The effects on inequality and mobility of exposure to Soviet Communism in Eastern Europe

Costa-Font, Joan ORCID: 0000-0001-7174-7919, Nicińska, Anna and Rosello-Roig, Melcior (2025) The effects on inequality and mobility of exposure to Soviet Communism in Eastern Europe. Journal of Comparative Economics. ISSN 0147-5967 (In Press)

Text (Inequalities_and_communism (34)) - Accepted Version Pending embargo until 1 January 2100. Download (1MB)

Abstract

We compare inequality and social mobility trends in Eastern European countries exposed to Soviet Communist (SC) regimes with those not exposed, using similar welfare measures. We draw upon a rich retrospective dataset that collects relevant welfare measures across regimes including information on living space and self-reported health, and relevant inequality and mobility indices for ordinal and categorical data. Our results suggest evidence of comparable welfare inequality trends in countries exposed to SC and those unexposed. Although individuals exposed to SC enjoyed higher levels of social mobility, differences in inequality across countries exposed to different regimes were negligible. A plausible explanation lies in the countervailing role of the welfare state in countries not exposed to SC and the inefficiency of the bureaucratic allocation of private goods aimed at reducing inequality in countries exposed to SC.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2025 The Author(s)
Divisions:	Health Policy
Subjects:	L Education H Social Sciences J Political Science R Medicine > RA Public aspects of medicine > RA0421 Public health. Hygiene. Preventive Medicine
JEL classification:	H - Public Economics > H5 - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies > H53 - Government Expenditures and Welfare Programs I - Health, Education, and Welfare > I3 - Welfare and Poverty > I38 - Government Policy; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs N - Economic History > N3 - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Income, and Wealth > N34 - Economic History: Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Income and Wealth: Europe: 1913- P - Economic Systems > P2 - Socialist Systems and Transitional Economies > P20 - General P - Economic Systems > P2 - Socialist Systems and Transitional Economies > P29 - Other P - Economic Systems > P3 - Socialist Institutions and Their Transitions > P36 - Socialist Institutions and Their Transitions: Consumer Economics; Health, Education and Training, Welfare, and Poverty P - Economic Systems > P4 - Other Economic Systems > P46 - Consumer Economics; Welfare and Poverty
Date Deposited:	30 Jul 2025 11:09
Last Modified:	30 Jul 2025 11:57
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/128960

Actions (login required)

View Item