Attitudes to Equality : The "Socialist Legacy" Revisited

Murthi, Mamta ; Tiongson, Erwin R.

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: ADMINISTRATIVE CAPACITY;    ADVANCED ECONOMIES;    ADVANCED ECONOMY;    ATTITUDES TO INCOME;    AVERAGE INCOME;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-4529
RP-ID  :  WPS4529

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

It is routinely assumed that residentsof post-socialist countries have a preference for greaterincome equality, other things being equal, owing to thelegacy of socialism.This proposition is examined in thecontext of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union usingdata from three waves of the World Values Survey.Contraryto expectations, the authors find little evidence of a'socialist legacy' en bloc.Considering theformer Soviet Union separately from other post-socialistcountries, the analysis finds that as a group thesecountries display significantly lower preference for movingtoward greater income equality than both Eastern Europe andother comparator groups (developed and developingcountries).These findings hold up even when controllingfor the conventional determinants of attitudes such asincome level and employment status of the individualrespondent, as well as national factors such as per-capitaincome and its distribution.Moreover, the preference forgreater income inequality appears to have persisted at leastsince the mid-1990s and possibly since the early 1990s (datadifficulties preclude a robust examination of this latterquestion).The results are consistent with the fairly lowlevels of public spending on redistribution commonly foundin the former Soviet Union.