Income Hierarchy Research Articles

A Study on the Value of New Media Broadcast Rights for Major Sports Events

This paper adopts the deductive method to discuss in detail the application of the income approach in the valuation of event retransmission rights. By splitting the income hierarchy to estimate the expected income, applying the market comparison method to measure the share rate, reasonably calculating the discount rate with the help of a model and determining the duration of the income according to the characteristics of the event, constructing a new media retransmission rights asset valuation formula, creating a basic model for the valuation of sports event copyright assets, and applying the Winter Olympic Games The validity of the model was initially verified by applying the case of the Winter Olympic Games, and it was concluded that under the guidance of the valuation idea of the income approach, it was possible to assess the value of retransmission rights transactions.

Having Less Than Others is Physically Painful: Income Rank and Pain Around the World

Physical pain is a pressing issue for scientists and policymakers. Yet evidence on the psychosocial factors of pain is limited. Using data from 146 countries (N = 1.3 million individuals), this article documents the role of income comparisons on physical pain. Specifically, this study shows that income rank (i.e., the ordinal position of a person’s income within a comparison group) is linked to physical pain above and beyond absolute income. This effect is identical in rich and poor nations. The negative emotions that result from a disadvantaged relative standing in the income hierarchy may explain these findings. This article documents a new kind of evidence on the power of income comparisons and highlights the role that psychosocial factors may play in physical pain.

Redistributive preferences: Why actual income is ultimately more important than perceived income

An emerging consensus claims that ‘subjective’ (mis)perceptions of income inequality better explain redistributive preferences than actual ‘objective’ conditions. In this article, we critically re-assess this view. We compare perceived and actual income positions as predictors for preferences for redistribution. We argue that perceived income is partly endogenous to actual income and its effect on preferences conditional on ideology. Using an original survey experiment from Switzerland, we show that the predictive power of perceived income is lower compared to actual income. Perceived income is only associated with redistribution preferences among centre-right respondents, but not among left-wing respondents. Furthermore, providing respondents with corrective information about their true position in the income hierarchy has no effect on redistribution preferences. These findings go against the new consensus about the superior explanatory power of subjective perceptions of income inequality. We argue instead that absolute objective conditions should be at the centre of explaining redistributive preferences.

Objective Conditions Count, Political Beliefs Decide: The Conditional Effects of Self-Interest and Ideology on Redistribution Preferences

How can we explain variation in demand for redistribution among cross-pressured voters? We argue that redistributive preferences reflect an interaction between material self-interest and political ideology. The self-interest argument predicts growing opposition to redistribution as income increases, while the argument of ideologically driven preferences suggests that left-leaning citizens are more supportive of redistribution than right-leaning citizens. Focusing on cross-pressured voters, we expect that the difference in redistribution preferences between left- and right-leaning citizens is smaller at the bottom of the income hierarchy than at the top. Among the group of left-leaning citizens, the role of material self-interest is expected to be smaller than among right-leaning citizens. We provide evidence in line with our argument analysing data from the European Social Survey in 25 European democracies between 2008 and 2018.

Work careers of Bulgarian migrants in the European Union

After Bulgaria?s accession to the EU in 2007 increasing numbers of mobile workers have chosen emigration to the West as an attractive option for achieving a more satisfactory employment. The public debate in Bulgaria however perceives this mobility as a loss of human capital, while in the receiving countries in Western Europe immigrants are largely seen as a threat to the local labour markets. This paper builds upon 42 qualitative interviews conducted with Bulgarian labour migrants in four EU countries as part of the international project GEMM (2016- 2019). We selected interviewees with diverse education and qualifications achieved in the home and the destination country and explored their work trajectories and career aspirations. The analysis focuses on migrant capital accumulated, mobilized and negotiated in the host country and the subjective meanings attributed to the events in the life course. An important finding of the paper is that the interviewed migrants understand a successful work career to be something more than a rise in income or occupational hierarchy and associate it with a wider range of achievements: autonomy, self-reliance, learning. Often low-prestige jobs are not perceived as a failure, but rather as a new opportunity for development in personal, social and occupational terms. Migrants? work career is an essential part of their wider lived experiences.

Social Class, Work-Related Incomes, and Socio-Economic Polarization in Europe, 2005–2014

AbstractSociologists and economists have typically focused on different dimensions of socio-economic inequalities. Sociologists have been mainly concerned with occupational and educational indicators, whereas economists have focused on the earnings, income, and wealth distribution. The article integrates sociological and economics’ approaches to the study of socio-economic inequalities, by providing an analysis of the relationship between social class and work-related income, and its distribution, in Europe in the period between 2005 and 2014. Europe as a whole and its eight major countries are studied with the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-Silc) data. Changes in the income hierarchy among classes are discussed in the framework of the occupational upgrading and polarization hypotheses. The results of our analyses suggest that, first, the capacity of the concept of social class to describe and summarize the different distribution of individual market-related income is stable or increasing in Europe. Second, in the 10 years considered there has been a ‘fanning out’ of the class income hierarchy. With reference to upper social class, the increase in the income gap has been stronger for the self-employed and the routine workers. Finally, there is also evidence of a mix of occupational upgrading and polarization. The empirical results, in particular, are consistent with the predictions of the skill-biased technological change hypothesis.

Losing ground in the income hierarchy: relative deprivation revisited

The paper discusses a one-parameter generalization of individual relative deprivation measures to a two-period setting that differs from earlier approaches. The parameter is, by definition, independent of the income distributions under consideration—it is to be chosen by a social planner. Its value has an intuitive interpretation: it represents the additional weight assigned to the income shortfalls associated with agents who passed the individual in question when moving from yesterday’s income distribution to today’s. Therefore, the choice of this parameter represents an important value judgment on the part of a social planner regarding the relative impact of being left behind. As a special case, it is illustrated how the well-known Yitzhaki index can be extended to this environment. Journal of Economic Literature Classification No.: D63.

Irrational Economics and Regional Cultural Life

Irrational Economics and Regional Cultural Life

Life expectancy and poverty

Life expectancy and poverty

Факторы доходной стратификации российского общества: методология анализа и роль аскриптивных характеристик

This article is the first from the block of two articles which composing the whole, one of which is present hereinafter, and the second will be published in the following journal issue. In this article, based on the data of the Monitoring research carried out by Institute of Sociology of RAS (2015), the methodology of the analysis of factors of income stratification is described and the role which ascriptive characteristics of the individual play in definition of its place in income hierarchy of the Russian society is shown. With the help of multinomial regression models, it is shown that ascriptive characteristics (more age, type of the settlement and the state of health, and in smaller – a sex), remain significant factors of income stratification in Russia now. Ascriptive characteristics play a special role in low-income strata of society for which representatives there are many structural barriers which are not allowing to accumulate resources and to realize the upward social mobility. It is found out also that within the local communities villagers have more chances of a hit in high-income groups of society in comparison with citizens, and especially – residents of megapolises which should compete more actively among themselves for an opportunity to promote above in income hierarchy. The importance of age for all income groups is shown. People of middle and older age concentrate in middle-income strata, but young people, depending on their place of birth and socialization conditions, separate into polar income groups. Major drivers of this “divergence” processes are linked with structural constraints such as settlement or place of birth that also largely determine opportunities for efficient investment in human capital, rather than personal achievements.

Data analytics on census data to predict the income and economic hierarchy

Data analytics on census data to predict the income and economic hierarchy

Data analytics on census data to predict the income and economic hierarchy

The US Census Bureau conducts the American Community Survey generating a massive dataset with millions of data points. The rich dataset contains detailed information of approximately 3.5 million households about who they are and how they live including ancestry, education, work, transportation, internet use and residency. This enormous data encourages the need to know more about the population and to derive insight. The ever demanding requirement in exposing the subtlety in case of economic issues is the motivation behind to construe meaningful conclusions in income domain. Hence the focus is to concentrate on bringing out unique insights into the financial status of the people living in the country. These conclusions delineated might aid in delivering wiser decisions in regard to economic growth of the country. Using relevant attributes, demographic graphs are plotted, aiding the conclusions drawn. Also classifications into various economic classes are done using well known classifiers.

A global bond: Explaining the safe-haven status of US Treasury securities

This article offers new theoretical and empirical insights to explain the resilience of US Treasury securities as the world’s premier safe or “risk-free” asset. The standard explanation of resilience emphasizes the relative safety of US Treasuries due to a shortage of safe assets in the global political economy. The analysis here goes beyond the standard explanation to highlight the importance of domestic politics in reinforcing the safe status of US Treasury securities. In particular, the research shows how a formidable “bond” of interests unites domestic and foreign owners of the public debt and works to sustain US power in global finance. Foreigners, who now own roughly half of the US public debt, have something to gain from their domestic counterparts. The top 1% of US households, which dominate domestic ownership of US Treasuries, has considerable political clout, thus alleviating foreign concerns about the creditworthiness of the US federal government. Domestic owners, in turn, benefit from the seemingly insatiable foreign appetite for US Treasury securities. In supplying the US federal government and US households with cheap credit, foreign investors in US Treasuries help to deflect challenges to the top 1% within the wealth and income hierarchy.

국민연금의 수급부담구조분석과 지속가능성

Abstract The National Pension of Korea is a public social security system designed to alleviate social risks andpoverty that has had a major impact on the quality of life for the aging population. However, a rapidlyaging population and low fertility threaten the sustainability of national pension in Korea. The NationalPension Research Institute publishes a nancial projection every ve years; consequently, the governmenthas lowered the entitlements for the sustainability of national pension based on the projection results. Thecurrent reform of the pension system that arbitrarily reduces the entitlements might detract from the incomesecurity role of the national pension for pensioners without accounting for the highest elderly poverty ratein the OECD countries.We rst discuss methods for the nancial projection of the national pension in terms of population, sub-scribers, and pensioner projections in order to estimate the pension reserve fund and the nancial depletionyear. We also conduct a sensitivity analysis for population variables, institutional variables, and economicvariables based on pension reserves and the nancial depletion year. We evaluate intergenerational fairnessbetween the income hierarchy by conducting a money’s worth analysis. Finally, we investigate the possi-bility of the sustainability of national pension by adjusting pension contributions and entitlements (incomereplacement rate). A new dependency ratio shows that a simple reform of the national pension does notsecure the sustainability of the national pension without adapting a pay-as-you-go system.Keywords: nancial projection of the national pension, sustainability, bene t/cost ratio, lifetime transfer,modi ed dependency ratio

Income Inequality and Depression: The Role of Social Comparisons and Coping Resources

In the present contribution, we address the idea that income inequality can ‘get under the skin’ and worsen the symptoms of depression. We investigate whether this effect can be explained by country differences in the average coping resources citizens have at their disposal, as well as the average extent to which they engage in social comparisons. In addition, we examine whether coping resources can protect individuals from the detrimental effect of inequality and whether the effect of inequality varies according to socio-economic (SES) positions. We use multilevel techniques on a sample of 43,824 respondents collected by the European Social Survey (ESS) 2006/2007 in 23 European countries and find that individuals in countries with greater income inequalities report more depressive symptoms. Although social comparisons are associated with more depressive symptoms, they do not explain the effect of inequality and neither do coping resources. However, we do find that coping resources can protect against the stress of living in a society with high income inequality. Our results provide some support for the idea that inequality is most corrosive to the mental health of the people in the middle of the income hierarchy.

Sverre Molland. The Perfect Business? Anti-trafficking and the Sex Trade along the Mekong. Honolulu: University of Hawai`i Press, 2012, viii+276 p. Susan Kneebone and Julie Debeljak. Transnational Crime and Human Rights: Responses to Human Trafficking in the Greater Mekong Subregion. Oxon: Routledge, 2012, xiii+276 p.

The Perfect Business? Anti-trafficking and Sex Trade along Mekong SVERRE MOLLAND Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2012, viii+276 p.Transnational Crime and Human Rights: Responses to Human Trafficking in Greater Mekong Subregion SUSAN KNEEBONE and JULIE DEBELJAK Oxon: Routledge, 2012, xiii+276 p.Recently, as response to global crisis of human trafficking, more attention has been paid to human trafficking in Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS). However, literature of human trafficking mainly focuses on prostitution and irregular migration, and always considers maximization of profit as central logic behind human trafficking. But this is only part of story.Explaining social-cultural discourses of human trafficking in GMS, Sverre Molland, Susan Kneebone, and Julie Debeljak present alternative perspectives on human trafficking in GMS. In their opinions, there is tension between discourse of policy enforcement and human rights in region.Transnational Crime and Human Rights: Responses to Human Trafficking in Greater Mekong Subregion evaluates legal policy frameworks for responding to human trafficking in GMS. At international, national, and subnational levels, authors point out two essential contexts in human trafficking, namely, prostitution and labor migration. Meanwhile, they apply Foucault and Habermas' ideas about discourse to evaluate competing discourses have shaped policies and policy responses have respectively changed discourses.For instance, Kneebone and Debeljak adopt Foucault's concepts of bio-politics and governmentality1) to illustrate trafficking discourses at both global and regional level not only explaining the increased interests in 'securitization' by those who are in power, but also analyzing why some discourses that may unsettle status quo are excluded (Kneebone and Debeljak, p.24).In The Perfect Business? Anti-Trafficking and Sex Trade along Mekong, Sverre Molland comments on three discourses of traffickers, victims, and anti-traffickers in human trafficking along Thai-Lao border, with specific focus on border towns of Vientiane and Nong Kai. At same time, Molland interprets human trafficking along Thai-Lao border from three theoretical approaches. First, he utilizes discourse2) to explain that institutional practices do not only shape external world, but also respond to it. Second, he adopts practice theory to explain how individuals and groups employ range of strategies and maneuvers to archive certain ends, and internalize these very same ends (Molland, p. 14). And third, he introduces Jean-Paul Sartre's analysis of bad faith3) to explain deliberate ignorance in human trafficking.Molland carefully analyzes and income hierarchies within sex industries in Vientiane and Nong Kai, which are different from idealized depiction of human trafficking. He concludes that human trafficking is not parasitic on migration flows from poorer to richer areas. In many cases advanced by Molland, price for commercial sex in Laos is higher than that in Nong Kai (Molland, p. 127). Furthermore, Lao sex workers cross border to work in Nong Kai, who break logic of maximization of utility. Molland highlights fact that analytical models assumed by anti-traffickers do not explain movement of Lao sex workers mentioned above.In both books, authors pose serious challenges both analytically and methodologically to literature on human trafficking in following three areas.First of all, two books criticize effectiveness of definition context of human trafficking in GMS.In The Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (the Trafficking Protocol),4) one of most essential international texts to any study on human trafficking, definition context of human trafficking contains a range of contradictions and ambiguities (Molland, p. …

The Occupy Movement and the Top 1% in Canada

The Occupy movement catalyzed public debate on the issue of growing income inequality. This paper examines recent patterns of inequality in Canada, paying particular attention to changes in the characteristics of the top 1% of income earners. At the national level, the gap between the top percentile and the other 99% has widened considerably: in 2006, 11% of the nation's income was concentrated in the hands of top earners (whose mean income of $344,000 is 11 times that of the average Canadian) compared with 7.7% just 15 years earlier. Beneath such national-level figures lie important geographical differences in the income hierarchy: the thresholds, average incomes and socio-economic characteristics of the top 1% vary widely across provinces and cities. Among the most important spatial shifts observed is the growing concentration of high-income groups in energy-rich Western Canada, where Calgary has become the most unequal city in the country.

What determine the interest rates in China’s informal market?

The interest rate is one of the most important factors in farmers’ decision-making of borrowing and lending in the informal financial market in China. This paper explores the determinants of the interest rate with microfinance data. Results show that the income disparity, the relationship between borrowers and lenders, the usage of borrowing, and formal credit constraints are important factors affecting interest rates. More importantly, to borrow from those in the higher income hierarchy, farmers have to bear higher interest rates. We attribute this to different social capitals across income groups and higher default risks for the poor. This paper contributes to a better understanding of the informal financial market in rural China and sheds light on the mechanism of higher informal interest rate formation.

Who is Responsible for the Disappearance of Social Classes?

Who made social classes disappear? This was the issue raised at a conference held on 12 October 2011 at the ENS Ulm by the CNRS “Economics & Sociology” research group. The conference was entitled: “Social Classes: Have They Been Dissolved by Socio-economists in Networks, Generations and the Income Hierarchy?”. But basically, it was about asking who had made social classes disappear from the traditional means of interpreting the social world in sociology and other social sciences.

Comparing Countries for Economic Indicator Variables

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the levels of extensive (wider set of goods) and intensive (largerquantities of each good) margins, as well as price, quantity, GDP, employment and GDP per worker for 126countries grouped by human development, region and income hierarchies. Analysis of variance and thecoefficient of variation were the tools of statistical analysis. In most cases the groups of countries differsubstantially between them more so than countries within the groups.