Globalization, Privatization and Population Decline in Eastern Europe: The Case of Serbia

Abstract
In this paper, we provide the first evidence of a link between the policies of privatization and population decline in Eastern Europe. The globalization context is an opportune setting to investigate this link. Privatization is an integral element of transition, a part of globalization, conceptualized and managed by the World Bank, an international organization of financial capital.
Privatization led to an enormous increase in inequality in the distribution of wealth and income across the global economy.
In the USA and Western Europe, the working classes were rapidly and drastically impoverished, while in Eastern European countries' transition economies, they were almost entirely pauperized.
We identified a significant positive correlation between globalization, privatization, and the pauperization of the working class, with the outcome of population decline across Eastern Europe.This is especially visible in the territory of the former Yugoslavia where the breakup of the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) led to the cruel fratricidal war from 1991 to 1995.
This study aims to empirically examine a particular situation in Serbia and armed conflict in Kosovo from February 1998 to 11th of June 1999. Demographic swing (population decline) is tracked by applying the concepts of Kuznetsov cycles and Malthusian waves, i.e., the movement of average income and inequality indices.

Keywords
Globalization, privatization,depopulation, Eastern Europe, Serbia

Cite this paper
Marija Obradović, Nada Novaković, Globalization, Privatization and Population Decline in Eastern Europe: The Case of Serbia , SCIREA Journal of Economics. Volume 6, Issue 5, October 2021 | PP. 124-165. 10.54647/economics79262

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