Inequality In Russia Research Articles

Why is interregional inequality in Russia and China not falling?

In large and heterogenous countries, cross-regional inequality often fuels political conflict over redistributive demands. Standard economic theory holds that initial inequality in incomes across subnational regions of a country should eventually give way to convergence. However, economic liberalization in Russia and China has not produced cross-regional convergence. The paper demonstrates that interregional inequality remains high in both countries and grounds explanation for this finding in their communist institutional legacies. Their common institutional history complements country-specific explanations for the observed trends in cross-regional inequality.

Gender inequality in Russia's rural formal economy

Gender inequality in Russia's rural formal economy is examined using quantitative and qualitative data. Rural women continue to be underrepresented in farm managerial positions, and gendered income differences remain the norm. Rural women are underrepresented because they continue to have responsibility for most of the housework and child care. The traditional division of labor inside the household continues to dominate, thereby affecting women's career trajectories and earning potential. Value change about gendered roles in the formal economy has been minimal.

Beyond “Putin's Russia”: Society and Politics in a Changing Russia

Constructing Grievance: Ethnic Nationalism in Russia's Republics. By Elise Giuliano. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2011. 234 pp., $45.00 hardcover (ISBN-13: 978-0-8014-4745-7). Popular Support for an Undemocratic Regime: The Changing Views of Russians. By Richard Rose, William Mishler, Neil Munro. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011. 206 pp., $30.99 paperback (ISBN-13: 978-0-521-22418-5). The Politics of Inequality in Russia. By Thomas F Remington. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011. 234 pp., $29.99 paperback (ISBN-13: 978-1-107-42224-7). Much discussion and research on Russian politics justifiably place central importance on Vladimir Putin, his societal and political impact, and his regime's role in a number of domestic and foreign policy developments. After all, he has been the leading figure of the Russian state for more than a decade and has left an indelible imprint on the changing contours of Russian politics and society. Similarly, the 1990s were replete with examinations of Boris Yeltsin building a new Russia from the embers of the collapsed Soviet state. The three books reviewed here examine important and fascinating questions that go beyond the elite intrigues of Russia's national executive and integrate an analysis of societal developments that provoke reflection on political and societal diversity in Russia and its regions. Building on a broad theoretical range of existing scholarship, these works take on important questions and shed valuable light on the factors shaping varying levels of nationalist mobilization, the dynamics of growing public support for a regime that has become less democratic, and the political determinants of income inequality. More than mere case studies of an important country, these books take a cross-sectional, regional, and/or longitudinal approach and are attentive to systematic data collection and analysis, which enhances their explanatory leverage. For some, additional comparative explorations of the applicability of arguments to other country contexts would lend even greater weight to the arguments and possibly would expand the book's readership beyond Russia's specialists and observers. Nonetheless, these books make for thought-provoking reading and provide rich material about important developments in post-Soviet Russian politics. In Constructing Grievance , Elise Giuliano explores the essential and yet often overlooked puzzle concerning the “dog that did not bark,” namely why nationalist mobilization had more mass appeal in some of Russia's ethnically defined republics and resonated less in others. …

Методические вопросы измерения последствий социального неравенства в регионах России

Методические вопросы измерения последствий социального неравенства в регионах России

Gender inequality in Russia: the perspective of participatory gender budgeting

Gender-based discrimination is found in all economies in the world. Women’s unpaid work accounts for about half of the world GDP, yet women remain under-valued and under-represented in national policies worldwide. The question of gender budgeting and citizens’ participation in budgeting and governance processes has gained attention in recent years, but Russia is far from implementing these. Instead, blindness to gender issues dominates in national strategies and budgets. This paper explores these issues and looks in-depth at them in the decentralisation process in Bashkortostan, a central Russian republic. Civil society institutions whose role is to strengthen the links between government, civil society and the community in Bashkortostan, such as Public Chambers and Municipalities, lack the capacity to introduce participatory gender budgeting. As a result, no systematic participatory planning, let alone planning that is gender-sensitive, has taken place there.

The growth of inequality in Russia: is globalisation to blamec

The paper explores income based and non-monetary dimensions of inequality in Russia. It is argued that globalisation exacerbated inequality at least in three ways. Firstly, the adoption of global neo-liberal economic concepts resulted in an excessive reliance on market forces and a curtailment of social guarantees which produced a rise of wealth and income differentiation and undermined equality of opportunity. Secondly, the liberalisation of foreign trade and global competition gave impetus to a rapid development of the fuel sector exacerbating the structural bias in economy and wage differentiation. Thirdly, globalisation diversified employment opportunities for certain categories of workers with access to the international labour market which offered much better terms of employment as compared to Russian standards. Globalisation provided new opportunities for development and individual success but in the absence of a strong state commitment to equitable provision of social goods it is bound to exacerbate inequality problem.

Book Review: Britain and Ireland: The Politics of Inequality in Russia

Book Review: Britain and Ireland: The Politics of Inequality in Russia

Spatial inequalities in Russia: dynamic and sectorial analysis

We study the dynamics of inter-regional economic disparities for a number of development characteristics, test the hypothesis of the new economic geography and connect the results with the prediction of the bell curve describing spatial concentration over time. Empirical analysis shows that the spatial concentration of economic activity continues in Russia and that the rate of inter-regional divergence is rather high. The factors that affect spatial concentration and regional disparities in Russia are population density, size and accessibility of markets, as well as the level of diversification.

Inequality of living standards in Russia: internal and international context (the early 1990s and the 2000s)

1The article studies the relationship of social groups about income distribution and goods consumption. It is dedicated to the internal and international aspects of inequality of living standards in Russia during the period of capitalist transformations of 1990-2000’s. Problems of the dynamics of inequality in living standards are analyzed. Methods of comparative analysis and comparison of performance indicators with normative social standards are used. On this basis, the population is classified into social groups and then follows the analysis of their social position. Such indicators are used: income inequality by consumption; inequality by housing, by education and health care availability. Russia is compared with countries of G20. Social inequality reasons in Russia are revealed. The obtained results can be applied within national economic and social policy. The findings indicated that the high social inequality in Russia undermines the ability of a large part of the population to be «included» in economic growth, for it limits access to its results. In such situation, an attempt to solve both the problem of speeding up economic growth and the eradication of poverty cannot lead to success if appropriate measures to reduce social inequality are not developed and implemented.

Whither Russia? Autocracy Is Here for Now, but Is It Here to Stay?

Judging from some of the titles of recent books on Russia—for example, Richard Sakwa's The Crisis of Russian Democracy, Gulnaz Sharafutdinova's Political Consequences of Crony Capitalism inside Russia, and Tom Remington's The Politics of Inequality in Russia—all is not well 20 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Corruption abounds, and state institutions are weak where they should be strong or strong where they should be weak. Under Vladimir Putin, democracy has deteriorated since the heady early days of the 1990s, and the negative externalities of Russia's rocky economic transition—especially privatization—have made it so that social inequality permeates postcommunist society.

The politics of inequality in Russia

This book investigates the relationship between the character of political regimes in Russia's subnational regions and the structure of earnings and income. Based on extensive data from Russian official sources and surveys conducted by the World Bank, the book shows that income inequality is higher in more pluralistic regions. It argues that the relationship between firms and government differs between more democratic and more authoritarian regional regimes. In more democratic regions, business firms and government have more cooperative relations, restraining the power of government over business and encouraging business to invest more, pay more and report more of their wages. Average wages are higher in more democratic regions and poverty is lower, but wage and income inequality are also higher. The book argues that the rising inequality in postcommunist Russia reflects the inability of a weak state to carry out a redistributive social policy.

Studies on income inequality among Russian regions

This article reviews domestic and foreign studies that empirically analyze inter-regional income inequality in Russia. The studies are grouped according to statistical approach applied (cross-section approach, time-series approach, and distribution dynamics approach). The adequacy of techniques used and data analyzed is discussed. The issue of relationship between examining inter-regional income inequality and policy implications is considered as well.

Poverty, Inequality and Subjective Quality of Life in Rural Russia during the Transition to a Market Economy: 1991‐2006

AbstractAbstract Survey data is used to examine the relationship between changes in indicators of poverty and inequality in Russia and the subjective quality of life and mental health of rural residents in that country from 1991 to 2006. The effect of changes in incidences of poverty and inequality on the overall mental health of the rural population is straightforward, with a substantial lowering of symptoms of depression following the economic stabilization of Russia after 2000. The relationship between changing material conditions and average subjective assessments of quality of life during this same time period is more complex, with gains in material quality of life associated with gains in some life domains, not much change in others and in a loss in satisfaction with village life. Within the sample of households in the 2006 survey, incremental gains in income are associated with substantial gains in mental health outcomes. The effect of gains of income on subjective quality of life indicators also is positive but not as strong as in the case of mental health.

Diverging Fortunes: Recent Developments in Income Inequality across Russian Regions

Russia’s regions have been experiencing increasing inequality in per capita income after transition, with spatial inequality accounting for one-third of total inequality which constitutes the highest level of spatial inequality within Europe (Yemtsov). While inequality is not uncommon in large and versatile countries with heterogeneous ethnicities and vast differences in economic capability (Gerry and Mickiewicz), the entrenchment of inequality poses questions regarding the ability and intent of Russian institutions in tackling this divergence. Much research has been done on the issue of inequality in Russia in recent years; this paper will discuss the causes that drive increasing spatial inequality after the transition from command to market economy, and will look at the more recent developments and trends in spatial inequality in Russia.

Inequality and volatility moderation in Russia: Evidence from micro-level panel data on consumption and income

We construct key household and individual economic variables using a panel micro data set from the Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS) for 1994–2005. We analyze cross-sectional income and consumption inequality trends and find that inequality decreased during the 2000–2005 economic recovery. The decrease appears to be driven by falling volatility of transitory income shocks. The response of consumption to permanent and transitory income shocks becomes weaker later in the sample, consistent with greater self-insurance against permanent shocks and greater smoothing of transitory shocks. Finally, expenditure and income inequality in Russia are not far apart.

Oil and Gas: A Blessing for the Few. Hydrocarbons and Inequality within Regions in Russia

Building on earlier work on regional inequality in Russia the article seeks to demonstrate that the regional oil and gas abundance is associated with high within-region inequality. It provides empirical evidence that hydrocarbons represent one of the leading determinants of an increased gap between rich and poor in the producing regions. The discussion focuses on a possible cluster of geographic, economic and political factors underlying the phenomenon.

Income Mobility in Russia (2000-2005)

Although much research has been conducted on annual income inequality in Russia, little has been know about longer-run measures of income inequality and on income mobility. Using the data from the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey, this paper investigates income mobility in Russia during the period of rapid economic growth. Employing a broad set of mobility indices, we show that there is much mobility in household incomes from one year to the next in Russia. There is some evidence of greater mobility for those in the tails of the income distribution relative to the middle. However, income movements in Russia over this period are largely associated with transitory rather than permanent changes.

The Geography of Russia's New Political Economy

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. This is the central thesis of Fiona Hill & Clifford Gaddy, The Siberian Curse: How Communist Planners Left Russia Out in the Cold (Brookings Institution Press, 2003). 2. Per Botolf Maurseth, ‘Divergence and Dispersion in the Russian Economy’, Europe–Asia Studies, Vol. 55, No. 2 (2003), pp. 1165–85. 3. World Bank, From Transition to Development: A Country Memorandum for the Russian Federation (World Bank, 2005), pp. 47–50. Available at http://go.worldbank.org/47BLR525K0 (last accessed 6 November 2007). 4. For an excellent analysis of the spatial consequences of Soviet Planning, see Judith Pallot & Denis J.B. Shaw, Planning in the Soviet Union (Croom Helm, 1981). 5. The paradigmatic example of this in the literature would be Marshall Goldman's The USSR is Crisis: The Failure of an Economic System (W.W. Norton, 1983). 6. Hill & Gaddy, The Siberian Curse. 7. World Bank, From Transition to Development, pp. 41–7, and Timothy Heleniak, ‘The 2002 Census in Russia: Preliminary Results’, Eurasian Geography and Economics, Vol. 44, No. 6 (2003), pp. 430–42. 8. See, for example, Kathryn Stoner-Weiss, Local Heroes: The Political Economy of Russian Regional Governance (Princeton University Press, 1997). 9. For a comprehensive analysis of regional economic change in the 1990s, see Philip Hanson & Michael Bradshaw (eds), Regional Economic Change in Russia (Edward Elgar, 2000). 10. Michael Bradshaw & Jessica Prendergrast, ‘The Russian Heartland Revisited: An Assessment of Russia's Transformation’, Eurasian Geography and Economics, Vol. 46, No. 6 (2005), pp. 83–122, and Michael Bradshaw, ‘Observations on the Geographical Dimensions of Russia's Resource Abundance’, Eurasian Geography and Economics, Vol. 47, No. 6 (2006), pp. 724–46. 11. Michael Bradshaw & Karen Vartapetov, ‘A New Perspective on Regional Inequalities in Russia’, Eurasian Geography and Economics, Vol. 44, No. 6 (2003), pp. 372–98. 12. Clifford Gaddy & Barry Ickes, Russia's Virtual Economy (Brookings Institution Press, 2002). 13. Aton Capital, A Guide To Russia's Regions (Aton Capital, 2004), and SITE/CEFIR, Unleashing the Potential: Growth and Investment in Russia's Regions (Stockholm Institute for Transition Economics, 2006). 14. Rudiger Ahrend, ‘Russia's Post-crisis Growth: Its Sources and Prospects for Continuation’, Europe–Asia Studies, Vol. 58, No. 1 (2006), pp. 1–24, and Clifford Gaddy & Barry Ickes, ‘Resource Rents and the Russian Economy’, Eurasian Geography and Economics, Vol. 46, No. 8 (2005), pp. 559–83. 15. Bradshaw & Prendergrast, ‘The New Russian Heartland’, pp. 116–7. 16. Vladimir Kontorovich, ‘The Importance of Geography’, in Michael Ellman (ed.), Russia's Oil and Natural Gas: Bonanza or Curse? (Anthem Press, 2006), pp. 173–85. 17. Shinichiro Tabata, ‘Observations on the Influence of High Oil Prices on Russia's GDP Growth’, Eurasian Geography and Economics, Vo. 47, No. 1 (2006), pp. 95–111. 18. Philip Hanson, ‘The Russian Economic Puzzle: Going Forwards, Backwards or Sideways?’, International Affairs, Vol. 83, No. 5 (2007), pp. 869–89. 19. For a discussion of transfer pricing, see World Bank, From Transition to Development, and OECD, Economic Surveys: The Russian Federation (OCED, 2006). 20. Hanson, ‘Russia's economic puzzle’, pp. 879–84. 21. Stanislav Kolenikov & Anthony Shorrocks, ‘A Decomposition Analysis of Regional Poverty in Russia’, Review of Development Economics, Vol. 9, No. 1 (2005), pp. 25–46. 22. World Bank, Russian Economic Report, November 2005 (World Bank, 2005), p. 13. 23. World Bank, Russian Economic Report, June 2007 (World Bank, 2007), p. 12. 24. UNDP Russia, National Human Development Report Russian Federation 2006/2007, Russia's Regions: Goals, Challenges and Achievements (UNDP Russia, 2007), p. 112. Additional informationNotes on contributorsMichael BradshawMichael Bradshaw, Department of Geography, University of Leicester, Leicester LE1 7RH, UK.

A New Perspective on Regional Inequalities in Russia

Two economic geographers examine trends in economic performance and quality of life of the population in Russia's regions from 1990 to the first years of the 21st century. The paper compares the results of tests for regional inequality according to a wide variety of standardized measures: gross regional product, personal income, unemployment, consumption variables, social and health indicators (educational level, life expectancy, infant mortality), and infrastructure endowment. The authors construct two composite indices of regional inequality that provide a framework for explaining the different development trajectories of Russia's regions following the disintegration of the USSR. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: I31, O18, R12. 13 figures, 3 tables, 47 references, 3 appendices.

Economic Disparity and Inequality in Russia

Economic Disparity and Inequality in Russia