Assessing the extent of inequality and how various groups in the population were faring in the former Soviet Union is difficult. There are conceptual problems and severe data limitations. Here we analyse the distribution at the household level using unique microdata. The sample was collected for...

Relative poverty in urban Russia at the end of the Soviet era (using microdata for the town of Taganrog) is compared to relative poverty in Sweden. The results indicate that the extent of relative poverty was rather similar in the two societies but also that differences in the structure of...

Harmonised microdata show a Gini coefficient for per capita total income of 45.3 percent in China 2002 and 33.6 percent in Russia 2003. A much larger urban to rural income gap in combination with a much smaller proportion of people living in urban areas in China are important reasons for this...