Abstract
ABSTRACTThis paper gives extensive evidence about disposable income inequality inside the regions of Italy and its associated population features. It explores whether the Great Recession changed income inequality within or between regions. Inequality appears largely to be a within-region problem, particularly in the South, and the crisis exacerbated this phenomenon. Middle-class women, migrants and large households in the middle/bottom classes, and bottom-class mothers worsened their income status with the crisis. Education was an important absorber for middle-class individuals, while married status and employment protected bottom-class individuals. Yet, large heterogeneity exists across regions.
Highlights
The burst of last economic crisis and its persistent effects on the Italian economy is a matter of concern for we observe a significant change in per capita income growth and levels, and because it might enlarge significantly the already high dispersion among population categories and regional partition
There is a wide literature exploring the origins of Italian regional disparities,1 especially the North-South divide - from historical background and cyclical dynamics (Canale & Napolitano, 2015), inequality of opportunities (Checchi & Peragine, 2010), different endowment of human capital (Gagliardi & Percoco, 2011), economic development and growth (Iyke & Ho, 2017), labour market institutions and reforms imposed by the European Commission (Jappelli & Pistaferri, 2010)
Is interesting because its ‘structural' regional disparities originate well before the latest financial and economic crisis of
Summary
The burst of last economic crisis and its persistent effects on the Italian economy is a matter of concern for we observe a significant change in per capita income growth and levels, and because it might enlarge significantly the already high dispersion among population categories and regional partition. Our main research objective is to explore whether personal income inequality, inside regions, has increased during the crisis, and to identify individual/household features correlated to such increase To this purpose, we conduct a quantile regression analysis of the ln-equivalised income and its time variation, taking specific population features as exogenous variables. Within each macro-region, the crisis affected only the bottom and top quintiles of the income distribution, but not in the North East, where there is no significant difference in average share changes. The test allows documenting which factors significantly changed their correlation with income with the economic crisis, at different classes of income Factors are those explored in the literature (section 2) such as gender, household size, whether the individual is a mother, education, migrant status, geographical residence.
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