal-02878212, HAL.
    20. Milanovic,Branko L., 1990. "Poverty in Poland, Hungary, and Yugoslavia in the years of crisis, 1978-87," Policy Research Working Paper Series 507, The World Bank.

    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:wbk:wbrwps:1176. 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: Roula I. Yazigi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dvewbus.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.