Inequality and historical legacies: evidence from post-communist regions

Egalitarianism is one of the key elements of the communist ideology, yet some of the former communist countries are among the most unequal in the world in terms of income distribution. How does the communist legacy affect income inequality in the long run? The goal of this article is to investigate...

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Detalhes bibliográficos
Autores: Libman, Alexander, Obydenkova, Anastassia V.
Formato: artículo
Estado:Versión aceptada para publicación
Fecha de publicación:2019
País:España
Recursos:Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)
Repositorio:DIGITAL.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC
OAI Identifier:oai:digital.csic.es:10261/201912
Acesso em linha:http://hdl.handle.net/10261/201912
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palavra-chave:Income inequality
Communist legacy
Regions of Russia
http://metadata.un.org/sdg/10
Reduce inequality within and among countries
Descrição
Resumo:Egalitarianism is one of the key elements of the communist ideology, yet some of the former communist countries are among the most unequal in the world in terms of income distribution. How does the communist legacy affect income inequality in the long run? The goal of this article is to investigate this question by looking at a sample of sub-national regions of Russia. To be able to single out the mechanisms of the communist legacy effects more carefully, we look at a particular aspect of the communist legacy – the legacy of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). We demonstrate that the sub-national regions of Russia, which had higher CPSU membership rates in the past, are characterised by lower income inequality. This, however, appears to be unrelated to the governmental redistribution policies; we link lower inequality to the prevalence of informal networks.