Inequalities in middle-income Europe and Central Asia: A tale of three studies

Abstract

This paper focuses on how questions of inequalities in middle-income countries in Europe and Central Asia are dealt with in three recent studies: the EBRD’s “Transition Report 2016–17”; the World Bank’s 2018 study “Toward a new social contract: Taking on distributional tensions in Europe and Central Asia”; and UNDP’s “Regional human development report 2016. Progress at risk: Inequalities and human development in Eastern Europe, Turkey, and Central Asia.” While the three studies differ in terms of objectives, conceptual frameworks, country coverage, data and indicators, and policy recommendations, they also share important commonalities—particularly in terms of creating “regional” inequality narratives for transition economies, reconciling official data with common perceptions of inequalities in the region; improving data quality, quantity and availability, and changes in tax and social policies.