POVERTY AND INCOME DISTRIBUTION IN BRAZIL1

The article refutes the contention that Brazil's development has not benefited the poor and that rapid growth has had a polarizing effect on the distribution of income. It uses the National Household Expenditure Survey of 1974–75 to try to quantify the extent of poverty and concludes that the incòme levels of the poor have been underestimated in the past. The evidence suggests also that occupational and regional variables are powerful determinants of income stratification. Wage rate statistics convey information about long-term trends in income. The article notes considerable increases in rural wages during the 1970s as well as wage improvements in the urban informal sector. Shifts in the structure of employment have probably been the most powerful cause of economic improvement in Brazil. The enormous absorption of rural-urban migrants occurred without a flooding of the lower income urban categories. Social indicators and statistics referring to ownership of household durable consumer goods corroborate income and labor market evidence to the effect that there has been considerable progress for the poor during the 1970s. The article reviews statistical evidence bearing on distribution. There is little doubt that the distribution of income in Brazil is very skewed. It is not possible, however, to come to conclusions about changes that might have occurred in the degree of inequality over time. Finally, the article includes data on the “distribution of education” and the “distribution of life expectancy” and notes improvement over time in both. This article takes advantage of the Brazilian population census of 1980 to bring up to date some of the statistical material that bears on the issues of poverty and income distribution. First, the article describes the overall context of Brazilian development since 1960. The second part analyzes the extent of poverty in the mid-1970s. The third part deals with trends in wages, employment and selected welfare indicators. The last section briefly summarizes the information relating to income distribution: what is the extent of skewedness and how has it evolved over time?     

劳动力市场的所有制分割与城乡收入差距

目前缺少系统的农民工工资的面板数据妨碍了对城镇劳动力市场的所有制分割如何影响城乡收入差距的研究。本文证明城镇集体经济部门的平均工资可以作为农民工工资的代理变量,并将城镇国有部门的平均工资与集体部门的平均工资的比例作为衡量城镇劳动力市场所有制分割的指标。笔者通过对中国1978—2008年间省际面板数据的回归分析发现,劳动力市场的所有制分割本身具有扩大城乡收入差距的效应,但是,非国有部门职工比重的增加会削弱所有制分割的影响,从而有助于缩小城乡收入差距。     

Resource abundance and regional development in China1

Over the past several decades, China has made tremendous progress in market integration and infrastructure development. Demand for natural resources has increased from the booming coastal economies, causing the terms of trade to favour the resource sector, which is predominantly based in the interior regions of the country. However, the gap in economic development level between the coastal and inland regions has widened significantly. In this paper, using a panel dataset at the provincial level, we show that Chinese provinces with abundant resources perform worse than their resource‐poor counterparts in terms of per capita consumption growth. This trend that resource‐poor areas are better off than resource‐rich areas is particularly prominent in rural areas. Because of the institutional arrangements regarding property rights of natural resources, most gains from the resource boom have been captured either by the government‐ or state‐owned enterprises. Thus, the windfall of natural resources has more to do with government consumption than household consumption. Moreover, in resource‐rich areas, greater revenues accrued from natural resources bid up the price of non‐tradable goods and hurt the competitiveness of the local economy.     

The myth of post-reform income stagnation: Evidence from Brazil and Mexico

Economic policies are often judged by a handful of statistics, some of which may be biased during periods of change. We estimate the income growth implied by the evolution of food demand and durable good ownership in post-reform Brazil and Mexico, and find that changes in consumption patterns are inconsistent with official estimates of near stagnant incomes. That is attributed to biases in the price deflator. The estimated unmeasured income gains are higher for poorer households, implying marked reductions in “real” inequality. These findings challenge the conventional wisdom that post-reform income growth was low and did not benefit the poor.     

中国所有制部门劳动力集聚的测度与分析

分析了1998—2010年我国城乡所有制部门劳动力的空间分布状况。基于2010年第六次人口普查修正后的城乡各所有制部门就业数据,测算了城乡所有制部门的集聚指数———原始地理集中指数、基尼系数和区位基尼系数,并用以分析城乡所有制部门吸纳劳动力要素能力的发展趋势。经验分析结果表明,以非公有制经济迅速发展为主要特征的所有制结构调整促进了我国城乡间、区域间大规模劳动力流动和地区经济增长。     

Analysis on the disparity in economic growth and consumption between urban sector and rural sector of China: 1978–2008

This paper designs a theoretical model of excess per-capita income growth and brings forward such indices as excess per-capita income, per-capita base consumption and decreasing factor as well as the corresponding measurement methods. It studies from a brand new aspect the disparity between the economic growth in urban sector and rural sector of China in the past 30 years after the reform and opening-up, together with the disparity between the effects of such growth on consumption. The research results show that: At present the problem of the duality of urban and rural sector of China is still serious; the impaired amount of economic growth in urban sector is larger than that in rural sector while the impairing strength in rural sector is higher than that in urban sector; and it is vital to increase the excess per-capita investment in rural sector in order to effectively strengthen consumption related policies. Therefore, promoting urbanization but reasonably controlling the urbanization progress while strengthening the infrastructure construction in rural areas would be the efficient approach to reduce the impairing strength over the economic growth, to build up consumption market, to improve the duality of economy and to realize sustainable development.     

Risk insurance in a transition economy

The hypothesis of Pareto‐optimal risk‐sharing is tested in a transition economy using a new dataset of a representative sample of 364 rural households from Romania. Income shocks are identified as instances of adverse weather, crop failure, animal diseases, illness, and unemployment spells. Despite limited participation of Romanian rural households in formal insurance and credit markets, we fail to reject the hypothesis of full insurance of total non‐durable consumption and its components. Survey responses indicate that the main channels of consumption smoothing are self‐insurance (for adverse weather, crop failure and animal diseases), public transfers (for unemployment spells, maternity and childcare), and to a lesser extent, family ties. We find that adverse weather is associated with higher growth rates of non‐food expenditures. Furthermore, richer households are better able to cope with crop failure than poorer households. An alternative explanation to our not rejecting the hypothesis of full insurance is that some shocks to consumption (such as illness) play the role of preference shifters of the utility function.     

间接税归宿对城乡居民收入分配影响研究

使用全国城乡家庭消费和收入微观数据考察间接税对于城乡收入差距和收入分配的影响发现:平均来看,全国居民负担的税收占收入的比例是10.6%;不论在全国范围来看还是分别在城乡内部来看,间接税负担都呈现累退:低收入的负担率高于高收入的负担率。在城乡之间,城镇居民的税收负担率高于农村居民的税收负担率。间接税增加了城乡内部不平等,降低了城乡之间的不平等。间接税主要对低收入群体影响较大,略微恶化了整体收入不平等。     

INEQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY IN EARNINGS AND CONSUMPTION EXPENDITURE: THE CASE OF INDIAN MEN

The paper associates inequality of opportunities with outcome differences that can be accounted by predetermined circumstances which lie beyond the control of an individual, such as parental education, parental occupation, caste, religion, and place of birth. The non‐parametric estimates using parental education as a measure of circumstances reveal that the opportunity share of earnings inequality in 2004–05 was 11–19 percent for urban India and 5–8 percent for rural India. The same figures for consumption expenditure inequality are 10–19 percent for urban India and 5–9 percent for rural India. The overall opportunity share estimates (parametric) of earnings inequality due to circumstances, including caste, religion, region, parental education, and parental occupation, vary from 18 to 26 percent for urban India, and from 16 to 21 percent for rural India. The overall opportunity share estimates for consumption expenditure inequality are close to the earnings inequality figures for both urban and rural areas. The analysis further finds evidence that the parental education specific opportunity share of overall earnings (and consumption expenditure) inequality is largest in urban India, but caste and geographical region also play an equally important role when rural India is considered.     

Effect of ageing on the ownership of durable goods

I analyse how ageing affects the demand for non‐housing durable goods. Based on the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, individual characteristics, cohort and time effects can explain most of the age variation in the ownership and purchase of durable goods. A life‐cycle model is derived to capture the complex relation between ageing and the demand for non‐housing durable goods. Decreasing survival probability, deteriorating health and changing preferences are jointly reflected in the age gradient of demand. Simulations indicate that higher chances of survival increase the ownership ratio of the durable items.     

A Multidimensional Poverty Index for Latin America

This paper proposes a new Multidimensional Poverty Index for Latin America. The index combines monetary and non‐monetary indicators, updates deprivation cut‐offs for certain traditional unsatisfied basic needs indicators and includes some new indicators, aiming to maximize regional comparability within the data constraints. The index is estimated for 17 countries of the region at two points in time—one around 2005 and the other around 2012. Overall, we estimate about 28 percent of people are multidimensionally poor in 2012 in the region. We find statistically significant reductions of poverty in most countries, both in terms of incidence and intensity over the period under analysis. However, important disparities between rural and urban areas remain. Statistical scrutiny of the index suggests that it captures the state of poverty relatively well while maintaining a certain parsimony and being highly robust to changes in weights, indicators, and poverty cut‐off.     

互联网使用与城乡居民发展享受型消费——基于CGSS数据的实证研究

互联网破除时空限制的特性已深刻改变了人们的生活与工作方式,但其能否有效促进居民消费结构转型升级仍有待验证。本文基于中国综合社会调查数据,运用稳健最小二乘回归法、分位数回归法、再中心回归分解法检验互联网使用对整体及处于不同消费水平上的城乡居民发展享受型消费及其差距的影响。结果显示：互联网使用整体上显著提升了居民的发展享受型消费,并且随着消费水平的提高,互联网使用对城乡居民的发展享受型消费均呈“U”型影响,但无论处于何种消费水平上,相较于城镇居民,互联网使用总是对农村居民的发展享受型消费产生更强的刺激效应,这在不同程度上对整体及处于不同消费水平上的城乡居民发展享受型消费差距产生了系数差距抑制效应,从而在不同程度上缩小了整体及处于不同消费水平上的城乡居民发展享受型消费差距。但城乡居民之间互联网使用的禀赋特征差距总是对整体及处于不同消费水平上的城乡居民发展享受型消费差距产生明显相对更强的特征差距效应,最终导致互联网使用进一步扩大了整体及处于不同消费水平上的城乡居民发展享受型消费差距。     

Occupational attainment and stratification in China: The interactive effects of social networks and the hukou system

This paper examines the effects of social networks and hukou status on worker’s occupational attainment in China. To identify the potential ranking of different occupations, we consider the use of the stereotype ordered regression model to estimate individual occupational choice. Our results show that social networks play different roles in shaping occupational outcomes for urban and rural workers. In particular, friendship ties significantly improve urban workers’ opportunities in obtaining higher‐ranked occupations; in contrast, kinship ties appear to be more influential for rural migrants, but the effects are limited to the attainment of lower‐ranked occupations. While social contacts from government organizations or state‐owned sectors facilitate urban workers’ attainment of higher‐ranked occupations, similar patterns are not observed among rural workers. We further find that the beneficial effects of social networks or urban hukou identity are stronger for workers who are from less‐developed regions, who work in state‐owned enterprises, or who have a college degree. Decomposition of the wage gap between urban and rural workers suggests that differences in social networks and occupation types, together with hukou discrimination, account for the majority of the current wage inequality.     

Linkages between poverty and income inequality of urban–rural sector: a time series analysis of India’s urban-based aspirations from 1951 to 1994

This study examines the impact of urban and rural development on poverty and inequality in India before economic reform. The methodology comprises two dimensions. Modern time series methods are used to uncover the dynamic patterns of urban–rural poverty and income inequality. A machine-learning algorithm is used to determine the causal structure among the development indicators. Our results show that reductions in rural poverty appear to be a more effective in reducing both urban and rural poverty, although the costs of achieving these reductions have not been considered.     

Regional convergence of growth,inequality and poverty in India—An empirical study

The paper attempts to examine whether there is regional convergence of per capita consumption, inequality and poverty across various states in India. Using panel unit root tests that are robust to cross-sectional dependence, we find that inequality and poverty indicators converge at both rural and urban levels. Further, per capita consumption converges at urban level but not at rural level. Based on factor analysis, we find two groups of states for rural sectors, viz., low-growth and high-growth states, for each of which per capita consumption converges. We also attempt at identifying the responsible entities — central or state governments or both in cases where convergence is not achieved.     

城乡居民生活水平差距的变化——基于经济周期视角分析

为探究周期性波动因素如何影响中国城乡居民生活水平差距变化,本文对新凯恩斯模型进行以下拓展:城乡二元经济体系,城乡居民不同金融参与程度,及城乡间劳力迁移。基于1996—2012年季度数据,由贝斯估计得到的本文模型可以很好地匹配主要宏观变量的数据特性。本文研究得到各种外生冲击对城乡居民收入与消费周期性变动的动态影响及解释力大小;并探明城乡生活水平周期性差距在2002—2004年间扩大及2011年之后减缓的影响主因;同时也发现短期宏观政策对城乡生活水平周期性差距具有不对称影响。     

Modelling variety in consumption expenditure on food in India

In this paper we compute nutrient‐income elasticities for two macronutrients (calories and protein) and five micronutrients (calcium, thiamine, riboflavin, carotene and iron) using an all‐India sample of rural households for 1994. We show that in each case the respective elasticities are positive and significant. This lends support to our hypothesis that an increase in income would increase nutrient intake by varying amounts, contrary to some assertions. We then compute differences in the elasticity of substitution for non‐poor and poor across commodity groups and show that these differences, while significant, are small. This further corroborates our conclusion that increases in income of the poor would lead to greater increases in their nutrient intake as compared to the non‐poor, although the magnitudes will be small.     

Mixed Ownership, Unemployment, and Welfare for a Developing Economy

This paper considers the employment and welfare effects of mixed ownership via partial privatization of state‐owned enterprises for a developing economy. An increase in the private ownership lowers the production and, hence, worsens urban unemployment in the short run. However, in the long run, capital moves to the rural region, alleviating the problem of urban unemployment. The employment effect can have a positive contribution to social welfare in the long run.     

Testing Prediction Performance of Poverty Models: Empirical Evidence from Uganda

This paper examines the performance of a method of predicting poverty rates. Because most developing countries cannot justify the expense of frequent household budget surveys, additional low‐cost methods have been developed and used. The prediction method is based on a model linking the proportion of poor households to suitable explanatory variables (consumption proxies). These consumption proxies are variables that can be collected at much lower cost through smaller annual surveys. Several applications have shown that such models can produce poverty estimates with confidence intervals of a similar magnitude to the poverty estimates from the household budget surveys. There is, however, limited evidence of how well the methods perform out‐of‐sample. A series of seven household budget surveys conducted in Uganda in the period 1993–2005 allows us to test the prediction performance of the model. We test the poverty models by using data from one survey to predict the proportion of poor households in other surveys, and vice versa. The results are encouraging, as all models predict similar poverty trends. Although in most cases the predictions are precise, sometimes they differ significantly from the poverty level estimated from the survey directly.     

电子商务能缩小城乡居民消费差距吗

从理论和实证两方面探究电子商务对平衡城乡居民消费差距的作用及作用途径。充分考虑内生性的稳健研究结果显示:2014—2018年中国电子商务的发展并没有缩小城乡居民消费差距,反而加剧了城乡居民消费差距;电子商务通过城乡居民不同门类商品和服务的消费差距直接影响城乡居民消费差距,通过城乡居民收入差距间接影响城乡居民消费差距。政府仍需继续支持电子商务进农村,完善农村电商基础设施建设,改善电商发展环境,并进一步提高农民收入。