Consumption Patterns In Eastern And Western Europe

Consumption Patterns in Eastern and Western Europe discusses the consumption tendencies in Czechoslovakia, France, the German Democratic Republic, Hungary, Italy, Poland, the Soviet Union, and Switzerland. The topics discussed include the nomenclature of goods and services; accounting framework and analytical tables; enlarged consumption and national income; and structure of social consumption funds according to the form of allocation to beneficiaries. The market and non-market forms of enlarged consumption; financing of collective funds by households; structure of enlarged consumption; and forms of financing enlarged consumption are also described in this text. This book is beneficial to students and individuals interested in the resource allocation practices of countries in Eastern and Western Europe.

This monograph provides an analysis of the economic performance and living standard in Czechoslovakia and its successor states, Hungary, and Poland since 1945. The novelty of the book lies in its broad comparative perspective: it places East Central Europe in a wider European framework that underlines the themes of regional disparities and European commonalities. Going beyond the traditional growth paradigm, the author systematically studies the historical patterns of consumption, leisure, and quality of life—aspects that Tomka argues can best be considered in relation to one other. By adopting this “triple approach,” he undertakes a truly interdisciplinary research drawing from history, economics, sociology, and demography. As a result of Tomka’s three-pillar comparative analysis, the book makes a major contribution to the debates on the dynamics of economic growth in communist and postcommunist East Central Europe, on the socialist consumer culture along with its transformation after 1990, and on how the accounts on East Central Europe can be integrated into the emerging field of historical quality of life research.

American ideals and models feature prominently in the master narrative of post-war European consumer societies. This book demonstrates that Europeans did not appropriate a homogenous notion of America, rather post-war European consumption was a process of selective appropriation of American elements.

This book explores Eastern European consumer cultures in the twentieth century, taking a comparative perspective and conceptualizing the peculiarities of consumption in the region. Contributions cover lifestyles and marketing strategies in imperial contexts in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; urban consumer cultures in the Interwar Period; and consumer and advertising cultures in the Soviet Union and its satellite republics. It traces the development of marketing throughout the century, and the changes in society brought about by democratization and the 'Americanization' of consumption. Taken together, the essays gathered here make a valuable contribution to our understanding of consumption and advertising in the region.

The economies of Eastern European countries, under communist rule for the last four decades or more, are presently faced with a number of interdependent but yet distinct policy issues. The issues concern the normal structural patterns for Eastern Europe, the size of transitional gaps, the choice between steady and shock approaches, the scale and scope of privatization and the form and pace of external re-integration in the world economy. The present volume is devoted to an exposition of these policy issues and the propagation of several analytical devices which are found useful. The volume reports on the construction and analysis of six Social Accounting Matrices for Eastern and Western European countries. Corresponding models featuring general equilibrium and structural restrictions for Eastern Europe are found relevant in this context. The research underlying the contributions to this volume was supported by a generous grant from the Commission of the European Communities in the context of the Community Action for Cooperation in the field of Economics (ACE).

This paper analyses the impact of large and persistent emigration from Eastern European countries over the past 25 years on these countries’ growth and income convergence to advanced Europe. While emigration has likely benefited migrants themselves, the receiving countries and the EU as a whole, its impact on sending countries’ economies has been largely negative. The analysis suggests that labor outflows, particularly of skilled workers, lowered productivity growth, pushed up wages, and slowed growth and income convergence. At the same time, while remittance inflows supported financial deepening, consumption and investment in some countries, they also reduced incentives to work and led to exchange rate appreciations, eroding competiveness. The departure of the young also added to the fiscal pressures of already aging populations in Eastern Europe. The paper concludes with policy recommendations for sending countries to mitigate the negative impact of emigration on their economies, and the EU-wide initiatives that could support these efforts.