Twenty Years of Expenditure Inequality in Indonesia, 1993–2013

In this article, we consider the recent increase in inequality in Indonesia. We make new, consistent estimates of expenditure inequality for 1993–2013, using several measures that draw on household expenditure data from the National Socioeconomic Survey (Susenas) for 1993–2013. In doing so, we note that the central statistics agency, Badan Pusat Statistik (BPS), used grouped data for its estimates of inequality until 2009 and that this underestimated inequality up to then. Thus the rise in inequality reported since 2009 actually has a longer history. We argue that Indonesia experienced divergence and convergence at the same time: the magnitude of the rise in inequality was significant (divergence), but the rise was greatest in provinces or districts with low initial levels of inequality (convergence). We consider the literature on drivers of changes in inequality and identify a set of hypotheses, with an empirical basis, which we introduce as potential Indonesian-specific drivers of rising inequality for future exploration.     

城市家庭住房不平等:户籍、禀赋还是城市特征？——基于广义有序模型与Oaxaca-Blinder分解

基于中国劳动力动态调查（CLDS）数据，运用广义有序Logit模型实证分析户籍、家庭禀赋和城市特征三类因素对城市家庭住房不平等的影响；运用夏普利值分解、Oaxaca-Blinder分解区分"努力"和"环境"因素、户籍歧视和禀赋效应的贡献。研究发现：户籍可解释住房等级不平等的54.2%；"努力"因素对住房水平起正向作用；在户籍间住房等级不平等中户籍歧视效应占主导，在住房面积不平等中禀赋效应占主导，外地户口居民住房水平低源于"环境"因素趋弱，农业户口居民则源于"努力"和"环境"因素叠加趋弱；由于生活成本效应占主导，城市规模和流动人口占比越大，居民住房等级趋低，而城市土地供给增长有助于提升住房水平。     

Introduction to the special section on subsistence marketplaces

We provide an introduction to the special issue on subsistence marketplaces. We briefly describe the stream of subsistence marketplaces, and the conference series associated with the call for papers. We provide a brief overview of the diverse set of papers in the special section.     

Investigating the Impact of Income on Savings Using a Chinese Household Level Dataset

This article uses the China Household Financial Survey (CHFS) to examine the savings behavior of Chinese Households. Using a standard cross-sectional empirical approach to modeling permanent and transitory income, we show that one way of explaining the relative high savings rate in China is by recognizing that in fast growing economies, individuals may have higher transitory income from which they save a large proportion. The estimation also contains a range of household specific variables which can be used to understand the impact of socio-economic characteristics such as urban vs rural dwelling, age, and the educational level.     

Economic and Household Impacts of Projected Policy Changes for the Irish Agri‐food Sector

The policy environment for the Irish agri‐food sector could change rapidly in the coming decade. A potentially positive factor will be the elimination of milk quotas in 2015, although a potentially negative factor will be further trade liberalisation and increased import competition. These changes come on top of the move to decouple direct aids to farmers in 2005 as part of the Mid‐Term Review of the EU's Common Agricultural Policy agreed in 2003. This paper examines these reforms and their impacts on the Irish economy and income distribution using a CGE model particularly rich in detail on the agri‐food sectors, differentiated household groups, and agricultural policy instruments including their links to productive factors and households. The results suggest that the past and projected changes in the policy environment have, in sum, a small positive impact on GDP and household income. However, the gains and losses are unequally distributed across sectors and household groups due to the highly differentiated distribution of support and protection. Although all households generally gain from the sequence of policy reforms in the long run, some experience strong adverse effects from particular reforms and in the medium term.     

The Gendered Nature of Poverty in the EU: Individualized versus Collective Poverty Measures

Due to the adoption of the household as a unit of analysis, researchers have failed to identify accurate measures of women's income poverty. This study proposes an individualized measure of European poverty to highlight gender differences in the economic crisis. Employing data from the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) for the period 2007–12, it compares the household-based at-risk-of-poverty rate (ARPR) and the individualized financial dependency rate (FDR). The study shows that the gender gap in poverty in Europe is considerably higher when computed through FDR. Indeed, since the ARPR constitutes a proxy of the household's average conditions, it levels down gender inequalities within the household and also variations in individuals’ incomes over time. Only more detailed data collection on intrahousehold resource sharing will possibly allow the development of more precise and realistic indicators of women's and men's risks of poverty and financial dependency.     

Tourism and regional income inequality: Evidence from China

This study examines the role of tourism development in reducing regional income inequality in China. First, the theoretical foundation for how tourism affects regional income inequality is discussed. Second, based on the conditional convergence framework, this study proposes a spatiotemporal autoregressive model to capture spatial and temporal dependence as well as spatial heterogeneity. Tourism development is introduced as a conditional convergence factor in an attempt to examine whether the convergence speed is accelerated by regional tourism development. Third, the effects of international and domestic tourism in narrowing regional inequality are compared both globally and locally. The empirical results indicate that tourism development contributes significantly to the reduction of regional inequality, with domestic tourism making a greater contribution than international tourism.     

退耕还林背景下农户收入的社会网络效应分析 ——以四川南江县白滩村为例

研究目的:探讨退耕农户在生产力安排和收入结构方面是否存在同群效应或者互补效应,以及劳动力流动、退耕还林政策因素对农户收入结构的影响机制。研究方法:考虑农村社会网络内部农户间互动对其决策的影响,利用空间权重矩阵精确且全面地捕捉和定位社会网络复杂关系,构建空间计量模型展开分析。研究结果:(1)在白滩村社会网络体系中,农户的农业收入比增长1%,其亲戚邻居的家庭农业收入比降低6.7%,这一情况反映了劳动力由农业部门向非农部门转移而产生的社会网络"互补效应";(2)白滩村退耕程度越高的农户,其农业收入占家庭总收入比例就越高,退耕程度每增加1%,农业收入比将提高5.2%;(3)家庭总劳动力越多的,农业收入占总收入比例越低,其中家庭农业劳动力每流出1%,农业收入比减少3.2%。研究结论:(1)将白滩村社会网络的互补效应应用于其农村信息共享平台建设;(2)通过鼓励种植收入较高的经济林提高农民退耕还林积极性;(3)以就业为核心促进白滩村剩余劳动力转移。     

Canada's Housing Bubble Story: Mortgage Securitization,the State,and the Global Financial Crisis

Canada's experience during and after the financial crisis appears to distinguish it from its international peers. Canadian real estate sales and values experienced record increases since the global financial crisis emerged in 2008, rather than declines, and Canada did not witness any bank failures. The dominant trope concerning Canada's financial and housing markets is that they are sound, prudent, appropriately regulated and ‘boring but effective’. It is widely assumed that Canadian banks did not need, nor receive, a ‘bailout’, that mortgage lending standards remained high, and that the securitization of mortgages was not widespread. The truth, however, does not accord with this mainstream view. In fact, the Canadian financial and housing markets reveal marked similarities with their international peers. Canada's banks needed, and received, a substantial ‘bailout’, while federal policies before and after the financial crisis resulted in the massive growth of mortgage securitization and record household indebtedness. This article documents the growth of Canada's housing bubble, the history of mortgage securitization, and of government policies implemented before and after the crisis. Instead of making the Canadian financial and housing sectors more resilient and sustainable, the outcomes of state responses are best understood as regressively redistributive.