The transition process and institutions: on the issue of the standard of living in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe – members of the European UnionстатьяИсследовательская статья
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Дата последнего поиска статьи во внешних источниках: 11 мая 2022 г.
Аннотация:The aim of this article is to adjust the technique of comparing the standard of livingin 11 countries of Central and Eastern Europe that became members of the EuropeanUnion (EU) during 2004-2013 (EU-11) and 15 countries of Western, Northern andSouthern Europe – member states of the EU by 1995 (EU-15). We reveal that outrighthome ownership in the EU-11 countries exceeds on average 75%, while almost two-thirdsof households in the EU-15 countries have a mortgage or pay rent spending on housingon average up to one quarter of their income. Despite 30 years of transition to a marketeconomy, the EU-11 countries largely inherited such home ownership structure from thecentrally planned economy institutions, i.e. individually-owned and cooperative housing,as well as subsidized state-owned housing stock that became the private property oftenants at the start of market reforms. We propose a technique of taking into accounthouseholds’ income and housing costs (mortgage and rent) in one indicator given thecurrent home ownership structure in an economy. After the purchasing power parity(PPP) adjustment, our calculations reveal that the standard of living disparities betweenthe EU-11 and EU-15 states are less significant than when compared at nominal prices orPPP alone. Moreover, the disparity in average living standards between these two groupsof countries turns out to be narrower than cross-regional differences within seven EUmember states at the Eurostat’s NUTS 2 level.