Trends In Income Inequality Research Articles

Analysis of poverty, income inequality and their effects on food insecurity in southern Ethiopia

BackgroundReduction of poverty and income inequality, and ensuring food security is the main goal of the Ethiopian government. In response, declines of national poverty were observed over time, but it is still a worrying concern as a significant proportion of the population remains poor. However, the trends of income inequality are rising substantially over time and thereby might exacerbate the food insecurity status in the country. This study aims to measure, identify determinants, and analyze the effects of poverty and income inequality on food insecurity status of households in Sawla town of southern Ethiopia.MethodologyA two-stage sampling technique was used to select 227 sampled households’ heads. This study applied descriptive statistics, Foster Greer Thorbecke approach, binary logistic, and quantile regression models to analyze the data.ResultsThe finds of this study reveals that 34% of households are living below the poverty line with a poverty gap index of 11% and severity index of 5.6%. The average income inequality with Gini coefficient index is found to be 0.447. Both poverty and income inequality result is quite larger than the national average of the country. The sample households are food insecure with 20.7% depth and 13% severity indexes of food insecurity. The levels of poverty and income inequality are more worrisome among the food-insecure households. Moreover, the logistic regression model shows that levels of education, family size, being divorced, the main occupation, savings, and house ownership negatively and significantly affected the household level of poverty. Quantile regression model result shows that age, level of education, income, family size, health, savings, remittances, electric, credit, and house ownership affected households’ level of income of the study area.ConclusionThe study suggests strengthening the existing welfare-oriented strategies by undertaking intra-household resource allocations for women, encouraging participation of diversified business activities, promoting the use of family planning methods, strengthening formal education, microfinance institution and housing program by targeting impoverished households in the town.

INFLATION AND INEQUALITY IN A GROWING ECONOMY WITH CASH AND CREDIT GOODS

We develop a dynamic general equilibrium growth model, where households purchase final goods on cash or credit and have different capital and money endowments, to investigate whether inflation affects trends in income and consumption inequality. We show that, under a strong substitutability between cash and credit goods, inflation has a negative relationship with income inequality, but a U-shaped relationship with consumption inequality. The divergence between income and consumption inequality explains several recent empirical observations. This result has important policy implications, as consumption inequality better reflects the welfare distribution whereas income inequality fails to capture consumption disparities resulting from different consumption and asset distributions across households. In the growth model with heterogeneous households, there is a mixed relationship between growth and income inequality, confirming the existence of the Kuznets curve. The inflation-driven asset reallocation might also produce a Mundell–Tobin effect, enhancing growth.

A century of educational inequality in the United States

The "income inequality hypothesis" holds that rising income inequality affects the distribution of a wide range of social and economic outcomes. Although it is often alleged that rising income inequality will increase the advantages of the well-off in the competition for college, some researchers have provided descriptive evidence at odds with the income inequality hypothesis. In this paper, we track long-term trends in family income inequalities in college enrollment and completion ("collegiate inequalities") using all available nationally representative datasets for cohorts born between 1908 and 1995. We show that the trends in collegiate inequalities moved in lockstep with the trend in income inequality over the past century. There is one exception to this general finding: For cohorts at risk for serving in the Vietnam War, collegiate inequalities were high, while income inequality was low. During this period, inequality in college enrollment and completion was significantly higher for men than for women, suggesting a bona fide "Vietnam War" effect. Aside from this singular confounding event, a century of evidence establishes a strong association between income and collegiate inequality, providing support for the view that rising income inequality is fundamentally changing the distribution of life chances.

Is there a marriage or parenthood effect on police income?

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the gendered effects of marriage and parenthood on income inequality among police officers.Design/methodology/approachThis study uses survey data collected by the Current Population Survey (CPS) from 1976 to 2018. Ordinary least squares (OLS) regression is employed to analyze the effect of gender, marriage and parenthood on the yearly income of police officers, controlling for other demographic variables.FindingsThe analyses reveal that there is a large income difference among men and women police officers and the compensation processes appear strongly gendered based on family composition. Police women experience a large motherhood income penalty, while police men with traditional family structures have significant income advantages.Research limitations/implicationsWhile the CPS dataset allows us to track national level trends of within-occupational income inequality, these data are unable to provide detailed information on the specifics of each police job, such as rank of police officers or work experience. Despite these limitations, this study uncovers important patterns in how family structure shapes police income.Originality/valueThe present study fills the knowledge gap about marriage and motherhood penalty among police. This study represents one of the first attempts to explore the gendered compensation processes that are shaped by marriage and parenthood status among police officers at a national level.

Socio-economic inequalities in lung cancer incidence in Canada, 1992–2010: results from the Canadian Cancer Registry

ObjectivesLung cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in Canada. This study aims to assess trends in income and education inequalities in the incidence of lung cancer in Canada. Study designThe study design is a time-trend analysis of nationally collected data. MethodsUsing a linked data set of the Canadian Cancer Registry (CCR) data file, the Canadian Census of Population and National Household Survey, we calculated the incidence of lung cancer in Canada over the period between 1992 and 2010. The age-adjusted concentration index (C), which captures socio-economic inequality across a continuous spectrum of socio-economic status, was used to measure income and education inequalities in the incidence of lung cancer in men and women. ResultsThe crude incidence rate for men decreased significantly over time in Canada from 85 to 78 per 100,000 population from 1992 to 2010, respectively. For women, the crude incidence rate increased significantly over time in Canada from 45 to 67 per 100,000 population from 1992 to 2010, respectively. The age-adjusted C indicated a higher concentration of lung cancer incidence among low income and less educated Canadians over the study period. Although income inequality in lung cancer incidence decreased significantly over time for men, education inequality increased significantly for both men and women. ConclusionsIncreased occurrence of lung cancer among the poor and less educated populations in Canada remains a challenge in Canada. Income and education gradients in the lung cancer incidence are likely explained by variations in known risk factors especially smoking across socio-economic groups. Continuous efforts are required to reduce the causes of lung cancer among low socio-economic status Canadians.

Trend of income inequality in Asia and effects of education

This study considers how education and globalization affect income inequality in Asia, with the unbalanced panel data. The evidence supports the validity of Kuznets inverted-U hypothesis for the connection between the income level and income inequality. However, when more variables are integrated into the model, the consistency of inverse U-shaped curve becomes weaker. The empirical results suggest that educational variables are highly influential in affecting income distribution. Our analysis indicates that a higher level of education achieved by the population aged 15 and over has improved income distribution in Asia, while educational inequality, measured by the educational Gini, has a negative effect on income distribution. Higher levels of globalization are correlated with higher levels of income inequality, while freedom, either political or economic, has marginal effects on the level of inequity in income distribution.
 Key words: Education inequality, globalisation, income inequality

Rising Income Inequality Through a Disability Lens: Trends in the United States 1981-2018.

In a context of rising income inequality and policies to improve rights and inclusion for persons with disabilities, this paper examines income inequality trends by household work limitation status in the United States from 1981-2018. Data comes from the March Supplement of the Current Population Survey using the work limitation disability measure to estimate decomposable Generalized Entropy measures of income inequality, and progressivity of government transfers and disability payments. Over the 1981-2018 period, inequality within the group of households with work limitations has been around 30 percent higher than inequality within the group of households without work limitations. Both households with and without work limitations have seen a similar 70 percent rise in income inequality since 1981. Progressivity of government transfers and disability payments increased among households with limitations, but not among other households. Income inequality is higher within the group of households with work limitations compared to other households and has been rising for both groups. Policies aimed to enhance the economic and social participation of persons with disabilities over this period may have mitigated this rising trend. Disability considerations should be part of research and policy on income inequality.

Analysis of the relationship between trade openness, structural change, and income inequality under Kuznets curve hypothesis: The case of Turkey

ABSTRACT This study investigates the effect of trade liberalization between 1987 and 2016 on income inequality, which is related to structural transformation in Turkey. For this purpose, the effect of trade openness on income inequality is modelled in non-linear form based on the Kuznets hypothesis. The model has been analysed using the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) method. This study has found that there is a non-linear U type relationship between trade openness and income inequality. We have some evidence that shows that while income inequality first decreased when trade openness increased in the early stages of the trade liberalization, during later stages of trade liberalization, there has been an increasing income inequality trend in Turkey. Additionally, the sectoral income inequality variable calculated to represent structural transformation shows that as income gap between agriculture and industry sectors increases, there has been an increasing trend in overall income inequality. The results that were obtained through this analysis are evaluated with other explanatory variables such as GDP per capita, the internal terms of trade and financial development dynamics. There is evidence that while an increase in income per capita decreases income inequality, an increase in financial development and internal terms of trade decrease income inequality.

Profit Shifting, Employee Pay, and Inequalities: Evidence From US-Listed Companies

Over the last few years, corporate tax avoidance has become a salient policy issue and has regularly been accused of aggravating income inequalities. Yet, systematic empirical evidence on its distributional implications remains lacking. In this paper, I explore the effect of profit shifting activities of multinational enterprises on employee pay. Using a rich database on executives, foreign subsidiaries, and financial statements of US-listed companies, I find that this effect substantially varies across occupations: while the compensation of chief executive officers and chief financial officers increases when their firm enters tax havens, non-executives, on the contrary, see their wage fall. Also, these reactions are more pronounced in intangible-intensive sectors. These new empirical findings are consistent with economic theory, cast light on the consequences of profit shifting, and might help explain recent trends in income inequalities.

Progress against inequalities in mortality: register-based study of 15 European countries between 1990 and 2015

Socioeconomic inequalities in mortality are a challenge for public health around the world, but appear to be resistant to policy-making. We aimed to identify European countries which have been more successful than others in narrowing inequalities in mortality, and the factors associated with narrowing inequalities. We collected and harmonised mortality data by educational level in 15 European countries over the last 25 years, and quantified changes in inequalities in mortality using a range of measures capturing different perspectives on inequality (e.g., ‘relative’ and ‘absolute’ inequalities, inequalities in ‘attainment’ and ‘shortfall’). We determined which causes of death contributed to narrowing of inequalities, and conducted country- and period-fixed effects analyses to assess which country-level factors were associated with narrowing of inequalities in mortality. Mortality among the low educated has declined rapidly in all European countries, and a narrowing of absolute, but not relative inequalities was seen in many countries. Best performers were Austria, Italy (Turin) and Switzerland among men, and Spain (Barcelona), England and Wales, and Austria among women. Ischemic heart disease, smoking-related causes (men) and amenable causes often contributed to narrowing inequalities. Trends in income inequality, level of democracy and smoking were associated with widening inequalities, but rising health care expenditure was associated with narrowing inequalities. Trends in inequalities in mortality have not been as unfavourable as often claimed. Our results suggest that health care expansion has counteracted the inequalities widening effect of other influences.

Using Linked Administrative Data to Measure Earnings Mobility of Public Assistance Recipients during the Great Recession

There is a great deal of interest and concern in the trends in income inequality in the United States and how it inequality has changed since the Great Recession. Various reasons for this divide have been offered but are notoriously difficult to evaluate due to data constraints. Public sector programs aimed at alleviating poverty are also difficult to measure because of data issues. In this paper, we estimate the impact of one of the largest federal support programs in the U.S. on income mobility of at risk populations. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) serves low income families by providing significant food benefits.
 In this paper, we create a dataset linking SNAP (food stamp) administrative records (over 1 million records per year) to Department of Labor earnings records (over 4 million records per year) at the individual level from 2001-2016. Using these uniquely matched administrative records, we can track earnings mobility over time as one measure of the effectiveness of a public assistance program at a point in time (which will inform policy decisions with respect to temporary measures, especially in recessions). We provide results for several time periods, but hone in on the pre-and post Great Recession period as a means to understand the impact of deep economic change on income mobility.
 As mobility itself is multifaceted concept, we capture a variety of measures/indices and highlight the usefulness and limitations of administrative data for the analysis. Tracking several mobility indices over time with varying time windows we can identify empirical benchmarks applied to administrative to measure the future impacts as well and to tailor government support programs.

Trends in Poverty and Income Inequality in Urban Malaysia: Emerging Issues and Challenges

Malaysia has experienced rapid urbanization and infra structure development during the past few decades. Objective of this study to assess the nature of poverty and income inequality in the urban areas in Malaysia. The study also aims to focus on the emerging issues and challenges of rapid urbanization and urban poverty in the country. Secondary data were obtained from the Economic Planning Unit (EPU), Malaysia and the Department of Statistics, Malaysia. The analyses show that though the rate of urban poverty followed a declining trend during the last few decades, incidence of poverty and hard-core poverty still exists in the urban areas of the country. It was also found that earnings of the urban dwellers increased gradually during the past few decades. But income inequality in urban localities remained wider (Gini coefficient is, on average, 0.453). Moreover, income disparity among the major ethnic groups (Malays, Chinese and Indians) in the country is greater and sizeable. The continuation of urbanization, urban poverty and income inequality bring forward new issues and challenges. Therefore, to handle these issues and challenges, it is urgently required to identify the effectiveness of specific programs as well as design and best practice of urban poverty reduction programs and policies.

소득세 자료를 활용한 우리나라의 지역별 소득 격차의 추이

본 연구는 과세 소득 자료를 활용하여 우리나라의 지역간 소득 격차의 추이를 1960년 이후부터 추적하였다. 과세 소득 자료는 『국세통계연보』(각년도)의 소득세 자료와 『지방세통계연감』의 농지세 자료를 활용하였다. 지역 소득 격차를 확인하는데 있어서 소득 과세 자료를 활용하는 것은 두 가지 측면에서 적극적인 의의가 있다. 첫째는 현재 우리나라에서 지역 소득 통계가 제공되지 않고 있는데, 이것을 보완하는 자료를 확보한다는 점에서 의의가 크다. 두 번째, 우리나라의 지역 소득 통계가 제공되지 않기 때문에 지역 격차 연구자들은 그동안 지역 생산 통계로 지역 소득 통계를 대신하여 연구하였는데, 과세 자료를 통한 지역 소득 통계는 생산 통계의 한계에 대한 보완으로서의 의의를 갖는다. 과세 소득 자료에 의한 소득의 지역 격차는 다음과 같은 특성을 갖는다. 첫째, 소득 자료는 생산 자료나 인구 자료보다 집중도가 심하다. 수도권의 비중은 최고였을 때 70%를 상회할 정도였고, 현재에도 60%이상이다. 이와 같은 점은 생산에서나 인구면에서의 수도권 비중이 50%를 아직은 넘지 않고 있는 점에서 볼 때 주목 할 만하다. 둘째, 1인당 소득의 추이 역시 수도권과 서울이 다른 권역이나 시도에 비해 현저히 두드러진다. 수도권의 1인당 소득이 영남권에 비해 1.5배에 이른다. 셋째, 서울의 비중 피크가 생산 측면에서는 1970년대 말에 존재하고, 소득과 인구 면에서는 1990년에 존재한다. 이는 서울의 공업 교외화와 주거 교외화의 시점을 반영한다. 넷째, 1990년대 전반의 지역균형 정책의 시기는 소득 측면에서도 반영된다. 다섯째, 과세 소득의 종류는 근로소득, 배당이자소득, 사업소득, 종합소득, 농지소득, 여타소득으로 구분할 수 있으며 이중 근로소득의 비중이 가장 높다.

The Geography of Italian Income Inequality: Recent Trends and the Role of Employment

We reassess the role of regional imbalances in explaining the high household income inequality in Italy. In the first part of the work we use the Survey of Household Income and Wealth (SHIW) to describe the trends in income inequality between and within areas since the early 2000s. We illustrate that the between-area inequality has been relatively stable, while the within-area component increased significantly after the recession and during the recovery. In 2016, the large geographical divide and the higher inequality within the South contributed to almost one fifth of national inequality. In the second part we show that the distribution of employment is key in explaining the regional differences in both average income and its dispersion. By means of simulations based on matching and reweighting, we estimate that national inequality would be reduced by 15 per cent if the distribution of work hours across southern households was similar to the one in the more developed Centre-North. Regional employment differentials are so important in determining overall inequality that income dispersion would decline substantially even if this increase in employment was associated with a drop in southern regions’ average wages.

Inequality in EMU: is there a core periphery dualism?

Income inequality has had a minor role in the European integration process’ institutional framework. This is unfitting given that reducing disparities has been one of the most explicit goals of EU, which has consequently devoted an increasing share of its budget to regional policy. This issue has potentially relevant policy implications because if the European integration has a role in increasing inequalities within member countries it is harmful for social cohesion. This paper intends to assess inequality determinants in EMU countries and whether the European integration process has been itself among them. It performs an empirical investigation on a panel of 12 EMU member States in the period 1980-2015. The contribution of this paper to the literature is twofold: first, it focuses on the effects of European integration on inequality in EMU countries over the last 25 years, on which the evidence is still scarce. Second, it tries to disentangle the European integration impact on inequality in core and periphery EMU countries. The empirical evidence suggests that the effects of the European integration process, captured by trade and financial openness indicators, on income inequality was heterogeneous across country groups. Once disentangling the country sample in core and periphery groups, as identified by the relevant literature, estimate results seem to support the hypothesis of a core periphery dualism also for what concerns income inequality trends within the EMU.

The Role of the Minimum Wage on the Declining Wage Inequality in Latin America: Evidence from Brazil.

Over the past two decades, the downward trend of income inequality in Brazil has been accompanied by a sharp increase in the real value of the minimum wage. There is no empirical consensus on whether the minimum wage has an equalizing effect on income distribution because of its ambiguous effects on employment. I document the effectiveness of the minimum wage on compressing wage inequality throughout the wage distribution and its effects on employment by using Brazilian regional data over the post-inflationary period (1995-2015). A counterfactual exercise shows that half of the decline in lower-tail inequality is attributable to the increase in the real minimum wage whereas the effects of the minimum wage on upper-tail inequality are negligible. Furthermore, the increase in the minimum wage has small contemporaneous adverse effects on formal employment which appear to vanish after three quarters.JEL classification: E24Keywords: wage inequality, employment, minimum wage.

An increasingly squeezed middle class? Changing income distributions and inequality in the EU15 through the last economic cycle

ABSTRACTThis article empirically addresses the issue of the economic decline of the middle class, often referred to as one of the driving forces behind recent trends of income inequality across developed economies. While the question has received great scholarly attention in the United States, there is a paucity of empirical studies explicitly focusing on Europe. Drawing on homogenized EU-SILC data from Eurostat database, we address the question of the ‘squeezing’ of the middle class for the countries comprising the EU15 over a relatively long period, spanning approximately the two last decades (1994–2016). We find stability at the EU15 level and great diversity across countries. We try to identify patterns common to clusters of countries looking for interactions between, on the one side, forces linked to globalization and the economic cycle and, on the other side, institutional settings and various features particular to some countries, without success. Results are at odds with theories predicting rising inequality and the decline of the middle class following globalization and technological change; on the contrary, they are consistent with the view that forces unique to individual countries play the leading role in explaining diversity between countries as well as general stability at the EU15 level.

Global Development, Converging Divergence and Development Studies: A Rejoinder

Global Development, Converging Divergence and Development Studies: A Rejoinder

Income Inequality in French West Africa: Building Social Tables for Pre-Independence Senegal and Ivory Coast

Sub-Saharan Africa is home today to some of the most unequal countries in the world, in Southern and Central Africa, as well as others that are close to the world average, in Western Africa. Yet, there is no consensus regarding the historical factors that led to such a situation. Given limited data on income distribution during colonial times, we do not know whether present-day inequality patterns can be traced back to the colonial period and which role was played by colonial institutions. Most of our knowledge comes from information on British colonies, while territories subjected to other colonial powers are much less well known. To address this gap, we analyze trends in income inequality for colonies in French West Africa, building social tables for Senegal and Ivory Coast during the last decades of colonial rule. We find that income inequality was high during the colonial period, because of the huge income differential between Africans and European settlers (especially in Senegal) and of high inequality within the African population (especially in the Ivory Coast). Nevertheless, it tended to reduce during colonial rule – but the trend inverted after independence. Our findings cast in a new light the connection between colonialism, extractive institutions, high inequality and inequality extraction ratios.

ACCOUNTING FOR URBAN CHINA'S RISING INCOME INEQUALITY: THE ROLES OF LABOR MARKET, HUMAN CAPITAL, AND MARRIAGE MARKET FACTORS

This paper analyzes China's rising family income inequality since the early 1990s when the urban labor market started its transformation from a centrally controlled to a market‐driven one. We document the trends in income inequality over the period of 1992–2009 using the Urban Household Survey data, and adopt the approach recently proposed by Eika et al. (2014) to decompose changes in income inequality. We find that labor market factors accounted for about three‐quarters of the overall increases in income inequality while falling marriage rate contributed the other quarter. Changes in human capital levels and marital assortativeness have not contributed to the rising inequality. (JEL D31, I26, J12)