Both Western and Soviet estimates of GNP growth in the USSR indicate that GNP per capita grew in every decade - sometimes rapidly - from 1928 to 1985. While this measure suggests that the standard of living improved in the USSR throughout this period, it is unclear whether this economic growth...

Until recently, poverty was a relatively unexplored field of studies in Turkey. This is one of the first attempts outside Turkey to use household survey data from two nationally representative surveys conducted in 1987 and 1994 to get a picture of poverty and its main driving forces. The 1994...

This paper provides a single welfare measure to show the effects of consumer price changes upon households in Ireland between 1999 and 2010. This measure combines an efficiency component using a Linear Expenditure System (LES) and an equity component using the Atkinson Social Welfare Function....

China's phenomenal growth is accompanied by both relatively low level of standards of living and high inequality. It is widely believe that investing in education could be an effective strategy to promote higher standards of living as well as to reduce inequality. However, little is known about...

Why is it that, as the Chinese Communist Party has loosened its grip, abandoned its core beliefs, and marketized the economy, its membership has risen markedly along with the economic benefits of joining? We use three national household surveys, spanning eleven years, to answer this question...

This paper suggests an analytical framework to analyse the joint evolution of female participation and wages across countries in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and the Former Soviet Union (FSU), of which Belarus is a particular case. In CEE, female participation has reduced relatively more...

The EU experience with youth unemployment has changed over recent years with the launch and re-launch of the Lisbon Strategy and the Bologna process. A dramatic shift has taken place from the 1990s emphasis on labour market flexibility as a tool to abate youth long term unemployment to the more...

The gradualist approach to economic transition in Belarus would contribute to form the a priori expectation that the rate of return to education is low and the earnings profile by work experience flat, like they supposedly were under central-planning. However, the first available estimates of...

Unlike in many other transition countries, where the gender pay gap has remained stable while female employment rates have reduced, in the case of Belarus women’ activity rate has been practically unchanged despite an increase in the gender pay gap. This paper investigates why this is the case...