Who Gains from the Demographic Dividend? Forecasting Income by Age

Changes in the population age structure are known to influence the total income per person, but little is known about whether the changes are equally shared across the population or are concentrated on particular age groups and/or birth cohorts. The answer to this question has potentially important implications for income inequality, human capital investment, and fertility decision-making. We propose a new model of intergenerational transfers which distinguishes between the effects of changes in population structure and the effects of changes in family age structure. Using age-specific data from annual income and expenditure surveys of Taiwan between 1978 and 1998, we show that changes in age structure have had a very favorable effect on Taiwan's income growth. The gains are not equally shared by all age groups, however. Children and young adults have benefited the most, while the elderly have benefited the least. The population and family age structures have independent effects on per capita income; the effect of the population age structure is most important. Generational differences in per capita income are closely related to intergenerational differences in earnings, suggesting only a weak form of altruism. Finally, we predict that, on average, population aging will adversely influence the per capita income growth in Taiwan in the coming decades.     

收入流动性对收入不平等的影响

虽然收入流动性在收入分配研究领域正在逐渐升温,但收入流动性对收入不平等的影响这一关键问题的研究不足。文章推导了Gini系数在绝对收入流动性矩阵中对应的表达式,分析了收入流动性矩阵对不平等程度的作用途径。并利用1998年-2002年的收入面板数据验证了该理论分析。实证分析表明,由于向收入高低两端流动的力量增长较快并在势头上超过了同样增长的向中等收入水平流动的力量,整体的收入不平等程度恶化了。     

Income Inequality in Large U.S. Cities in the 1980s

Per capita personal income among states and regions has been shown to diverge during the 1980s following a long trend of income convergence. This paper investigates the divergence of income using median family income in the 1980s for the largest 51 U.S. cities. Producer services earnings and manufacturing earnings as a percent of total earnings are also investigated to shed light on income divergence. It is found that income and producer services earnings diverged in the 1980s unlike manufacturing earnings which converged. Convergence among regions for household income is also investigated. The results substantiate the common view of trends toward convergence prior to the 1980s and divergence thereafter.     

Economic Development and Income Distribution: A Cross-National Analysis

Abstract . The relationship between level of economic development and income distribution is analyzed using both a relative measure of income distribution and, for the first time, an absolute measure of income distribution which corrects for purchasing power differences between nations. Cross sectional regression analysis findings indicate support for non-linear relationships both in the total sample of 68 nations, and also in sub-samples of 54 developing nations and 14 industrial democracies. Our findings suggest that the poorest 40 percent of the population lose income both relatively and absolutely in the early stages of economic development. Thereafter there are gains in income although with diminishing marginal returns at the highest levels of development.     

Do Unions Affect Labor's Share of Income: Evidence Using Panel Data

There have been a number of studies analyzing the impact of unions on labor's share of income. Most have relied on either time series or cross‐section data. The purpose of this paper is to determine the impact of unions on labor's share of income in the U.S. This study adds to the understanding of this topic by developing an analytical model of imperfect competition and estimating the model using panel data for the manufacturing sector. This study finds that unions have a positive impact on labor's share of income. Specifically, this paper finds that labor's share declined 17.9 percent between 1997 and 2006 whereas, if unionization density had remained at its 1997 level, labor's share would have declined only 13.9 percent. Thus, the decline in unionization explains about 29 percent of the decline in labor's share of income. This paper is important for three reasons. First, this paper sheds light on whether social and institutional forces play an important role in determining the distribution of income between labor and capital. Second, it helps to explain recent increases in wage inequality. Third, it has implications for understanding the potential impact of legislation, such as the Employee Free Choice Act, that would make it easier for workers in the U.S. to unionize.     

Income taxes and the destination of movers to multistate MSAs

We examine how differences in state income tax rates, as well as other state and local taxes and public service expenditures, influence the choice of state of residence for households (federal tax filers) moving into multistate metropolitan areas (MSAs) using data from the IRS on the migration of taxpayers. MSAs that are on borders provide a spatial discontinuity—discrete differences in state tax rates within a single labor market. These MSAs allow residents to live in one state and work in another state. We find that differences in state income tax rates have a significant impact on the relative rate of migration to the states within an MSA. However, contrary to what would be expected, this impact is only significant in MSAs in which the filing state is based on employment (states without reciprocity) and not for those states in which the filing state is the state of residence (states with reciprocity). In MSAs where states do not have reciprocity agreements, a difference of ten percent in tax rates leads to a 4.1 percent difference in the relative rate of incoming taxpayers. Analogously, we find that a ten percent difference in state tax rates in these MSAs results in a 3.3 percent difference in the rate of tax base inflow (AGI). Our results suggest that one reason that differences in state income taxes appear to have more impact in multistate MSAs without reciprocity is that only relatively large differences in state income tax rates have any impact on migration and these differences are much more pronounced in MSAs without reciprocity.     

Inequality and Crime: Separating the Effects of Permanent and Transitory Income*

Earlier studies on income inequality and crime have typically used total income or total earnings. However, it is quite likely that it is the changes in permanent rather than in transitory income that affects crime rates. The purpose of this paper is therefore to disentangle the two effects by, first, estimating region‐specific inequality in permanent and transitory income and, second, estimating crime equations with the two separate income components as explanatory variables. The results indicate that it is important to separate the two effects; while an increase in the inequality in permanent income yields a positive and significant effect on total crimes and three different property crimes, an increase in the inequality in transitory income has no significant effect. Using a traditional, aggregate, measure of income yields insignificant effects on crime.     

Income redistribution versus accelerated economic growth: a comparison of demographic effects

An attempt is made to identify the effects on fertility and mean expectation of life of varying rates of growth in aggregate income and of changes in the income share of the poorer segments of the population. The extent to which these effects vary among developing countries with different levels of mean income is also considered. An econometric model is developed to estimate the direction and strength of the structural relationships among the key variables, and simulation methods are used to predict the final demographic effects of altering either the growth rate or the size distribution of income. The results suggest that there is no general justification for income redistribution as a means of slowing rates of population growth in a developing country. It may be relevant in the more advanced developing countries, but even in those, more direct means (such as family planning programs, education, and health services) may be more effective. This is a revised version of a paper originally presented at the 1983 Annual Meeting of the Population Association of America (see Population Index, Vol. 49, No. 3, Fall 1983, p. 356).     

Income inequality and the business cycle: A threshold cointegration approach

This paper investigates the impact of various socio-economic variables on various cohorts of the income distribution. We use asymmetric cointegration tests to show that unemployment and immigration shocks have real impacts on income inequality. In addition, using threshold test results we are able to show that positive and negative shocks to the economy do not have symmetric effects nor do the impacts of these shocks impact income quintiles uniformly.     

Income distribution and income dynamics in the United Kingdom

In this paper, we propose a model of income dynamics which takes account of mobility both within and between jobs. The model is a hybrid of the mover‐stayer model of income dynamics and a geometric random walk. In any period, individuals face a discrete probability of ‘moving’, in which case their income is a random drawn from a stationary recurrent distribution. Otherwise, they ‘stay’ and incomes follow a geometric random walk. The model is estimated on income transition data for the United Kingdom from the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) and provides a good explanation of observed non‐linearities in income dynamics. The steady‐state distribution of the model provides a good fit for the observed, cross‐sectional distribution of earnings. We also evaluate the impact of tertiary education on income transitions and on the long‐run distribution of incomes. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Upstream intergenerational transfers in economic development: The role of family ties and their cultural transmission

I construct a model where upstream income transfers, from adult children to their old parents, are driven by a culture of strong family ties. This evolves endogenously, through a process of intergenerational cultural transmission. The two-way causal link between economic and cultural change can be a strong enough force to offset cultural substitution, thus generating path-dependent outcomes. These outcomes show that economic development is negatively related with upstream intergenerational transfers, and with the strength of family ties. On the one hand, the economy may follow a convergence path towards a low level of economic development, where adherence to strong family ties is the dominant characteristic of a culturally homogeneous population, and where the overall flow of intergenerational transfers is substantial. On the other hand, the economy may follow a different path of convergence towards a relatively higher level of economic development, where the population is more diverse in terms of their attitudes on family ties, and where the overall flow of intergenerational transfers is lower by comparison.     

Income Distribution in the Third World: Its Estimation Via Proxy Data

A bstract . A two-Stage least squares estimate of the distribution of income in the Third World is derived in this paper using the per capita ownership of cars, infant mortality rates, and the average daily caloric requirement along with the per capita Gross Domestic Product. Previous work by Kitznets 1955 had established a relationship between the distribution of income and GDP/CAP, but with the inclusion of the three additional "proxy" variables, the distribution of income is estimated with a great deal more precision. For example, the R-squared for the estimate of the share of income earned by the poorest 20% of households increases from 0.30 to 0.68 by incorporating the proxy variables.
Using the parameters estimated via two-stage least squares on a set of 23 countries for which the distribution of income Is known, the paper then estimates the distribution of income for a set of 43 countries for which this data is unknown. The results indicate that countries like Singapore and Sri Lanka have relatively even distributions of income for their stage of development, and countries like Brazil, Kenya, Bolivia , and Gautemala have highly skewed distributions of income for their level of GDP/CAP.     

Income Level and Inflation Strain in the United States: 1971–1975

A bstract . Estimates of net inflationary effects in the United States from 1971 to 1975 are attempted by income level. The central concept is inflation strain , or the difference between the percentage change in prices and incomes as a percentage of change in incomes. Trends in prices are derived from United States Bureau of Labor Statistics data on lower and higher family budgets , admittedly subject to significant error, but the best we have. Equivalent income trends are estimated from data reported in the P-60 series of the United States Bureau of the Census. Two findings are indicated. The first is that both higher and lower budget families experienced inflation strain, although the strain, of course, was substantially greater for lower budget families. The second finding is that the primary source of strain for the lower budget families was food , whereas the primary source of strain for the higher budget family was taxes , both income and Social Security taxes. The richer are getting poorer more slowly than the poor. Limitations of the techniques and data are analyzed.     

Household Economies of Scale and Changes In the Distribution of Income

A bstract A household's position in the distribution of income depends not only on the household's disposable income but aldo on the degree to which economies of scale in operating a bousehold exist Since the magnitude of these 'scale effects'has never been definitively measured, three sets of assumptions about equivalent household sizes are used to construct three income distributions for 1980 and 1986 Fconomies of scale in operating a household are assumed to be strong, weak, and non existent In given vear, as these scale effects are reduced, the size of the middle segment declines It is also observed that over time, with each set of assumptions, the size of the middle segment declines Moreover, the sizes of the households found in each tail of the distribution are very sensitive to the assumption relating to economies of scale in operating a household     

Direct transfers between the former Soviet Union central budget and the republics: Past evidence and current implications

This paper examines the magnitude of direct transfers between the former Soviet Union central buget and individual republics. It shows that Kazakhstan and Central Asian republics were primary recipients of large net transfers of funds from the Soviet central budget amounting in some cases to about ten percent of their GNP. On the contrary, Russia was the single largest net donor of funds to the Soviet central budget through more transfers paid to the union budget than received from it, both in rouble terms and as a share of the GNP.With the dissolution of the central budget in November 1991, these transfers were discontinued. This has caused a dent in fiscal budgets and a large negative income shock in recipient republics. To some extent, external saving is suggested as the way to ease up the burden of the loss of income induced by the collapse of the fiscal system and the system of direct transfers within the former Soviet Union.     

贸易自由化与城乡收入差距关系的实证分析

贸易开放后,因贸易开放而扩张的部门所密集使用的生产要素将得到更多的收益,因贸易开放而收缩的部门所密集使用的生产要素收益将会减少,收入差距因此而发生变化。然而,贸易自由化对城乡收入差距产生的影响并不确定。文章选取1995年-2007年的数据为样本,分析贸易自由化对城乡收入差距影响,以实证方法得出贸易自由化是城乡收入差距扩大的原因。     

The distributional implications of tax and transfer programs in US

The distributional consequences of changes in tax laws and transfer programs in the United States are studied. Using detailed household income data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) from 1981–91, income inequality is measured for both pretax/transfer and post-tax/transfer definitions of household income. A new statistical methodology for assessing the impact of changes in taxes and transfers on the size distribution of income is utilized. Confidence intervals are constructed for various measures of inequality, and hypothesis tests are conducted to determine whether observed changes in the distribution of income due to taxes and transfers are statistically significant. Using decomposable measures of inequality, the implications of type of tax table used are investigated.     

高收入家庭的理财规划方案

刘先生家庭年度结余77万余元,为典型的421型高收入家庭。刘先生是做磷矿生意的,收入高风险也大,刘太太是农行柜员,收入较稳定,家有女儿读幼儿园,还有四老需要赡养。本理财规划方案在介绍刘先生家庭成员及资产情况基础上,编制家庭资产负债表和收入支出表,分析各项资产比率,指出刘先生家庭现阶段资产配置的不合理之处,旨在对该家庭进行现金规划、教育规划、住房规划、保险规划和投资规划。通过规划,该家庭的理财目标得以实现。     

企业内部技术创新激励：按贡献参与收益分配

各种生产要素按贡献参与分配,是企业收入分配的一场革命。技术与管理要素按贡献参与创新收益分配,也是企业内部进行技术创新激励的有效手段。本文在对各生产要素按贡献参与收益分配进行一般性分析的基础上,从企业内部技术创新激励的需要出发,对国内目前技术要素按贡献参与收益分配的主要方式做了比较分析,探讨了企业家在技术创新中的贡献及其参与收益分配的方式,提出了企业实行按贡献参与创新收益分配应注意解决的问题。     

行业收入差距及收入分配制度效率国外研究综述

当前行业收入差距不断扩大已经成为一个危及我国社会和谐的突出问题,西方发达国家在工业化进程中也曾出现过类似情况。了解和梳理国外关于行业收入差距现状、影响行业收入差距的因素、行业收入差距测度方法、收入分配制度效率的相关文献,有助于对研究我国行业收入差距问题提供借鉴与参考。