From Communism to Capitalism: Private versus Public Property and Inequality in China and Russia

摘要

Since 1980, many economies around the world have experienced two trends: rising aggregate private wealth-income ratio and increasing income inequality (Piketty and Zucman 2014; Piketty 2014). These trends have been particularly spectacular in China and Russia since their transitions from communism to more capitalist orientated economic systems (Piketty, Yang, and Zucman 2017; Novokmet, Piketty, and Zucman 2017). The transition to a mixed economy has taken different economic and political forms in China and Russia-with different privatization strategies for public assets, in particular. These different strategies have had a large impact on inequality and wealth ownership. In China, the transition has involved gradual but nevertheless wide-ranging reforms. The reforms were implemented progressively, from special economic zones in coastal cities toward inland provincial regions, and in sectoral waves. By contrast, Russia opted for a "big-bang" transition after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1990-1991, with a rapid transfer of public assets to the private sector and the hasty introduction of free market economic principles.