Large and sudden economic and political changes, even if potentially positive, often entail enormous social and health costs. Such transitory costs are generally underestimated or neglected by incumbent governments. The mortality crisis experienced by the former communist countries of...

The literature on life satisfaction in transition countries, and in particular on Romania, demonstrated that life satisfaction significantly differs across rural communities and cities of different size. The question addressed in this paper is whether these imbalances are stable over time or,...