What is the demand for price stability in post-communist countries?

Problems of Post-Communism

Volumn 45, Issue 2, 1998, Pages 43-50

  Rose, Richard ^a  

^a NONE

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 0010867758     PISSN: 10758216     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/10758216.1998.11655780     Document Type: Article

References (16)

1. On the political business cycle, see William Northeast, "The Political Business Cycle," Review of Economic Studies, (1975): 169-90. More generally, see Micheal Lewis-Beck, Economics and Elections: The Major Western Democracies (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1988).
2. On the political business cycle, see William Northeast, "The Political Business Cycle," Review of Economic Studies, (1975): 169-90. More generally, see Micheal Lewis-Beck, Economics and Elections: The Major Western Democracies (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1988).
3. Empirical evidence rejects the often-heard assertion that sound economic policies and the maintenance of democracy are incompatible. See, for example, Stephan Haggard and S. Webb, eds., Voting for Reforms (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994); and John F. Helliwell, "Empirical Linkages Between Democracy and Economic Growth" British Journal of Political Science 24,pt.2(April 1994):225-48.
4. Empirical evidence rejects the often-heard assertion that sound economic policies and the maintenance of democracy are incompatible. See, for example, Stephan Haggard and S. Webb, eds., Voting for Reforms (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994); and John F. Helliwell, "Empirical Linkages Between Democracy and Economic Growth" British Journal of Political Science 24,pt.2(April 1994):225-48.
5. In each country a multistage random probability sample was drawn, stratified regionally and within regions by urban/rural divisions and town size. About one hundred primary sampling units were then selected, and within each unit respondents were chosen by random procedures for face-to-face interviewing. Although Croatia is included in NDB surveys, it is omitted here because of the economic problems of a country at war. In the second NDB round, 8,505 persons were interviewed in eight countries; Slovenia isexcluded because the question was not asked there in a fully comparable way. In the third NDB round, there were 9,030 interviews in eight countries; the question was inadvertently omitted from the Polish questionnaire. The fourth NDB round covered nine countries with 9,441 interviews. Given the very large number of interviews, sampling error is very low. For full details of the NDB surveys, see Richard Rose and Christian Haerpfer, Change and Stability in the New Democracies Barometer: A Trend Analysis (Glasgow: University of Strathclyde, Studies in Public Policy no. 270, 1996), pp. 113-15.
6. In the first NDB survey, conducted in autumn 1991, respondents were asked to select from a list of nine issue the two most important problems facing their country; 55 precent expressed high concern about inflation, making them the most frequent cited important issues. However, since a substantial number chose both, the result could not show the priority of inflation over unemployment.
7. Janos Kornai, The Socialist System (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992).
8. See Paul Marer, Janos Arvay, John O'Connor, Martin Schrenk, and Daniel Swanson, Historically Planned Economies: A Guide to the Data (Washington: World Bank, 1992).
9. Richard Rose, "Contradictions Between Micro-and Macro-Economic Goals in Post-Communist Societies," Europe-Asia Studies, 45, no. 3 (1993): 419-44.
10. Richard Rose, "Economic Conditions of Nationalities in the Baltics," Post-Soviet Geography, 36, no. 8 (October 1995): 476-95.
11. Richard Rose and William Mishler, "Testing the Churchill Hypothesis: Support for Democracy and Its Alternatives," Journal of Public Policy, 16, pt. 1 (January 1996): 29-58.
12. See data in Tables 1 and 2. Because annual inflation rates, rates of economic contraction or growth, and economic liberalization are very highly intercorrelated only the logged annual inflation rate is used here to avoid multicollinearity. Alternative regression analyses, not reported here, adding annual growth rates and the World Bank's economic liberalization index, do not change the interpretation reported above.
13. When each country is scored as a dummy variable and Romania is the excluded country, the total variance in concern over inflation or unemployment was 2 percent in NDBII; 4 percent in NDB III; and 1 percent in NDBIV.
14. Running regression analyses like those in Table 3, except without the annual inflation rate, reduces the total amount of variance explained by less than 1 percent and has no substantial effect regarding independent variables.
15. Additional regression analyses were undertaken, coding Belarus and Ukraine as a single dummy variable and excluding all three macroeconomic indicators, on which these two countries were extreme. This "post-Soviet" dummy variable was not statistically significant in the 1992 and 1993 NDB surveys and only marginally significant in the 1995 analysis. Moreover, it lowered the F-score and variance explained.
16. The average is calculated from five results for 1985, 1986, 1990, 1991, and 1996, as reported in Gallup Political and Economic Index [London], no. 369 (May 1991): 30; and no. 427 (March 1996): 14 .