Does microfinance affect income inequality?

This study addresses the question whether participation of the poor in microfinance contributes to reducing a country’s level of income inequality. Using data from 70 developing countries, we show that higher levels of microfinance participation are indeed associated with a reduction of the income gap between rich and poor people. We also show, however, that the effects of microfinance on reducing income inequality are relatively small. The results of this study add to the discussion on the impact of microfinance on poverty by showing that, although access to microfinance does seem to improve the relative income position of the poor, this improvement is modest, which is probably because the use of microfinance is generally small as compared to the size of the economy of the countries in our sample. Microfinance should, therefore, not be seen as a panacea for bringing down income inequality in a significant way.     

Does income inequality increase charitable giving?

Do households react to changes in the distribution of income in their localities by changing their charitable giving? The theoretical prediction of the effects of income inequality on giving is unclear. We study how changes in income inequality measured at the neighbourhood and municipality levels affect charitable giving by households in Canada between 1991 and 2006. We find that increases in inequality increase giving. Results are sensitive to the geographic dispersion of low‐ and high‐income households in neighbourhoods within a municipality. The effect on donations is smaller in areas with high levels of inequality at both neighbourhood and municipality levels.     

Does income inequality really matter for credit booms?

This paper addresses the question whether income inequality is associated with credit booms, alongside other macroeconomic factors. We distinguish between the different types of credit booms—real estate credit booms, household credit booms, firm credit booms and credit booms that turn into crises. Furthermore, our analysis of a sample of 70 countries between 1990 and 2016 does not provide any evidence of credit booms driving income inequality. We observe that capital inflows increase the likelihood of credit boom occurrence, while countries experiencing high economic growth tend to have more credit booms. Finally, we note that credit booms are more frequent in countries with fixed exchange rate regimes.     

Does income inequality increase marginal propensity to consume?

This article empirically investigates the effects of income inequality on the marginal propensity to consume (MPC), using panel data of 22 OECD countries over the period 1994–2015. We find that MPC increases dramatically as income inequality increases. In subsample analyses, the MPC of a high inequality group is more than twice that of a low inequality group.     

Trust and attitudes toward income inequality: Does individualism matter?

In the last decade authors have increasingly examined the role of two cultural traits – trust and individualism – on a variety of economic outcomes ranging from gendered attitudes to entrepreneurship, human capital accumulation, and economic development. While both have positive effects, recent literature suggests that the effects of trust are often conditional on other variables, and this aspect has been neglected in the literature. Indeed, a recent paper found that with respect to gendered attitudes, there are important interactions between the traits of trust and individualism. Building on this foundation we explore how views of trust and individualism interact to affect attitudes about income inequality. Our results show that while views regarding social trust generally positively affect the desire for income equality, this effect is strengthened in the presence of high individualism. Alternatively stated, distrust in highly individualistic environments leads to a greater desire for income differences (inequality). Our result highlights the important role played by market-based price and profit incentives in fostering economic activity and exchange in larger, impersonal extended orders where interpersonal trust and reputational effects are generally absent (in contrast to personal, small group exchange). Our results are robust to a variety of techniques to establish identification and account for sample selection and omitted variable bias.     

Does greater income inequality cause increased work hours? New evidence from high income economies

We explore the extent to which individual's allocation of time between labour and leisure is affected by the consumption standards of the rich. Utilizing a panel data methodology and panel Granger causality tests we investigate the relationship between income inequality and work hours for a cluster of 24 high-income OECD countries over the period 1990–2015. Four alternative measures of income inequality are considered. We find that greater income inequality is associated with longer work hours indicating stronger concern for conspicuous consumption rather than conspicuous leisure. Even though the resulting estimates lend support to the theoretical framework on consumption emulation, the generated evidence also appears to be in line with a Duesenberry's and Frank's expenditure cascading approach. The ambiguity however arising from the Granger Causality tests appears to lead – to a certain extent – to different conclusions about the direction of causality or whether a causal relationship does even exist. It is therefore imperative that caution should be exercised when interpreting the direction of the causal dimension.     

Does economic freedom increase income inequality? Evidence from the EU countries

This paper examines the relationship between economic liberalization and income inequality in the EU using panel data for the 2000s. The empirical evidence suggests that economic freedom is strongly related to income inequality. However, not all areas of economic freedom affect income distribution similarly. Government size is robustly associated with inequality, and also when controlling for potential endogeneity in a dynamic panel data analysis. Regulation is linked to income inequality as well, whereas legal system and sound money have no significant effects on income distribution. In the case of freedom to trade internationally, the relationship differs between old (EU-15) and new (former socialist) EU countries.     

Does income inequality hinder economic growth? New evidence using Australian taxation statistics

Using taxation statistics, we first derive consistently defined Gini coefficients for the period 1942–2013 for Australia as a whole as well as its eight states and territories. While income inequality exhibited a downward trend until 1979, it has since been on the rise not only over time, but also across states and territories. We then proceed to examine the effect of inequality on economic growth after controlling for changes arising from investment in physical and human capital using available panel data across all states and territories (1986–2013). We find that inequality adversely affects economic growth with a couple of years delay, an outcome consistent with similar studies undertaken in the United States and Europe. Our findings suggest that policymakers can address rising income inequality by implementing measures that support, and enhance, human capital accumulation given its long-run economic and social benefits.     

Does aid affect inequality?

We show that there was a negative correlation between pro-poor aid and inequality in the period before the mid-2000s. This article provides an explanation for this observed relationship. Using panel data on 34 countries for the period 1996–2014, we test the hypothesis that pro-poor aid has an inequality-reducing effect. To demonstrate that the negative correlation is not spurious, we use dynamic panel techniques with alternative specifications. We show that the share of pro-poor aid has a negative effect on inequality. In addition, we show that the interaction term between the poverty rate and the change in pro-poor aid has a significant effect. These empirical results are consistent with our theoretical predictions. The results imply that aid can reduce inequality by altering the allocation of aid, rather than by increasing the amount of aid.     

Does income inequality sand or grease the wheels of entrepreneurial activity? International evidence

Using a large panel of countries, this research examines the influence of income inequality on entrepreneurship. The impact of income disparities on entrepreneurship is not clear a priori—with a positive effect when inequality encourages entrepreneurship (“greasing effect”) or a negative effect when entrepreneurship discourages entrepreneurship (“sanding effect”). Our findings, across alternative measures of income inequality and even allowing for simultaneity, are consistent with the motivation or greasing effect. An equally insightful finding is that the effect of inequality switches across the prevalence of entrepreneurship—the sanding effect exists in nations with a low prevalence of entrepreneurship, and switches to a greasing effect as the prevalence of entrepreneurship increases. This is suggestive of positive network externalities from entrepreneurship—it takes a threshold level of entrepreneurship in a nation for greasing from income inequality to take hold.     

How does informal employment impact income inequality?

This study investigates how informal employment impacts total income inequality in urban China. Finite mixture methodology is employed to examine the segments that exist in the informal labour market, and the Theil index (T0) is used to break down total income inequality according to different subsamples. We found that the two-segment model (upper-tier and lower-tier) best describes the structure of the informal labour market in urban China and that the upper-tier segment contributes most to the total income inequality.     

Do liberalization and globalization increase income inequality?

Using the Standardized World Income Inequality Database, we examine if the KOF Index of Globalization and the Economic Freedom Index of the Fraser institute are related to within-country income inequality using panel data covering around 80 countries 1970–2005. Freedom to trade internationally is robustly related to inequality, also when adding several control variables and controlling for potential endogeneity using GMM. Social globalization and deregulation is also linked to inequality. Reforms towards economic freedom seem to increase inequality mainly in rich countries, and social globalization is more important in less developed countries. Monetary reforms, legal reforms and political globalization do not increase inequality.     

Foreign direct investment and income inequality: Does the relationship vary with absorptive capacity?

There has been little systematic empirical literature on the linkage between income inequality and FDI (Basu and Guariglia, 2007; Tsai, 1995). This paper analyzes the effects of foreign direct investment (FDI) on income inequality and asks whether the relationship depends on absorptive capacity or not, by using a cross-sectional dataset taken from 54 countries over the period 1980–2005. We adopt the endogenous threshold regression model proposed by Hansen (2000) and Caner and Hansen (2004) and find strong evidence of a two-regime split in our sample. That is, FDI is likely to be harmful to the income distribution of those host countries with low levels of absorptive capacity. By contrast, our results support the perspective that FDI has little effect on income inequality in the case of countries with better absorptive capacity. It is also shown that international trade can lead to more equal income distribution.     

Convergence in income inequality? evidence from panel unit root tests with structural breaks

This paper empirically tests whether there is evidence of convergence in income inequality, as predicted by several versions of the neoclassical growth model, using a large panel of annual data for the 48 contiguous states in the US over the 1916?C2005 period. By implementing the panel LM unit root test developed by Im et?al. (Oxford Bull Econ Stat 67:393?C419, 2005, Panel LM unit-root tests with trend shifts, Mimeo, 2010) that allows for the presence of structural breaks and heterogeneity in the panel, we find overwhelming evidence in support of convergence in income inequality. In addition, the results are robust to alternative inequality indicators used, different notions of stochastic convergence defined, and additional cross-sectional correlation considered.     

Traffic fatalities: does income inequality create an externality?

Abstract .  Responsible for 20 million severe injuries and/or deaths annually, few epidemics receive less attention than traffic accidents. Going beyond confirming an inverted U-shaped relationship between mean income and fatalities, we show theoretically that income inequality can positively affect fatalities in two ways. Each operates through heterogeneity between road users, and while the direct effect can be expected to evaporate with rising income, the indirect effect may prove to be an externality in that the relationship remains regardless of the level of income. Our model is supported by evidence from 79 countries between 1970 and 2000.     

Does medicaid generosity affect household income?

Almost all recent literature on Medicaid and labor supply has used Affordable Care Act (ACA)-induced Medicaid eligibility expansions in various states as natural experiments. Estimated effects on employment and earnings differ widely due to differences in the scope of eligibility expansion across states and are potentially subject to biases due to policy endogeneity. Using a Regression Kink Design (RKD) framework, this paper takes a new approach to the identification of the effect of Medicaid generosity on household income. Both state-level data and March CPS data from 1980 to 2013 suggest that generous federal funding of state-level Medicaid costs have a negative effect on household income. The negative impact of Medicaid generosity on household income is more pronounced at the lower end of the household income distribution and on the income and earnings of female heads.     

Does immigration boost per capita income?

Using a cross-section of countries, we adapt Frankel and Romer's (1999) IV strategy to international labor mobility. Controlling for institutional quality, trade, and financial openness, we establish a robust and non-negative causal effect of immigration on real per capita income.     

Does the impact of financial liberalization on income inequality depend on financial development? Some new evidence

Instead of empirically finding that higher levels of financial development reduce the positive impact of financial liberalization on inequality, as others do, we come up with the opposite result: financial development strengthens the inequality-raising impact of financial liberalization. We suggest that by, e.g., allowing financial liberalization to lead to more volatility and uncertainty, the model of Bumann and Lensink (2016 “Capital Account Liberalization and Income Inequality.“ Journal of International Money and Finance 61: 143–162.) can be extended as such that also an amplifying instead of reducing effect of financial depth on the impact of financial liberalization on income inequality can be theoretically justified.