Abstract
This dissertation studies some particular aspects of income and consumption of the population of the Republic of Belarus, one of the least studied transition countries, using a dataset virtually unknown to the Western researchers. In the Örst chapter the low level of income and expenditure inequality in Belarus is explained with the use of Ukraine as a benchmark.
Inequality decomposition by sources and application of DiNardo-Fortin-Lemieux counterfactual kernel densities show that the di§erence in inequality is explained by the income policies of the two countries. The second chapter explores the roles played by small land plots in Belarus and Ukraine.
The conclusion is that less ec cient social safety net in Ukraine makes the urban poor use their land plots as a subsistence mechanism, while in Belarus they use it mostly for leisure. The third chapter explores the e§ect of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster on schooling, labor market and health outcomes in Belarus.
The Öndings are that younger children coming from the more contaminated regions have more job-related health issues and lower wages than those who were older at the time of the accident or who came from the less contaminated regions. The absence of an e§ect on education could be caused by special privileges for prospective students from the contaminated regions.