[PEN-L:4615] Slovenia /Kosovo Incomes

[phillp2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (ts99u-1.cc.umanitoba.ca [130.179.154.224]) by]

Barkley,

I don't know where I got the figure of 15 to 1 for the income
differential after the war, but it appears you are correct and I was
wrong.  However, I was also wrong in that differentials did not widen
later in the 80s unless in the second half of the decade as a
consequence of the economic crisis brought on by the IMF as
described by Chossodovsky.  The figures I have here at home are:

1947     3.1/1
1955     7.2/1
1973     6.3/1
1983     5.7/1

That is, after the adoption of self-management, differentials appear
to have slowly decreased.  (by the way the figures for 1947 and
1973 are from Horvat, The Yugoslav Economic System; the figures
for 1955 and 1983 are from the Yugoslav Statistical Yearbook.

I was trying to find the comparable figure for 1987 among some
photocopies of Yugoslav data I have, but couldn't find it.  What I did
find, however, was another series which paints a quite different
figure.  In 1986, the ratio of net personal income per worker (cist
licni dohodak po radniku) between Slovenia and Kosovo was only
around 2/1, less than half the difference than national income per
capita.  I would think that there are probably two main reasons for
this discrepancy -- the very high birth rate among the Albanians in
Kosovo which produced a very large dependency ratio (i.e. a low
LF/Pop ratio); and secondly, a low female participation rate given
the social pressures among the Islamic population to keep their
women out of the labour force and home raising children.  It may
also reflect the way figures are collected undercounting output in
kind in the peasant sector which is still very large in Kosovo.

Paul
Paul Phillips,
Economics,
University of Manitoba