Income Perspective Research Articles

Measuring the Middle Class in Africa – Income Versus Assets Approach

Traditionally, economists measure middle class from the income perspective. Considering quality of data for many African countries, relying solely on income may, unfortunately, lead to an incorrect picture. This article compares and analyses the African middle class measured by income and by ownership of assets. Results indicate that middle class sizes differ significantly in some countries, while in others they are more or less the same. Regression analyses performed to investigate potential correlates of the African income and assets middle class sizes indicate that the African assets middle class size is positively associated with income per capita and negatively with assets inequality. To a lesser extent, it is positively affected by education and negatively by ethnic fractionalisation. The African income middle class size depends positively on income per capita and education, while negatively on income inequality.

Vietnam’s sustainable tourism and growth: a new approach to strategic policy modelling

The paper introduces a new approach to develop a model of endogenous tourism and growth for Vietnam and, estimated by official national accounting data, provides credible inputs for strategic policy analysis. The country is a major transition high-growth ASEAN economy and a WTO member with successful opening up policies since its Doi Moi (Renovation) reform in 1987. Significantly, due to these policies and its natural, historical and cultural attractions, Vietnam has also been receiving in recent years increasing tourist inflows with substantial contribution to its national income. In spite of these developments, appropriate and rigorous studies of Vietnam's tourism and impact on growth have been very limited. The paper addresses this gap. As a significant innovative feature, the study is carried out appropriately from an economic integration growth framework, which is also the expenditure (as opposed to conventional production or income) perspective of the United Nations System of National Accounts 1993/2008. The model is a multi-simultaneous equation model of Vietnam's endogenous growth and tourism determination. It explicitly incorporates gravity theory and classical consumer demand contributors, Ironmonger-Lancaster new commodity attributes and importantly Johansen policy impact add- and sub-factors in its specification. The model is then estimated by system methods with official 1997–2017 economic and tourism data from the World Tourism Organisation and other international agencies. The research will advance the literature and the findings will provide useful new, appropriate and evidence-based causal insights on the determination and contributors of tourism to Vietnam's growth. Recommendations will be made for key stake-holders such as tourism policy-makers, academic analysts and tourism operators for strategic policy analysis and practical implementation. The approach is of the economic integration modelling class and generic, and has wide applications in the field.

Perceived Air Pollution，Income and Happiness

The American economist Easterlin put forward the famous Easterlin Paradox” in a study on happiness in 1974. It is said that higher income is not systematically accompanied by greater happiness. In other words, in the early stages of economic growth, people’s happiness will increase significantly with the increase of income level; after the income growth reaches a certain level, people’s happiness may decrease with the increase of income level. Since then, many studies have explained this phenomenon from the perspective of relative income and missing variables. In the past, most countries’ development experiences have shown that sacrificing the environment in exchange for economic growth is more common in many regions. Therefore, many scholars use the environmental quality as an important factor in the theory of missing variables to explain the Easterlin Paradox”.Unlike most previous studies, this paper distinguishes air pollution from measured air pollution and perceived air pollution. Perceived air pollution is an individual’s subjective assessment of atmospheric environment. Under the same environment, different individuals may have different sensitivity to air pollution. Psychology research shows that the direct impact on people’s happiness is the subjective feeling of air pollution, that is, perceived air pollution. Based on the perspective of environmental pollution sensitivity, this paper uses the 2016 China Labor Dynamics Survey data from Sun Yat-sen University to explore the impact of income on residents’ perceived air pollution, and further analyzes the heterogeneity of residents’ perceived air pollution on happiness, providing a new possible explanation for the Easterlin Paradox”.It comes to the following conclusions: First, the sensitivity to the environmental pollution of residents at different income levels is different. High-income people are more sensitive to air pollution. Second, the higher the income level of residents, the greater the negative impact of environmental pollution on residents’ happiness. It is found through calculations that high-income people will offer higher willingness-to-pay to improve air quality, while low-income people or residents in poverty levels are even willing to sacrifice the environment in exchange for income growth.The conclusion of this paper reminds us that in the process of environmental pollution control, it should be recognized that the environmental requirements of different groups are different. It is available to improve environmental quality and increase the income of the poor at the same time if the ecological compensation mechanism between developed regions and backward regions can be rational designed, so as to realize the Pareto improvement of the welfare of the whole society.The main contributions of this paper are: （1）making a further research on happiness; （2）analyzing the subjective feelings of different income groups on air pollution and their impact on happiness, and providing a new interpretation of the Easterlin Paradox” from the perspective of perceived air pollution; （3）effectively avoiding sample selective bias and making the results more reliable by using more comprehensive and nationally representative city-level air quality data.

PEKERJA SEKTOR INFORMAL DI KOTA AMBON

This study aims to find out informal sector workers in Ambon city through case study. Determination of stratified random samples by first making the population classification according to certain characteristics and after that determined the number of samples with randomly selected system of 211 people, consisting of: people, seller drinks 109 people, fruit vendors 41, meatball seller 45 people. The data were analyzed quantitatively, in order to find out the utilization rate of labor force in the informal sector under study, the approach of the "Labor Utilization Approach" theory was used. The informal sector, whether viewed from the perspective of income, working hours, or education, is in a state of "adequate utilization". The informal sector workers in carrying out their business have earned some of the income they use to support their families and continue their business. The informal sector in maintaining its existence faces various problems. A particularly prominent problem is the lack of capital, the place of business, and the marketing of results.

Retirement Security, Finance Science, SeLFIES and The Flex MMM Plan

Prof. Merton’s attempts to improve retirement security over the last 40 years, when viewed through his preferred lens of using “finance science” to address societal challenges, results in the creation of SeLFIES (Standard-of-Living indexed, Forward-starting, Income-only Securities) to improve retirement outcomes. SeLFIES have been proposed in countries as diverse as Australia, Chile, Colombia, France, India, Japan, Portugal, Spain, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, and the United States – all interested in funding infrastructure and improving retirement security. Merton (1984) introduced the idea of government-issued consumption-linked bonds as a way to allow a fully funded public pension fund to offer consumption-indexed annuities. Later, Merton (2007) would address the challenges of defined contribution (DC) plans and argue that the welfare of individuals should be expressed in units of retirement income, and not wealth. A key insight is that the traditional “risk-free” asset in Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT) was risky from a retirement income perspective. Muralidhar, Ohashi and Shin (2014), in developing the Relative Asset Pricing Model (RAPM), leveraged the Merton (2007) idea that in retirement planning (or in any goals-based portfolio), investors care about (the utility of) funded status, defined as wealth divided by stochastic liabilities, and not expected utility of wealth. In RAPM, an additional variable – the relative risk-free asset or the asset that replicates the stochastic goal – is critical to asset allocation and asset pricing (and CAPM is just a special case of RAPM; namely CAPM assumes a deterministic goal). Currently in DC plans, the goal replicating portfolio (an annuity) is illiquid, costly and complex and Modigliani (1986) highlights the “annuity puzzle”. Muralidhar (2015) and Muralidhar, Ohashi and Shin (2015) recommend the creation of a new bond that replicates the desired cash flow profile in DC plans – a bond (called BFFS) that pays a fixed currency coupon, in real-terms, that starts paying once an individual retires for a period equal to the life expectancy of the country. Merton and Muralidhar (2017b) recommend linking these bonds to per-capita consumption (leveraging Merton 1984) thereby creating SeLFIES and show why SeLFIES are a good deal for governments too. BFFS/SeLFIES help complete financial markets and this idea is easily extended to other goals. The paper concludes by demonstrating how finance science can be used to design effective DC pension plans for uncovered workers.

Sino-US trade balance from national income perspective and global income chains

ABSTRACTTrade volume biases trade benefits under the background of economic globalization. Employing the input-output technique, important progress has been made in research on trade in value-added. It is noteworthy that capital globalization is one of the important manifestations of economic globalization. Owing to the ever-increasing transnational flow of capital, mainly by foreign direct investment (FDI), production of exports shows great dependence on foreign capital. A large part of value-added in exports are obtained by foreign factors owners, since foreign-invested enterprises account for a large proportion in host country’s total exports, which is foreign income. The ultimate goal of trade is to boost national income. We propose to study trade benefits and trade balance from national income perspective, and further introduce the concept of global income chains to reveal economic benefits distribution within international specialization.

Provincial emission accounting for CO2 mitigation in China: Insights from production, consumption and income perspectives

Emission accounting can help to identify main CO2 emitters and inform emission mitigation policymaking. Previous studies have proved that the application of different accounting principles results in different emission levels, thus bring different policy implications, while the emissions enabled by primary inputs (or income-based emission) have been overlooked in studies for carbon mitigation in China. Understanding the role of primary inputs in CO2 emissions is a prerequisite to create efficient supply-side mitigation policies. Here, we conduct a quantitative study of China’s provincial production-, consumption-, and income-based CO2 emissions in a unified multi-regional input-output analysis framework. The results are compared from the three perspectives for 30 provinces in China to help the government identify the main policy targets from production, demand, and supply sides. We found that 64% and 35% of China’s emissions are transferred among provinces driven by final demands and primary inputs, respectively. Mitigation policies in heavily industrialized provinces, such as Hebei, Liaoning, and Henan, where the production-based emissions are higher than the consumption- and income-based emissions, should be focused on production side. Similarly, policies in eastern coastal developed provinces and resource-abundant provinces should be focused on demand- and supply-side, respectively. Moreover, we found that tertiary industries, which previous studies generally regard as low-carbon industries, are the major contributors to China’s income-based CO2 emissions with a total of 2026 Mt or 31% of China’s total income-based CO2 emissions. Thus, expanding tertiary industries without reducing their industrial linkages to carbon-intensive industries is not conducive to China’s emission reduction.

Water-Use Efficiency of Crops in the Arid Area of the Middle Reaches of the Heihe River: Taking Zhangye City as an Example

The middle reaches of the Heihe River are an important food base in the arid regions of Northwest China. The agricultural water consumption in this region accounts for about 90% of the total water consumption. The shortage of water resources is the primary reason for restricting agricultural development. Therefore, studying the efficiency of agricultural water use is essential to improving the effective use of water resources. Under the premise of considering agricultural water saving, we improved the water efficiency model from the perspective of pure agricultural income that farmers are more concerned about. In this study, we took Zhangye City in the middle reaches of the Heihe River as an example, based on meteorological crop data and farmer survey data. Then, we used the input–output method to quantitatively analyze the net income of the crops in Zhangye City. We used the CROPWAT model to calculate the water demand of crops during the growing season. Lastly, we used the improved water-use efficiency (WUE) model to analyze WUE differences of crops in the study area. We reached the following conclusions: (1) among the six crops in the study area, the net profit of seed corn was 20,520 yuan/ha, followed by field corn, 11,700 yuan/ha, then followed by potato, rapeseed, wheat, and barley; (2) the maximum water requirement for the crop growth period was 597.2 mm for field corn, followed by 577.3 mm for seed corn, then followed by rapeseed, wheat, barley, and potato; (3) among the six crops, the WUE calculated using the water efficiency model before and after improvement had obvious differences. The WUE calculated using the original model reached 9.03 yuan/m3 for potato, followed by 6.33 yuan/m3 for seed corn. The WUE calculated using the improved model reached 3.44 yuan/m3 for seed corn, which is the maximum, followed by potato with 2.25 yuan/m3. Considering the agricultural water saving and crop yields, we propose to properly expand the cultivation of seed corn and potato in the middle reaches of the Heihe River. This would be more conducive to achieving a “win-win” situation for water conservation and revenue.

A Research on Anti-poverty through Employment Promotion from the Perspective of Vulnerability to Poverty

The poverty prevention in relatively poor areas attaches great reference significance to the construction of poverty alleviation framework in the post-2020 poverty alleviation era in China. As a key index of poverty prevention, vulnerability to poverty addresses the future welfare of rural population. This paper takes Suqian, a state-level poverty alleviation reform pilot area, as a sample to study the characteristics of poverty vulnerability of farmers in relatively poor areas and the impact of the anti-poverty project through employment promotion on the alleviation of poverty vulnerability. Our study aims to achieve four basic goals: firstly, we measure the vulnerability to poverty in relatively poor areas; secondly, we analyze the relationship between current poverty and current vulnerability （future poverty）, and judge the deviation degree of the current poverty identification target; thirdly, we clarify the relationship between participating in work and alleviating the vulnerability to poverty, and analyze the reasonable direction of policy adjustment by distinguishing the different effects of work on poor households and non-poor households; fourthly, we further analyze the difference of the impact of two employment flows, i.e. local workers and migrant workers, on the vulnerability to poverty, and give reasonable suggestions based on their advantages and disadvantages in practice. The study through the Chaudhuri prediction method shows that under the three poverty lines of 4 000 yuan, 6 000 yuan, and 8 000 yuan, the proportion of vulnerable households in the total sample is 30.70%, 43.57% and 52.63%, respectively. The proportion of vulnerable households is lower than the current sample poverty incidence which is 55.85% under the poverty line of 6 000 yuan, and the current poverty is independent of current vulnerability. Participation in employment can significantly reduce the vulnerability of the total sample. The separate tests for poor and non-poor households also have significant effects. Further analysis shows that from the perspective of income, migrant work is more advantageous than local employment in reducing the vulnerability to poverty. Regarding the possible endogenous effects on research results, this paper uses Propensity Score Matching （PSM） to test the results, and the conclusions are consistent. Based on the research conclusions, this paper points out that: the poverty policy should pay more attention to the revision of the target of poverty alleviation policies and focus more on future poor farmers; the government should further implement industrial supporting policies to promote employment-driven poverty alleviation, promote the development of the labor market in rural areas, and thus achieve poverty alleviation sustainability; although migrant workers can alleviate future poverty, in practice we should also weigh the expenditure-type poverty caused by migrant work, the problem of three-stays” and the transfer of the rural poor to cities.

Performance Measurement in CV. Sinar Energi Gemilang with Balanced Scorecard Method

This study aims to measure the performance carried out on CV. Sinar Energi Gemilang (SEG) with the Balanced Scorecard method. The next objective is to find out the contribution of the factors that influence performance on the CV. Sinar Energi Gemilang uses the Balanced Scorecard method which includes four perspectives, namely financial perspective, customer perspective, internal business perspective, and growth and income perspective. This research is a type of qualitative descriptive research. The data used in the form of documentation, questionnaires, and interviews. Indicators from a financial perspective are revenue growth and budget realization. Indicators from the customer perspective are market share, customer retention, customer acquisition, and customer satisfaction. The indicator of an internal business perspective is the process of innovation, operational procedures, after-sales processes. Indicators of growth and learning are the level of employee satisfaction, employee retention, employee productivity. The results show 1) performance from a financial perspective shows growth. 2) performance from the customer’s perspective shows good results. 3) performance from an internal business perspective starts to improve. 4) performance from the perspective of revenue growth shows good results

How Will an Emissions Trading System Affect Household Income and Social Equity? A CGE-Based Case Study of China

Recently, China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) announced the establishment of a nationwide carbon emissions trading system (ETS), which will be the largest ETS in the world. The national ETS directly encourages enterprises to make a low-carbon transition through market mechanisms. In addition, the ETS is a potential source of significant government revenue through the auction of emissions permits. The allocation of this revenue is an important consideration for the NDRC. Some ETS areas already have experience with revenue recycling. For example, the California government directly returns ETS revenue to residents through electricity bill credits, as well as dedicated some of the revenue to the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF). This study uses a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model to explore the economic impact of directly returning the revenue from the ETS to residents in China. At the same time, taking into account the significant differences between different income groups in urban and rural areas in China, the research explores the difference between different distribution policies. The results show that the coal industry will suffer the greatest negative impact from the ETS. By 2050, the number of people employed in the coal industry will fall by 63.8% compared to 2012, and under the ETS scenario, coal employment will decrease by 75.3%. However, these employment effects can be mitigated by targeted transfers to the displaced coal workers using ETS revenue. At the national level, ETS policies have a positive effect on GDP due to the income effect of revenue recycling. From the perspective of household income, the ETS policies will have differing impacts on different income groups. In addition, different income distribution methods will also change the impact on the income of different groups. Among these revenue distribution options, the distribution by population be most conducive to the promotion of social equity.

Is the Commercialization of Wild Plants by Organic Producers in Austria Neglected or Irrelevant?

European countries are split over the appreciation of wild berries, fruits, mushrooms, and herbs. While some countries provide public statistics on wild plants, others seem to neglect wild plant gathering and commercialization. In this study, we aimed to understand if wild plant commercialization is neglected or irrelevant in Austria, a country that does not provide statistics. We focus on organic producers, because organic certification of wild plant gathering might have potential for countering frequent concerns about commercial gathering, including destructive gathering and overharvesting. Using a mixed-methods approach with a concurrent triangulation design, databases of six organic certification bodies were analysed concurrently with semi-structured expert interviews of their representatives. We found that organic certification for gathering was issued to 1.5% of organic producers in the year 2016 in Austria and is relevant for three distinct gatherer types: regular, diversified, and single-plant gatherers. Organic gathering is most frequently part of agricultural or horticultural farms and rarely an isolated commercial activity. It is related to mixed farming, deepening on-farm diversification, and contributes to maintaining traditions, as well as the local socio-ecological memory of wild plant products. Organic wild plants are directly marketed to consumers as traditional and innovative products, but also supplied to mass markets. We conclude that from a socio-cultural perspective and a focus on regional economies, organic gathering is neglected in Austria, whereas from an income perspective, wild plant gathering seems to be indeed relevant for few organic producers, although exhibiting potential.

Job quality and poverty in Latin America

AbstractLabor market dynamics have played a significant role in the remarkable social gains experienced in the recent past across Latin America. Assessing quality of employment, beyond the perspective of income, to include other fundamental aspects of jobs – such as whether jobs are secure, provide benefits, or are satisfying – can shed light on the sustainability of these achievements. This is particularly pertinent given the region's current economic slowdown. Using harmonized data for 15 countries in Latin America, this paper connects the role of job quality with the recent process of inclusive growth across the region, and particularly with how individuals worked their way out of poverty. The paper first proposes a multi‐dimensional measure for job quality, and then uses this measure to compare job quality across countries and over time. The paper also studies correlates of job quality and the relationship between job quality and poverty. One main finding is that job quality across the region began to increase in 2003. The best predictors of job quality are age, gender, firm size, formal employment, and union membership. Benefits and job satisfaction are the dimensions of job quality that are best correlated with not living in poverty.

Socioeconomic determinants of China's growing CH4 emissions

Reducing CH4 emissions is a major global challenge, owing to the world-wide rise in emissions and concentration of CH4 in the atmosphere, especially in the past decade. China has been the greatest contributor to global anthropogenic CH4 emissions for a long time, but current understanding towards its growing emissions is insufficient. This paper aims to link China's CH4 emissions during 2005–2012 to their socioeconomic determinants by combining input-output models with structural decomposition analysis from both the consumption and income perspectives. Results show that changes in household consumption and income were the leading drivers of the CH4 growth in China, while changes in efficiency remained the strongest factor offsetting CH4 emissions. After 2007, with the global financial crisis and economic stimulus plans, embodied emissions from exports plunged but those from capital formation increased rapidly. The enabled emissions in employee compensation increased steadily over time, whereas emissions induced from firms' net surplus decreased gradually, reflecting the reform on income distribution. In addition, at the sectoral level, consumption and capital formation respectively were the greatest drivers of embodied CH4 emission changes from agriculture and manufacturing, while employee compensation largely determined the enabled emission changes across all industrial sectors. The growth of CH4 emissions in China was profoundly affected by the macroeconomic situation and the changes of economic structure. Examining economic drivers of anthropogenic CH4 emissions can help formulate comprehensive mitigation policies and actions associated with economic production, supply and consumption.

Drawing the optimal monetary poverty lines based on empirical data: an application to Spain

This study incorporates revealed severe material deprivation in the determination of the at-risk-of monetary poverty lines from the perspective of equivalent income. In this way, two poverty perspectives which were previously seen as independent, and to some extent mutually exclusive, are brought together. A harmonized procedure based on receiver operating curves to determine the percentage p in relation to the median is applied; this percentage determines whether or not a person is at-risk-of poverty − 60% in the EU but 50% in the UN and OECD. In these two cases the percentage is always constant in all countries over the time by convention. Unlike the classical approach, our study identifies different thresholds for each reality (space and time), that are checked firstly using criteria for sensitivity, specificity, accuracy and the predictive values, secondly, by correlation between the improved indicator and the severe material deprivation rate, and finally, using an exogenous contrast variable.

House Demolition and Household Investment of Financial Risk Assets

Family finance is becoming the focus of people’s attention. Family financial market participation, family asset selection and influencing factors are core issues of family financial research center. Although compared with the past, the current rate of household participation in financial market in our country has been raised, from the current status of financial market, there are still some problems in the household investment of financial risk assets like the low proportion of investment and the low market participation rate. Therefore, under current background conditions that current financial market and financial product development in our country are still unable to meet the diverse and multilevel needs of families, this paper studies the investment of household financial assets, especially the investment of family financial risk assets. It is helpful to the design of new financial products, market orientation and target population setting as for the nation and enterprises, and then the optimization of the household financial asset portfolio. In recent years, with the improvement of the availability of micro-data, more and more scholars have paid their attention to the factors that affect the investment decision-making behavior of family financial risk assets. In this respect, some scholars have revealed the impacts of income, education level, health status, social insurance and social interaction through micro-empirical research. However, according to existing related research, few scholars pay attention to the influence and influence mechanism of money from different sources on the investment decision-making behavior of family financial risk assets. This paper seeks to fill up this gap and provides new micro-empirical evidence in this area. House demolition has always been a hot issue as for the public and the academic community. House demolition in China is usually accompanied by rich demolition compensation. From a perspective of mental account, demolition compensation and wage income earned by families through hard work are two types of money with different sources, that is, the first one belongs to windfall income, and the last one fixed income. Therefore, this paper chooses the impact of house demolition on investment decision-making behavior of family financial risk assets and its impact mechanism as the research topics. First of all, this paper distinguishes the family money sources based on house demolition. Next, on the basis of in-depth theoretical analysis, rigorous empirical research has been carried out to verify the impact of house demolition on the investment decision-making behavior of family financial risk assets and its impact mechanism, and then the impact of money from different sources on the investment decision-making behavior of family financial risk assets and its impact mechanism are revealed. The robust research results show that house demolition can significantly affect household financial risk asset investment, and this impact is reflected not only at the breadth level, but also at the depth level, that is, house demolition significantly increases the family financial risk asset investment willingness and investment proportion. The intrinsic reason lies in that the expected loss of wealth is a mediator, that is, house demolition through the expected loss of wealth affects the family financial risk assets investment. However, the mediating effect is moderated by social insurance, that is, social insurance strengthens the intermediary effect of the expected loss of wealth, and further the impact of house demolition on household financial risk asset investment. The above results also indirectly show that money from different sources has a significant impact on household financial risk asset investment decisions through the expected loss of wealth, and social insurance strengthens the impact. This paper reveals how money from different sources affects the allocation of financial assets in households for the first time. It provides a new insight for human economic behavior and results, which is a further advance of the existing research, and helps to deepen the understanding of household financial venture capital investment decisions, having a strong theoretical vanguard. At the same time, the discovery in this paper provides important reference value and guiding significance for formulating financial investment policies or market strategies, deepens financial system reform and promotes economic growth.

How a New Bond Can Greatly Improve Retirement Security

There is a growing retirement crisis and most of the focus has been on the fact that individuals are not saving enough for retirement, may not have access to pension schemes, or are financially illiterate. However, the bigger issue might be that the assets/financial products available to investors, including those that offer legal protection to plan sponsors, may not be appropriate for the typical individual saving for retirement. As Merton (2014) notes, the model adopted to plan for retirement for the majority of the population focuses on wealth at retirement as opposed to the level of retirement income that an individual can earn. As a result, current assets and products are risky from a retirement income perspective. All else equal, individuals retiring a few years apart can have vastly different retirement income outcomes (making retirement outcome a function of one’s conception date). A new bond has been proposed to improve retirement security – with a forward-start (tied to date of retirement), income-only (as individuals need steady income), real cash flow stream (linked to appropriate indices), for a fixed period (tied to average life expectancy). This paper examines standard portfolio choices (60/40, target date funds), along with holding this new bond in isolation, from a retirement income perspective to demonstrate how this new bond, either individually or when used in standard portfolio choices could greatly improve retirement outcomes. The paper concludes with a Monte-Carlo simulation that further validates the value of this new bond given the potential risks to all investment choices given future equity, interest rate and inflation scenarios.

Quality of Growth Empirics: Comparative gaps, benchmarking and policy syndromes

This study uses a new dataset to provide comparative gaps, benchmarking with best performers and policy syndromes of growth quality in 93 developing countries with data for the period 1990–2011. Sigma and Beta estimation strategies are used to provide between and within cross-country dispersions. The empirical evidence is based on: time, regions, income levels, resource-wealth, state fragility and time-consistent growth quality (GQ) performance. First, for ‘within dispersions’ the following outcomes are established: (1) GQ dispersions within fundamental characteristics have been decreasing over time, (2) From a time-dynamic view, countries within Asia and the Pacific have experienced the highest reduction in GQ differences while nations in the Middle East and North Africa (Central and Eastern European) region have witnessed the highest (lowest) differences, (3) From an income perspective, upper-middle-income (Low-income) countries have the lowest (highest) differences in GQ. (4) Resource-rich and Non-fragile countries have higher differences relative to their Resource-poor and Fragile counterparts respectively. Second, for ‘between dispersions’ and policy syndromes, we found two time-consistent extremities. (1) In decreasing need of policy intervention, the following are apparent for the Policy syndrome extreme: Hopeful, Fragile, Sub-Saharan African, Low-income and Resource-rich countries. (2) In the same line of policy inference, the following are apparent for the Syndrome-free extreme: Central and Eastern European, Asia and the Pacific, Latin American, Best Performing and Upper-middle-income countries. Their predispositions are clarified and policy implications discussed.

Reducing Inequality in Organizations

Inequality remains prevalent in society. Just from the perspective of monetary income and wealth, women earn only 79 cents for every dollar that men earn (Council of Economic Advisers, 2016), blacks households have on average only one twentieth of the wealth of white households (Taylor, Kochhar, Fry, Velasco, & Motel, 2011), and the top decile of American households own over seventy percent of the total net wealth in the country (Piketty & Saez, 2014). In this symposium, we showcase research that provides insight into how we may reduce some of this inequality. The first paper investigates gender differences in sponsorship and mentorship behaviors, suggesting that increased sponsorship may be a way to promote and retain women within organizations. The second paper explores when and why people acknowledge privilege, providing a framework to understand who is likely to rectify systemic inequality and insights into how to encourage others to acknowledge and address privilege. The third paper investigates the effectiveness of a short, one-time online intervention that attempts to create long-term behavioral change with regards to reducing gender bias and stereotyping in the workplace. Finally, the fourth paper examines settings in which working-class individuals may perform better than their middle-class counterparts, suggesting ways to harness interdependence to reduce class-based inequality. Following the presentations, Aparna Joshi, a major contributor in the fields of workplace diversity, gender, and inequality in organizations, will serve as our symposium's discussant. Together, these four papers and a discussion led by Professor Joshi will advance our understanding of contributing factors to inequality within organizations and what steps we can take to begin reducing inequality in organizations.

The Swedish Housing Market from a Low Income Perspective

After the economic crisis in the early 1990s, there was excess supply of housing, but over the last 25 years, demand has increased because of rising population, rising incomes and low levels of hou ...