Just for the record, anybody can download what
is essentially the paper from my website. It is under
the title "Failure of the Washington Consensus on
Inequality and the Underground Economy in the Transition
Economies." The quick bottom line, also previously reported
on this list, is that the rise of the underground economy in the
transition economies may have been partly stimulated by the
increase in income inequality. Certainly there is a strong
correlation between the two in the data, very strong.
The policy implication is that the Wash Consensus call
for cutbacks in social safety nets for fiscal policy purposes
was misguided, especially as the rise of the underground
economy damages the fiscal situation by leading to lower
tax payments.
Barkley Rosser
website:
http://cob.jmu.edu/rosserjb
-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Devine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Thursday, March 01, 2001 12:26 PM
Subject: [PEN-L:8554] Re: Re: Challenge, March-April 2001
>At 04:05 AM 3/2/01 +1100, you wrote:
>>So what kinda copyright does C-MEA claim here, and, when can Pen-pals
beyond
>>the reach of C-MEA enjoy these wild articles in their rightful and natural
>>habitat, ie. PEN-L?
>
>it's interesting that Challenge: the Magazine of Economic Affairs has the
>same initials as the late COMECON (as it's called in US agit-prop).
>
>I already posted my idea that got published in CHALLENGE and I don't see
>any benefit from posting a long version. My paper is trying to measure the
>true "cost of living" including the costs involving stuff that you don't
>buy on the market. It turns out that the inflation missed by the Consumer
>Price Index and the consumption deflator (i.e., "hidden inflation") is
>positive, so that the true (cost-of-living) inflation rate is higher than
>the official numbers would indicate. But don't worry! this doesn't mean
>that Alan Greenspan should slam on the brakes, since only market-type
>inflation is relevant to his job. (There's nothing monetary policy can do
>about cost-of-living inflatin arising from reduced leisure time, increased
>pollution, and the like.) It's just an exploratory paper. I hope that
>someone with lots of grant money & research assistants can follow its lead.
>
>Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
>
>
