Dynamics of the Financial Wealth of the Institutional Sectors in Bulgaria: Empirical Studies of the Post-Communist Period

The question of who benefits and who loses from the transition, the channels and mechanisms of redistribution of wealth in the post-communist period, and the relation between redistribution and monetary regime are, in our opinion, fundamental in understanding theoretically the deep systemic changes in Eastern Europe. This article has two basic tasks – one empirical and one theoretical. Our empirical task is to analyse the dynamics of the financial wealth of the institutional sectors in Bulgaria in the period 1998-2005 and to identify the major net creditors and net debtors. The empirical data used for the purpose are based on adapted methodology for the financial account of the Bulgarian economy according to the requirements of the System of National Accounts (SNA). Econometric simulations have been carried out of the major factors conditioning the change in the sectoral financial wealth. The empirical investigations are given in Part 3. Our theoretical task is to prove the hypothesis (which is to a large extent supported by the empirical results) about the functional relationship between the dynamics of redistribution and the change in monetary regime. This is presented in Part 2 and is discussed in Part 4.