This paper discusses equality of opportunity in Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia, with an emphasis on access to labor market opportunities. It develops an inequality of opportunity index on access to good jobs and decomposes the contributing factors in the prevailing inequality. Then, it...

Tobacco taxes have positive impacts on health outcomes. However, policy makers often hesitate to use them because of the perception that poorer households are affected disproportionally more than richer households. This study compares the simulated distributional effects of tobacco tax increases...

Tobacco-use-related diseases are the main cause of mortality in Moldova, where tobacco consumption is widely spread, especially among men. In addition to health concerns, tobacco consumption has economic consequences, as households spend substantial resources on tobacco and related out-of-pocket...

Tobacco taxes are considered an effective policy tool to reduce tobacco consumption and produce long-run benefits that outweigh the costs associated with a price increase. Through this policy, some of the most adverse effects and economic costs of smoking can be reduced, including shorter life...

Despite the well-known positive impact of tobacco taxes on health outcomes, policy makers hesitate to use them because of their possible regressive effect, that is, poorer deciles are proportionally more negatively affected than richer ones. Using an extended cost-benefit analysis to estimate...

Despite the well-known positive effects of tobacco taxes on health outcomes, policy makers avoid relying on such taxes because of their possible regressive impact. Using an extended cost-benefit analysis to estimate the distributional effect of cigarettes in the Russian Federation, this paper...

Despite the obvious positive health impacts of tobacco taxation, an argument raised against it is that poor households bear the burden of the increased prices because of their higher share of spending on tobacco. This note includes estimates of the distributional impacts of price rises on...

Despite significant improvements in per capita expenditures and a marked decline in poverty over the 2000s, a large fraction of Eastern Europe and Central Asias population reports their economic situation in the late 2000s to be worse than in 1989. This paper uses data from the Life in...

This paper introduces a variety of concepts and methods to examine living standards improvements in Nepal in a dynamic perspective. Using data from three rounds of Nepal Living Standards Surveys conducted in the past two decades, together with data from a nationally representative survey that...