Household Income Distribution Research Articles

Income inequality widens the existing income-related disparity in depression risk in post-apartheid South Africa: Evidence from a nationally representative panel study

AimIncome inequality (II) and poverty are major challenges in South Africa (SA) yet little is known about their interaction on population mental health. We explored relationships between district II, household income (HHI) and depressive symptoms in national panel data. MethodWe used 3 waves (2008, 2010, 2012) of the SA National Income Dynamics Study (n=25936) in adjusted mixed effects logistic regression to assess if the relationship between HHI and depressive symptoms is dependent on level of II. Depressive symptoms were assessed with Centre for Epidemiologic Studies Depression scale, and District inequality ratios (P10P90) derived from HHI distributions in 53 districts. ResultsLower HHI and increasing II were associated with depressive symptoms. The interaction term between HHI and II on depressive symptoms was significant (β=0.01, 95% CI: <0.01-0.01); with increasing II and decreasing HHI, depression risk increased. ConclusionII widens income-related disparities in depression risk in SA, with policy implications for understanding socioeconomic determinants of mental health and informing global efforts to reduce disparities in high poverty and inequality contexts.

Dampak Remitansi Tenaga Kerja Indonesia Terhadap Distribusi Pendapatan Rumah Tangga : Analisis Sistem Neraca Sosial Ekonomi Indonesia (SNSE) 2008

This study aims to analyze the impact of Indonesian workers’ remittances on income distribution of households, in which includes the total impact as well as the details of the road from the impact. The data used is the Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) of Indonesia in 2008. The methodology used is matrix multiplier balance with Leontief inverse analysis and details of the impact analyzed through decomposition of the matrix multiplier. The results of this study showed that the group of households that are affected most by the injection of remittances in the government sector is domestic agricultural entrepreneurs while the total impact on the production sector to get the most impact is the sector of Real Estate and Business Services sector, followed by trade.

The Determinants and Consequences of Search Cost Heterogeneity: Evidence from Local Gasoline Markets

Information frictions play a key role in an array of economic activities and are frequently incorporated into formal models as search costs. However, little is known about the underlying source of consumer search costs and how heterogeneous they are across consumers and markets. This paper documents the sources and magnitude of heterogeneity in consumer search costs and analyzes how the heterogeneity shapes firms' pricing and consumers' search behavior. By identifying hundreds of geographically isolated markets, we are the first to estimate the distribution of consumer search costs for many geographic markets. We directly recover the distribution of consumer search costs market by market using retail gasoline price data in the United States. We find that the distribution of consumer search costs varies significantly across geographic markets and that the distribution of household income is closely associated with the search cost distribution. We find that a policy that reduces both the standard deviation and mean of the search cost distribution has heterogeneous and potentially unintended consequences on prices across markets.

The distributional impact of health public expenditure in Italian regions: what happens when cost-effectiveness and quality matter?

We evaluate the implications of in-kind health transfers on household income distribution in Italy, factoring in the quality of government-provided healthcare in different regions (which are responsible for health policy). The novelty of this approach is that we explicitly acknowledge differences in the value of in-kind transfers resulting from cross-regional variations in service quality. The aim of this paper is twofold. First we adopt a fiscal federalism approach to assess the distributional implications of adding health public expenditure to the disposable income of Italian households and we compare the distributional results across regions. We then take a yardstick competition approach to evaluate the distributional implications of accounting for the quality and efficiency of services. To analyze the distributional impact of health public expenditure, we show the difference of the Gini index between final income and disposable income for each region and the progressivity index (Kakwani index). The re-ranking effect and the average in-kind benefit rate (that is the ratio of total in-kind transfers to disposable income) are also computed. Our analysis provides convincing evidence that when health services are evaluated at production cost, in-kind benefits reduce overall inequality on the distribution of disposable income. However, this effect is seen to be lower when the yardstick competition approach is applied to account for quality and cost-effectiveness, and, more importantly, it shows a geographical pattern.

Household Incomes in Tax Data: Using Addresses to Move from Tax Unit to Household Income Distributions

Tax return data are increasingly the standard for tracking income statistics in the United States. However, these data have traditionally been limited by their inability to capture non-filers and to identify members of separate tax units living in the same household. We overcome these obstacles and create household records directly in the tax data using mailing address information included on tax forms. We then present the first set of tax-based household income and inequality measures for the entire income distribution. When comparing household income inequality results in the tax data to those using the March CPS, we confirm previous findings that the March CPS understates the inequality of household income. However, we also find that the previous approach of using tax units in the IRS data to proxy for households leads to an overstatement of household income inequality. Finally, using households in the IRS tax records, we illustrate how focusing on tax units rather than households alters the observed distribution of tax programs such as the Earned Income Tax Credit.

Assessment of the Degree of the Divergence and Inequality of Household Income Distribution in Poland in the Years 2005–2013

Abstract The increase in income and wealth inequality observed in the last decade of the twentieth century and the first decade of the twenty-first century is the subject of many analyses and discussions. Research shows that major changes in household incomes in Poland took place in the early years of transition (1990–1992), known as a ‘revolution in income’. The article focuses on the assessment of the degree of household income inequality after the Poland’s accession to the European Union. The most commonly used measures in income inequality studies are the measures of inequality based on the Lorenz function – a popular Gini coefficient and the Schutz ratio, measures using the concept of entropy, measures based on welfare function, or measures based on income distribution quantiles. The article proposes the possibility of broadening the measuring spectrum of income inequality analysis of the Csiszár’s divergence measures. The main research objective of the article is to assess the divergence in the distribution of household equivalent disposable income in Poland in the years 2005–2013. The data used in the analysis come from the European Survey on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC).

Ефекти на промените в данъчно-трансферната система върху разпределението на доходите на домакинствата в България: симулационен анализ чрез модела EUROMOD за периода 2011-2015 г

The paper presents some empirical results about the assessment of the effects from tax-transfer policies on incomes of Bulgarian households for the period 2011-2015 obtained by EUROMOD – the tax-transfer simulation model of the EU – utilizing data from EU SILC survey. The simulation analysis was performed by tracking the changes in household income distribution for any year from the period where the policy parameters from the base year (2011) were replaced by those enacted for each year, holding the population structure and gross household market incomes fixed at the base year. The results show that the changes in the policies brought in income increments mainly for the households in the lowest income groups. Poverty rate decreases by 1.3-2.9 percentage points (depending on several levels experimented for the poverty threshold). Nevertheless, the poverty level in Bulgaria is among the highest in EU and special measures should be launched in order to enhance the living standard of Bulgarian households.

Vývoj redistribuce v České republice v období 2004-2014

Cilem přispěvku je zjistit, jak v Ceske republice daňově-davkový system působil mezi roky 2004 a 2014 na rozděleni přijmů ve spolecnosti. Analýza byla provedena srovnanim Lorenzových křivek, Gini koeficientu a indexu efektivni progresivity, ktere byly urceny pro různe přijmove situace po působeni daně, pojistneho a socialnich přijmů. Nastaveni daňově-davkoveho systemu působilo progresivně na rozloženi přijmů domacnosti. Progresivita vykazovala konstantni hodnoty. Dlouhodobě jsou z tohoto pohledu nejdůležitějsim nastrojem socialni přijmy (důchody a davky statni socialni podpory) a zdaněni, u něhož lze považovat za progresivni faktor možnost daňoveho bonusu.

Non-stationary individual and household income of poor, rich and middle classes in Mexico

Abstract Despite Mexican peso crisis in 1994 followed by a severe economic recession, individual and household income distributions in the period 1992–2008 always exhibit a two-class structure; a highly fluctuating high-income class adjusted to a Pareto power-law distribution, and a low-income class (including poor and middle classes) adjusted to either Log-normal or Gamma distributions, where poor agents are defined as those with income below the maximum of the uni-modal distribution. Then the effects of crisis on the income distributions of the three classes are briefly analysed.

The effects of household income distribution on stroke prevalence and its risk factors of high blood pressure and smoking: a cross-sectional study in Saskatchewan, Canada.

Stroke is a major chronic disease and a common cause of adult disability and mortality. Although there are many known risk factors for stroke, lower income is not one that is often discussed. To determine the unadjusted and adjusted association of income distribution on the prevalence of stroke in Saskatchewan, Canada. Information was collected from the Canadian Community Health Survey conducted by Statistics Canada for 2000-2008. In total, 178 variables were analysed for their association with stroke. Prior to statistical adjustment, stroke was seven times more common for lower income residents than higher income residents. After statistical adjustment, only four covariates were independently associated with stroke prevalence, including having high blood pressure (odds ratio (OR) = 2.62; 95% confidence interval (CI) = 2.12-3.24), having a household income below CAD$30,000 per year (OR = 2.49; 95% CI = 1.88-3.29), being a daily smoker (OR = 1.36; 95% CI = 1.16-1.58) and being physically inactive (OR = 1.27; 95% CI = 1.13-1.43). After statistical adjustment, there were five covariates independently associated with high blood pressure prevalence, including having a household income below CAD$30,000 per year (OR = 1.52; 95% CI = 1.41-1.63). After statistical adjustment, there were five covariates independently associated with daily smoking prevalence, including having a household income below CAD$30,000 per year (OR = 1.29; 95% CI = 1.25-1.33). Knowledge of disparities in the prevalence, severity, disability and mortality of stroke is critically important to medical and public health professionals. Our study found that income distribution was strongly associated with stroke, its main disease intermediary - high blood pressure - and its main risk factor - smoking. As such, income is an important variable worthy of public debate as a modifiable risk factor for stroke.

The impact of housing non-cash income on the household income distribution in Austria

We estimate non-cash income from owner-occupied housing, subsidised rental housing, and free use of the main residence, and evaluate their impact on the household income distribution and selected inequality measures. We use a novel data set that provides inter-subjective information on housing quality, thus eschewing selection problems. We confirm the standard finding in the literature that imputed rents accruing to home owners have an equalising effect on the distribution of income and find similar evidence for non-cash income from subsidised rents. Whereas imputed rents equalise the upper part of the income distribution, subsidised housing has an equalising effect on the lower part of the income distribution. Overall, the effect of non-cash income from owner-occupied housing clearly dominates the distributional effects, which translates into a combined effect of around 13% higher equivalised household income for the bottom half and around 8% for the upper half of the distribution. Our data provide us with two rare opportunities: to distinguish between council and cooperative housing, and to apply all three approaches used to calculate imputed rents for owner-occupiers: the capital-, the self-assessment and the equivalent rent approach. We find that using the equivalent rent approach leads to the strongest reduction in income inequality. This suggests that, while the inequality reducing effects of imputed rents are robust, they might be overestimated in the literature.

The State(s) of Inequality: Changes in Income Distribution in the US States and the District of Columbia

We study the changes in the distribution of household income from 1976 to 2008 in the 50 states of the United States and the District of Columbia, using annual data from the Current Population Survey. Most jurisdictions experienced an increase in household income inequality, although there are considerable differences in the precise patterns of disequalization. Many of the jurisdictions with the largest increases in inequality were in the Northeast, while many of the jurisdictions with small increases in inequality, or even small decreases, were in the South, the Plains, and the Mountains. In most jurisdictions, we document a pattern of divergence between the top and the middle of the income distribution, but we do not find a similar degree of divergence between the middle and bottom of the distribution. Thus, the increases in overall inequality in most jurisdictions were dominated by changes in the upper half of the income distribution.&#x0D; &#x0D; Regression analysis indicates that an increase in the proportion of the population which is comprised of high-school graduates tends to be associated with a decrease in income inequality, while an increase in the proportion of people with education beyond a bachelor's degree tends to be associated with an increase in inequality. An increase in the unemployment rate tends to be associated with an increase in inequality, as does an increase in the proportion of families headed by a single parent. An increase in the percentage of income in the jurisdiction that comes from transfer payments tends to be associated with a reduction in income inequality, as does an increase in the percentage of the jurisdiction's economy in manufacturing. Jurisdictions that started with a higher level of inequality tended to have lower rates of inequality growth. Many of these jurisdictions had very low levels of high-school attainment at the beginning of the period but experienced relatively rapid increases in high-school attainment over the ensuing decades.

Fecundidade e participação no mercado de trabalho brasileiro

Resumo: Este trabalho analisa os determinantes da fecundidade e da participação das mulheres no mercado de trabalho brasileiro. São utilizadas as informações da Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílio do IBGE, de 1995 até 2009, e o modelo probit bivariado. Conforme o esperado, observou-se queda da fecundidade e aumento da participação no período estudado, bem como efeito negativo dos salários na probabilidade de fecundidade e positivo na probabilidade de participação no mercado de trabalho. Além disso, outras variáveis de controle incluídas relacionadas às características pessoais, condição na família e local de residência também afetam a fecundidade e a inserção das mulheres. Ademais, verificou-se que, na cauda inferior da distribuição da renda domiciliar, o efeito dos salários na fecundidade é maior, mas, no caso do engajamento no mercado de trabalho, é menor.

Household income distribution in the USA

In this article we present an alternative model for the distribution of household incomes in the United States. We provide arguments from two differing perspectives which both yield the proposed income distribution curve, and then fit this curve to empirical data on household income distribution obtained from the United States Census Bureau.

Bleeding Hearts, Profiteers, or Both: Specialist Physician Fees in an Unregulated Market.

This study shows that, in an unregulated fee-setting environment, specialist physicians practise price discrimination on the basis of their patients' income status. Our results are consistent with profit maximisation behaviour by specialists. These findings are based on a large population survey that is linked to administrative medical claims records. We find that, for an initial consultation, specialist physicians charge their high-income patients AU$26 more than their low-income patients. While this gap equates to a 19% lower fees for the poorest patients (bottom 25% of the household income distribution), it is unlikely to remove the substantial financial barriers they face in accessing specialist care. There are large variations across specialties, with neurologists exhibiting the largest fee gap between the high-income and low-income patients. Several possible channels for deducing the patient's income are examined. We find that patient characteristics such as age, health concession card status and private health insurance status are all used by specialists as proxies for income status. These characteristics are particularly important to further practise price discrimination among the low-income patients but are less relevant for the high-income patients. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Distributional effects of non-farm incomes in a Malaysian rice bowl

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify the structure of household income and examine the effects of non-farm incomes on the income distribution of farm households in a relatively developed rural area of the Malaysian rice bowl. Design/methodology/approach – The non-farm incomes were disaggregated into different components to determine the contribution of each income source to total household income and overall inequality. The income distribution and decomposition was examined using the Gini decomposition method. Findings – It was found that almost 71 percent of the households in the sample had at least one source of non-farm income. On average, non-farm incomes contributed about 33 percent to total household income. Non-farm wage employment was the dominant source of non-farm income, accounting for almost 26 percent of overall household income. The farm incomes, especially the paddy incomes were found to be the inequality-decreasing income source. The study also confirmed the proposition that the non-farm incomes were the inequality-increasing income source as they contributed up to 35 percent of the overall income inequality. Originality/value – Previous studies have found that non-farm incomes have different effects on income inequality of rural communities, especially those in the rice granary areas situated in less developed states of Malaysia, where poverty is still a problem. This study is significant because it identifies the effect of certain incomes on the overall income inequality among farm households in the granary areas located in a relatively developed rural area. The studied areas are characterized by an intensive paddy production and a rapid development in business and industrial activities, and hence, providing non-farm employment opportunities to the rural farmers. Therefore, this study shows the income structure and how farm and non-farm incomes affect the overall income distribution of the paddy farmers.

Remaking Urban Segregation: Processes of Income Sorting and Neighbourhood Change

Segregation studies have mainly focused on urban structures as a whole or have discussed specific (gentrifying or renewing) neighbourhoods. The literature suggests that changes in segregation occur primarily through selective migration. In this paper, we follow up on recent work that has questioned these orthodoxies, suggesting that in situ social mobility, and entries to and exits from the city population should be taken into account as well, and that dynamics in all neighbourhoods should be considered. The paper traces the processes by which segregation changes for the cities of Amsterdam and The Hague for 1999–2006, using a longitudinal individual-level database covering the entire population. It extends previous work by looking at income rather than socio-economic status and by drilling down to the neighbourhood level. Applying an existing measure of segregation (Delta) in a novel way, the analysis focuses on changes in the spatial distribution of household income, measuring the relative contribution of a range of processes to changes in segregation. Results show that segregation rises in both cities but that different processes drive changes in each case. Furthermore, the aggregate change in segregation for each city masks a diversity of changes at the neighbourhood level, some of which tend to increase segregation while others tend to reduce it. Mapping these changes and the individual processes contributing to them shows that they have a distinct geography, which seems to be structured by historically specific trends in state and housing market context. © 2016 The Authors. Population, Space and Place. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The Life Satisfaction of Asian Americans: Evidence from the U.S. General Social Survey, 1972 to 2010

We use the U.S. General Social Survey to investigate the overall life satisfaction of Asian Americans. In contrast to most other racial minority groups in the U.S., Asian Americans are advantaged over whites in regard to education and incomes which are known to be correlated with overall life satisfaction. Despite these socioeconomic advantages, Asian Americans express somewhat lower levels of overall life satisfaction than whites. Foreign-born Asian Americans are more likely than whites to be “not too happy” while native-born Asian Americans are less likely than whites to be “very happy.” This pattern persists even after controlling for educational attainment and the distribution of household income. The implications of these findings are discussed in regard to the social psychology, assimilation, and demographic characteristics of Asian Americans. Asian Americans are often portrayed as the “Model Minority,” but they appear to be somewhat less happy with what they have.

Modal Insan dan Agihan Pendapatan di Malaysia (Malay Version)

In order to achieve a status of developed country, the Malaysian government carried out various measures in the economic, political and social aspects. The clear thing to us is that the economic aspect is emphasized because it is considered as the engine of economic growth and development that is able to accelerate the achievement of developed countries. Generally, this book is divided into two parts, namely the writing of which is based on secondary data obtained from official government data and the writing of which is based on primary data collected through field work in 2007/2008. This book contains nine chapters and the discussion is focused on the impact of human capital on the level and distribution of household income and individuals in Malaysia. The power of human capital in developing countries cannot be question. The educated population leaves greater impact on the increase in the social, political and economic growth of a country. In view of this problem various approaches have been made and various measurements were used.

The role of agriculture for economic development and gender in iraq: a computable general equilibrium model approach

This paper analyzes the extent to which productivity-driven growth in agricultural subsectors might contribute to accelerating economywide growth, raising household incomes, and affecting household income distribution. The findings show that raising agricultural productivity according to the Iraqi National Development Plan could more than double the average agricultural growth rates and add an average of 0.7 percent each year to economywide GDP in the period 2013–2017. As a consequence, the economy would not only diversify into agriculture, but agricultural growth would also lift growth in the food processing and service sectors. Household incomes could rise by an additional 3.3 percent on average during the simulation period, compared with a situation in which the yield targets are not achieved. This rise in household incomes would benefit the poorest households and female-headed urban households the most. The following policy priorities to ensure that such positive outcomes materialize: First, achieving the yield targets for wheat and for fruits and vegetables will provide the most growth and income enhancement. Therefore, increasing agricultural productivity in these sectors should be a priority. To achieve sustainable yield improvements would involve improved agricultural technology and management, including improved soil watering and nutrient management practices, new agricultural technology for harvesting and postharvest processing, and improved seed varieties. They also include improved water harvesting, greater irrigation efficiency, and expanded implementation of modern irrigation projects—with particular emphasis on modern drip and spray irrigation systems that rely on solar power. These steps would be part of an overall effort to optimally exploit water resources and address issues of water. Second, the success of efforts to rapidly accelerate agricultural growth will critically depend on whether or not additional agricultural produce can be marketed efficiently domestically and compete with imports. The results of this study show that this will be particularly important for fruits and vegetables. To support farmers and traders in this process, improving infrastructure and market information systems will be important for market access and to provide actors along the supply chain with useful information about prices and marketing opportunities. Another type of policy that would support a rapid increase in agricultural production is trade facilitation. This category includes measures to reduce the transaction costs related to international trade, including excessive documentation requirements, authorizations from multiple agencies, unclear or subjective criteria for the application of duties, and delays and uncertainties related to customs clearance.