Inequality Growth and Poverty in an Era of Liberalization and Globalization

Abstract

Abstract Based on an extensive review of relevant literature and an econometric analysis of inequality indexes, this book provides the first systematic analysis of the changes in within‐country income inequality over the last 20 years. Within‐country income inequality has risen since the early 1980s in most of the OECD, in all transitional countries, and in many developing countries; more recently, inequality has also risen in India and nations affected by the Asian crisis. Altogether, over the last 20 years, inequality worsened in 70% of the 73 countries analysed in the book, with the Gini index rising by more than five points in half of them. Mainstream theory focussing on rises in wage differentials by skill caused by North–South trade, migration, or on technological change, poorly explains the recent rise in income inequality. Likewise, while the traditional causes of income polarization—landownership inequality (high land concentration), unequal access to education, the urban bias (rural–urban inequality), the ‘curse of natural resources’—still account for much of the cross‐country variation in income inequality, they too cannot explain its recent rise. The book suggests that the recent rise in income inequality was caused to a considerable extent by a policy‐driven worsening in factorial income distribution, wage spread, and spatial inequality; in this regard, it discusses the distributive impact of reforms in trade and financial liberalization, taxation, public expenditure, safety nets, and labour markets. The volume represents one of the first attempts to analyse systematically the relation between policy changes inspired by liberalization and globalization and income inequality. It suggests that capital account liberalization appears to have had on average the strongest disequalizing effect, followed by domestic financial liberalization, labour market deregulation, and tax reform. Trade liberalization had unclear effects, while public expenditure reform often had positive effects. The book is arranged in four parts: I, Income Distribution Trends, Theories and Policies (2 chapters); II, Traditional Causes of Inequality: Still Relevant for Explaining its Rise in the 1980s–90s? (3 chapters); III, Recent Factors Influencing the Distribution of Income (6 chapters); and IV. Country Case Studies (5 chapters on India, Venezuela, Turkey, South Africa, and Thailand).