Economic growth and the middle class in an economy in transition: the case of Russia

Acknowledgements -- Contents -- List of Figures -- List of Tables -- Abstract -- Introduction -- 1 What Does the Middle Class Refer To? -- 1.1 Importance, Measurement and Characteristics of the Middle Class -- 1.1.1 Importance of the Middle Class -- 1.1.2 Measurement of the Middle Class -- 1.1.3 Characteristics of the Middle Class -- 1.2 The Russian Middle Class -- 2 On the Transition in Russia -- 2.1 Russia in Transition -- 2.2 Data -- 2.2.1 Data description -- 2.2.2 Panel Dataset -- 2.2.3 Summary Statistics -- 3 Distributional Change and What Happened to the Middle Class in Russia -- 3.1 Review of the Literature -- 3.1.1 Relative Distribution -- 3.1.2 Decomposition -- 3.1.3 Relative Polarization -- 3.2 Empirical Results -- 3.2.1 Relative Polarization -- 3.2.2 Decomposition -- 3.3 Conclusions -- 4 Bipolarization and the Middle Class in Russia -- 4.1 Review of the Literature -- 4.1.1 Bipolarization Curves -- 4.1.2 Measures of Bipolarization -- 4.1.3 Extensions of the FW Measure -- 4.1.4 Decomposition of the Bipolarization Measure -- 4.1.5 Inequality and Bipolarization -- 4.1.6 Bipolarization and Mobility -- 4.2 Empirical Results -- 4.2.1 Bipolarization Measures -- 4.2.2 Decomposition of the Bipolarization Measure (FW) by Income Sources -- 4.3 Conclusions -- 5 On Polarization in Russia -- 5.1 Review of the Literature -- 5.1.1 Polarization: Definition and Properties -- 5.1.2 Measuring Polarization with an Arbitrary Number of Poles -- 5.1.3 Decomposition of Polarization Indices -- 5.2 Empirical Results -- 5.2.1 Measuring Polarization -- 5.2.2 Decomposition of Polarization Measures by Income Sources -- 5.3 Conclusions -- 6 The Socio-Economic Characteristics of the Middle Class -- 6.1 Methodology -- 6.2 Empirical Results -- 6.3 Conclusions -- 7 Income Mobility and the Middle Class -- 7.1 Methodology: Income Mobility -- 7.2 Empirical Results