Transformations  in
Business & Economics

Tendencies and Causes of Economic Inequality in the Republic of Croatia and CEE Countries
Nada Karaman Aksentijević, Nada Denona Bogović

ABSTRACT. Economic literature has been focused on a long-lasting interest for researches on economic inequality, such as the impact of economic growth and development on the economic inequality and vice versa. This paper deals with economic inequality in Croatia and the CEE countries in the transition period, i.e. since 1990.

The research is focused on the analysis of the consequences of the basic transitional processes on the allocation of income and poverty tendencies. The research is especially focused on identifying basic causes of economic inequality such as: changes in structure of disposable income resources, people’s level of education, rate of unemployment, taxes and social transfers. The effects of such causes are investigated and compared to the selected CEE countries. Finally, it is pointed out that the distribution of economic power and poverty decrease will be influenced in future not only by GNP growth, but by changes of economic and social policies in Croatia.

KEYWORDS: economic inequality, personal consumption, distribution of income, wages, economies in transition.

JEL classification: P2, D6, E2, J31.