Income In Favour Research Articles

Poverty dynamics in eight countries

Despite very different macroeconomic conditions, demographic structures and degrees of income inequality, favorable income changes among low-income families with children were widespread and strikingly similar across the eight countries in our study. In most European countries, the combination of modest inequality and extensive mobility among the poor enabled virtually all families to avoid relative income deprivation at least occasionally. However, even substantial mobility among the poor in the Unites States could not elevate the living standards of one in seven white and two in five black families to a level that was half that enjoyed by a typical American family.

Drug information pharmacists at health-care facilities, universities, and pharmaceutical companies

A national survey was conducted to provide a profile of drug information pharmacists. Questionnaires were mailed to 436 drug information pharmacists whose names were obtained from directors of drug information centers (DICs) at health-care facilities, universities, and pharmaceutical companies. The net response rate was 64% (278 usable replies). Most respondents were 30 to 39 years of age and had practiced in drug information for four years or less. There were equal numbers of male and female respondents. More than half had a doctor of pharmacy (Pharm.D.) degree, and about half had completed a postgraduate residency or fellowship. Respondents with a Pharm.D. degree or postgraduate training reported a more favorable professional outcome, including position, income, and job satisfaction. Respondents reported a high level of professional involvement, including faculty appointment, publishing, and professional membership. Common reasons cited for choosing a career in drug information were an opportunity to continually learn, job satisfaction, and regular work hours. More than 70% of respondents were either very satisfied or extremely satisfied with their current job position. The most frequently reported income range was $40,000-44,999; distribution of income differed significantly among geographic regions. Drug information pharmacists report a high level of job satisfaction and involvement in professional activities; they often have completed advanced pharmacy education or postgraduate training.

THE BEHAVIOUR OF AGGREGATE PRIVATE CONSUMER EXPENDITURES IN ISLAMIC COUNTRIES

A growing number of Muslim countries are expressing the desire, and even in some cases taking serious actions, to turn to strict Islamic laws and teachings in modelling their way of life including their economic behaviour. It is the purpose of this paper to investigate the economic implications of these laws i.e. the teachings of the Holy Qur'an, the traditions of the Holy Prophet Muhammad and the practices of early Muslims. In particular, some are concerned that the application of Shariah could impair the economy's ability to accumulate capital since Islamic principles aim at the establishment of a greater degree of social and economic justice through continuous redistribution of income and wealth in favour of the poor and needy. First, Islam does not favour the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few. The Qur'an says,“… in order that it (i.e. wealth) may not merely make a circuit between the wealthy among you”, secondly, Muslims must contribute a proportion of their income and wealth called “Zakat” for the use of the poor and needy. “Keep up prayer and pay Zakat” is the constant term of the Holy Qur'an. There are at least twenty‐seven passages in the Holy Qur'an where the order to pay Zakat and the order to establish prayer occur jointly. Thirdly, Islam urges the believers to spend generously in the cause of God i.e. on the poor and needy. Thus the Qur'an says, “Speak to my servants who have believed that they may establish regular prayers and spend in charity out of substance” (Chapter 14, Verse 31). The Qur'an also says, “Believe in God and His Prophet and spend in charity out of the substance whereof He has made you heirs. For those of you who believe and spend in charity is a great reward”. The reward for spending in charity is specified in Chapter 2, Verse 261, where God says, “The parable of those who spend their substance in the way of God is that of a grain of corn; it groweth seven ears, and each ear hath a hundred grains. God giveth manifold increase to whom he pleaseth; and God careth for all and He knoweth all things”. Fourthly, Islam urges the wealthy to lend God “beautiful loans” in the form of spending in charity. Thus the Qur'an says, “If ye loan to God a beautiful loan, He will double it to your credit and He will grant your forgiveness. For God is most ready to appreciate service, most forebearing”.

Keynesian Unemployment and Overmanning

The existence of Keynesian type (fixed-price) equilibria might seem to justify an optimistic view of the possibilities of welfare improvements for workers in a market economy. Both workers' income and employment can be raised simultaneously by increasing the wage rate. In the standard model of Barro and Grossman (I 97I) this is the case so long as a wage increase has a positive net demand effect (see also Malinvaud (I977)). However, this unambiguous result is a consequence of assuming production efficiency in a demand constrained economy. The model below will provide an alternative formulation of the supply side. In our alternative a fixed-coefficient technology is introduced into the Keynesian model. As long as prices are rigid, some firms other than the most efficient are likely to be operating in a Keynesian regime. All firms earning positive quasi-rents have an incentive to remain in operation and to make positive sales. Hence, Keynesian unemployment may very well coexist with overmanning at the macro level. In such a situation there is a potential for productivity improvements: a wage rise can increase productive efficiency by inducing a transfer of workers from less productive firms to more productive firms, partly as a result of low productivity firms going out of operation. The same demand for outputs, therefore, can be fulfilled by the efforts of fewer workers. This is called the direct wage effect on employment. In addition there is an effect on employment via changes in the demand for output resulting from the wage increase. If a redistribution of income in favour of workers leads, ceteris paribus, to higher total demand, the outcome would be an increase in production, and yet a decrease in employment on account of a wage increase.

Trading off Total Income in Favour of Income Equality: Elasticity Estimates for Six Western Countries

In most countries, attempts to reform taxation and income transfer programs stir up heated controversies. The cost and effectiveness of such reforms require careful evaluation.In their recent survey, Danziger, Haveman and Plotnick (1981) observe that the current best practice in the U.S. is to evaluate the effects of a reform by simulating its operation on a nationally weighted microdata base.

Co-operatives, women and their respective roles in development—The case of Lebanon

The whole concept of integrated rural development includes growth in agricultural production and the creation of marketing institutions and services, more employment opportunities in both farming and non-farming activities in rural areas, fairer distribution of income in favour of the masses of the rural poor and investment in health, education, nutrition, family planning, home economics and the environment in order to improve people's living conditions. Co-operatives can be regarded as the important vehicles of transformation and advancement in the rural economy. The participation of properly trained manpower is a vital consideration in the development process. Women constitute about half of the total population of a country so their status and role need to be emphasised in the development process. According to 1970 estimates, 49% of the total population of Lebanon was female. Of the total number of women, 40% lived in rural areas. No development objectives can, therefore, be properly met without the effective participation of rural women in development activities. In the past, women's participation in co-operatives and community development programmes has been constrained by many factors such as a false perception on the part of women of their role in society, family and political conflicts and lack of government interest in women's issues and programmes. The participation of rural women in national building activities should be enhanced through the co-operative approach—for example, women should be given incentives to form co-operatives of their own, women's programmes should be developed to train the rural women in home economics, health, nutrition and child care. The effective participation of women in such activities will help improve the quality of life in rural communities.

Appropriate Technology, X-Inefficiency, and a Competitive Environment: Some Evidence From Pakistan

The question of technology for less developed countries has received widespread attention in the last few years. The failure of industrial sector jobs in LDC's to grow as fast as the demand for them has generated high and rising apparent levels of unemployment. Policy makers and researchers have become interested in finding ways of encouraging more labor-intensive technologies. These are valued, not only for the employment that they will encourage, but also for the more favorable income distribution that is likely to result. Much attention has been focused on measuring the potential flexibility of production technologies and on examining the financial incentives to entrepreneurs in choosing technologies. There is now a mounting body of evidence that indicates that technologies are flexible and that relative factor prices have frequently been inappropriate for reaching the goal of labor-intensive production.' Recently, Wells and Ranis have generated a second hypothesis concerning appropriate technology.2 They argue that the absence of competition in many markets in LDC's, because of import protection and fewness of domestic producers, may also discourage labor-intensive technology. Protected producers, cushioned from the costminimizing rigors of competition, may well indulge in capital-intensive production methods. If this argument is correct, it implies that procompetition (and protrade) policies in LDC's may be more beneficial than just the static deadweight loss measures would indicate. Unfortunately, this hypothesis has had only anecdotal and impressionistic support and has not really been tested.

The Concept of the Level-Premium Whole Life Insurance Policy. Reexamined

The traditional concept of the level-premium whole life insurance policy is misleading. It has led to an explanation of the policy in terms of a divisible product with its components of decreasing protection and increasing savings. It suggests a divisible premium with one part used to pay for decreasing amounts of insurance protection and one part used to build a savings account. A more realistic explanation of the level-premium whole life insurance policy would appear to be one of an installment purchase agreement. Furthermore, level-premium whole life insurance is offered to the public as a means of obtaining tax-sheltered buildups of cash values with the implication that these tax-sheltered buildups are unique to life insurance. Arguments are presented to (1) show the faulty logic in the contention that levelpremium whole life insurance offers a unique tax-sheltered buildup of cash values and (2) demonstrate that level-premium whole life insurance, instead of offering favorable income tax treatment, is treated adversely. On several occasions, congressional committees have considered the concept of including as taxable income to the policyowner roughly the amount by which the cash value of his policy increases for the year in. excess of the premium paid for that year.' The motivation to tax cash,. value buildups in life insurance policies as ordinary income arises from. the successful manner in which life insurance salesmen and others have been able to sell the concept of life insurance as a tax-sheltered savings or investment medium. The attention in this paper is restricted to the need to reexamine (1) the traditional explanation of level-premium cash value life insurance, (2) the concept of cash value life insurance as a divided contract, one part decreasing death protection and the other part increasing savings, and (3) the illusion of a tax-free buildup of the cash values of a whole life policy. Robert I. Mehr is Professor of Finance at the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign. He is a past president of ARIA, a past director of the American Finance Association, a founder of the Risk Theory Seminar, the Pacific Insurance Conference, and the Interamerican Risk and Insurance Forum. This paper was presented at the 1974 annual meetings of the Risk Theory Seminar. This paper was submitted in June, 1974. ' See Charles E. McLure, Jr., The Income Tax Treatment of Interest Earned on Savings in Life Insurance, published by the Joint Economic Committee, 92nd Congress (1972).

Income distribution, technology and employment in developing countries: An application to Ecuador

In this paper the relationships between the distribution of income, technology and employment are analyzed for the industrial sector of Ecuador. The main conclusion is that the effect of a redistribution of income in favour of the lower income groups on employment is positive but of little significance. However, if such redistribution is complemented by a technological policy which promotes the use of more labour intensive techniques where economically feasible, and by orientation of the increased demand for consumption goods, employment in the industrial sector can be increased by around 18 percent. An integrated model of the input-output type is used to analyzed the effects of different policies on the variables mentioned.

Offering bonuses for reduced fertility

SummaryThe performance of population programmes suggests that even the more successful ones have acceptance rates that are only a fifth or so of what is needed to reduce population growth rates to the 1% a year that permits significant improvements in income per head. It is also clear that no programmes use bonuses at anything approaching the monetary values per recipient that are justifiable. There is no guarantee that such bonuses will produce the number of acceptors that are needed, but it is fairly evident that without larger bonuses there will not be enough acceptors.Briefly, if bonuses are to become an effective and acceptable feature of national family planning programmes, they must meet at least the following requirements:(1) The various bonuses must be an integral part of an evolving and expanding system, and such bonuses must be evaluated in terms of the same criteria used to evaluate the overall family planning programme.(2) Bonuses should be substantial, equal to perhaps one-half or more of the maximum that society, through government, can afford to pay for reduced fertility.(3) Bonus qualification and administration should be reasonably cheat-proof, and the majority of couples using contraceptives should not be able to collect more than one kind of bonus.(4) Selective discrimination among acceptors, at least by age, should be attempted by government to reduce payments of unnecessarily large bonuses to those who would practise effective contraception for a smaller bonus.(5) Bonuses should be used to gain the acceptance of more cost-effective methods, or of more fertile couples, even during early stages when a family planning programme is generally supply constrained.Finally, because in a real sense transfer payments are less costly than more customary activities incurring resource costs, bonuses should be used whenever their budget cost is no greater than more traditional expenditures that are equally effective in terms of reducing births. As such bonuses are really a form of compensation, paying for valuable services undertaken at some inconvenience and sacrifice, there is nothing morally reprehensible in paying them. Moreover, inasmuch as poorer people are most likely to respond, there is a favourable income redistribution effect and, of course, a prospect of higher average incomes because of the fertility reduction.

Ficheras and free-lancers: prostitution in a Mexican border city.

Research on prostitution generally underlines the precarious nature of this occupation. Prostitutes are vulnerable to police harrassment and are often victimized by their clients. The present study, focusing on a large Mexican city bordering on the United States, reveals the remarkable stability of prostitution, perhaps the most lucrative industry in the municipality studied. Utilizing interviews with public health officials, police, taxi drivers, and prostitutes themselves, the researchers developed a typology of prostitution bars in Border City, according to the kind of arrangement between prostitute and employer. Two sectors of prostitution bars were studied, one sector catering principally to American citizens, the other to Mexican citizens. Finally, data supplied by the Health Department of Border City revealed a limited number of background characteristics of the registered prostitutes. The overall picture shows a confluence of stabilizing factors connected with the bar setting and registration system. Prostitutes are protected from police harrassment, receive regular medical checkups, and meet with clients in a situation minimizing risks of being cheated or robbed. In a wider perspective, northern Mexico's favorable income and employment advantages over other Mexican states tend to attract a steady flow of potential recruits to Border City's prostitution industry. These conditions, together with the continued presence of military personnel as clients in the neighboring American city, suggest the continuance of a flourishing and perhaps unique example of prostitution as a relatively stable occupation.

Tax Burden of the Oil and Gas Industry

Tax Burden of the Oil and Gas Industry

WASHINGTON NEWS

<h3>Congress Quits; Keogh Law Change Approved—</h3> Congress adjourned after the usual last-minute flurry of legislating. One of the final bills approved was a more favorable income tax treatment of retirement savings by the self-employed. Four major changes in the medicare law were shelved for this year. They were: President Johnson's call for an increase in Social Security cash benefits and inclusion of the totally and permanently disabled as medicare beneficiaries. House Ways and Means Committee chairman Wilbur Mills (D, Ark) said this would be his committee's first order of business in January. Restricting federal grants for the Title 19 medicare program of aid for the medically indigent. This also was expected to come up for early action next year, since the federal government may have to pay out more than half a billion dollars this fiscal year for the program, far above cost estimated when the program was

PROPERTY TAXATION IN RELATION TO INVESTMENT IN URBAN AREAS

THE INCOME TAX STATUS of the investor has become so dominant a factor in appraising investment that other tax considerations have come to seem insignificant. The marginal rate of tax for even a small investor approximates 20 per cent, for the wealthy, over 50 per cent. Since the gains from tax avoidance are such as to whet the interest of most investors, the opportunities for income tax avoidance are more significant determinants of investment than property taxes. Consider, for example, home ownership as an investment. Exemption of the return on the investment in owner-occupied residential property virtually eliminates competition from any other type of investment with comparable security. Moreover, if treating such investment by home owners as tax-exempt is not a sufficient incentive, the home owner can also consider the privilege of deducting from other income the property taxes that he pays on a tax-free investment as well as any interest charges. For those who are satisfied to own their living quarters, the attractiveness of this type of investment is assured by its treatment under the federal income tax. The income tax aspects of home ownership are not alone among the factors having special pertinence to investment in real estate. The fact that investment in real estate does not require a corporate entity and lends itself to the use of the capital-gain loophole raises all sorts of interesting possibilities to individual investors. Both corporate and individual investors find other for savings in property utilized as an adjunct to a commercial or industrial enterprise. Tax counsel will provide an infinite variety of suggestions for using real estate investment to minimize personal and corporate income taxes and to maximize the after-tax return. Many of these suggestions are not feasible for use in other avenues of investment. The foregoing considerations imply that the influence of property taxation on investment is definitely secondary to the impact of the incometax. It might be put in these terms: if the composite investor, a weighted fellow, not a simple mean, were confronted with the choice of a less favorable income tax treatment or higher property taxes, he would unhesitatingly choose the latter.