Why Did Income Inequality in Germany Not Increase Further After 2005?

While income inequality in Germany considerably increased in the years before 2005, this trend stopped after 2005. We address the question of what factors were responsible for the break in the inequality trend after 2005. Our analysis suggests that income inequality in Germany did not continue to rise after 2005 for the following reasons. First, we observe that the general rise in wage inequality that explained a lot of the inequality increase before 2005, became less steep (but did not stop) after 2005. Second, despite further increases in wage inequality after 2005, inequality in annual labour incomes did not increase further after 2005 because increased within‐year employment opportunities compensated otherwise rising inequality in annual labour incomes. Third, income inequality did not fall in a more marked way after 2005 because also the middle and the upper part of the distribution benefited from the employment boom after 2006. Finally, we provide evidence that the effect of a wide range of other factors that are often suspected to have influenced the distribution such as capital incomes, household structures, population ageing, changes in the tax and transfer system and the financial crisis of 2008 did not significantly alter the distribution after 2005.     

Decomposing the contribution of migration to poverty reduction: methodology and application to Tanzania

In an economy with migration, poverty changes are composed of a number of forces, including the income gains and losses realized by the various migration streams. We present a simple but powerful decomposition methodology that uses panel data to measure the contributions of different migration streams to overall poverty change. An application to Tanzania shows the new insights that are provided – in particular on the role of migration to secondary towns in poverty reduction.     

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.     

Growth is Good for the Poor

Average incomes of the poorest quintile rise proportionately with average incomes in a sample of 92 countries spanning the last four decades. This is because the share of income of the poorest quintile does not vary systematically with average income. It also does not vary with many of the policies and institutions that explain growth rates of average incomes, nor does it vary with measures of policies intended to benefit the poorest in society. This evidence emphasizes the importance of economic growth for poverty reduction.     

包容性增长研究述评

传统的经济增长理论不考虑其对减贫和不平等的影响,然而,近年来减贫速度的下降和不平等的增长促使人们重新认识经济增长。作为利贫增长的替代,包容性增长成为世界银行和许多国家的发展战略,本文从定义、度量、诊断、机制和理论基础等方面详细介绍了包容性增长的产生、发展以及将来的研究方向。     

Is Poverty and Inequality Actually Good for Growth?

This paper aims to provide some evidence on the not necessarily positive impact of poverty and inequality on growth. It follows the line of argument that these features of society, while actually creating pressure for efficiency and enabling more savings, may impede sustainable growth. The recent financial crisis and the following period of austerity have made these arguments highly relevant. The findings of the empirical analysis of this paper are that inequality in the context of consumerism and easy credit may lead to over-borrowing and excessive consumption, which is ultimately detrimental to its sustainability. Poverty also causes deterioration in general trust, disabling smooth cooperation with lower transaction costs. Inequality existing in a given society deepens this effect.     

包容性增长研究述评

传统的经济增长理论不考虑其对减贫和不平等的影响,然而,近年来减贫速度的下降和不平等的增长促使人们重新认识经济增长。作为利贫增长的替代,包容性增长成为世界银行和许多国家的发展战略,本文从定义、度量、诊断、机制和理论基础等方面详细介绍了包容性增长的产生、发展以及将来的研究方向。     

教育不平等、收入非平衡与贫困陷阱——对农村教育和农民收入的考察

研究表明,无论是在短期还是长期内,农村居民受教育水平和职业培训的差异是造成收入差距的一个重要因素.同时,教育差距既推动了收入差距的扩大,又可能伴随着收入非平衡增长的扩大而扩大,低收入农户有陷入贫困陷阱的危险,而解决问题的关键是推进农村教育的均衡协调发展.     

风险变动对个人保险需求的影响——基于期望效用与均值-均方差的分析

风险是保险需求存在的前提,风险的变动会引起保险需求的变动.在期望效用(EU)框架下,根据不确定性的一些研究结论推知,风险增加将引起保险需求增加;在均值-均方差方法下,Battermann等人推导了风险增加、风险厌恶弹性和保险需求三者之间的关系,Thomas Eichner和Andreas Wagener证明,在风险分布之间具有线性关系的条件下,Battermann等人的结论在EU方法中也成立.笔者证明,只要随机变量的分布具有二阶占优,则该方法可以完全替代EU方法,从而Battermann等人的结论可以推广到分布族不同的风险决策中.     

风险变动对个人保险需求的影响——基于期望效用与均值—均方差的分析

风险是保险需求存在的前提,风险的变动会引起保险需求的变动。在期望效用(EU)框架下,根据不确定性的一些研究结论推知,风险增加将引起保险需求增加;在均值—均方差方法下,Battermann等人推导了风险增加、风险厌恶弹性和保险需求三者之间的关系,Thomas Eichner和Andreas Wagener证明,在风险分布之间具有线性关系的条件下,Battermann等人的结论在EU方法中也成立。笔者证明,只要随机变量的分布具有二阶占优,则该方法可以完全替代EU方法,从而Battermann等人的结论可以推广到分布族不同的风险决策中。     

Measuring the severity of unemployment

A social-welfare (illfare) function framework is applied to compare two demographic groups as to the severity of their unemployment experience. This is based on the assumption that for each individual the disutility of unemployment is an increasing and convex function of spell length. The very concept of spell length and its distribution, however, is not unambiguous. In contrast to previous literature which focuses exclusively on the interrupted spell length in a stock of unemployed, we stress the usefulness of the concept of complete spell length in a cohort of unemployed. We establish an equivalence relationship between second-degree dominance in the cohort and first-degree dominance in the stock. For specific illfare functions the disutilityU(x) when applied to the cohort and the disutilityU(x) when applied to the stock will produce the same value of aggregate welfare (illfare).     

Mean-Gini analysis of stochastic externalities: The case of groundwater contamination

The mean-Gini approach is used to analyze stochastic externalities generated by agricultural production. The model addresses the problem of groundwater pollution caused by excessive fertilizer application. Inherent in the mean-Gini approach to expected utility maximization is a two-fold value: the simplicity of the two-parameter mean-variance model and satisfaction of necessary and sufficient conditions for stochastic dominance. Price and quantity policy recommendations to control externalities are formulated based upon the relative assessment of uncertainty by the regulatory authority and the farmers. Using the Gini as a measure of risk allows for the quantification of control policy measures under differentiated risk aversion and multiple sources of pollution. The model shows that when producers underestimate uncertainty, quota policies restricting fertilizer are more efficient than tax policies in reducing groundwater contamination.Work on this paper was carried out when visiting the University of Maryland. Financial aid for the work was provided by the USDA ERS-NRED under a cooperative agreement between the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of Maryland, and the USDA — Economic Research Service — Natural Resource Economics Division, I am grateful to John Miranowski and Darrell Hueth for that support. I am indebted as well to Lana Shalit, who helped me revise the paper.     

Adjusting for family size in the supplemental poverty measure

We point out an anomaly in the adjustment for family size in the US Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM). The equivalence scale for the SPM implies an instance of increasing marginal costs for an additional adult. A similar criticism of the official US poverty measure was one of several concerns that led to the creation of the SPM. We propose two possible solutions for the problem and show that eliminating the anomaly from the SPM has the greatest effect on the poverty rate for the elderly, as that group is more concentrated near the poverty line.     

What are the distributional implications of halving poverty in South Africa when growth alone is not enough?

The country risk indicator, as measured by the JP Morgan's EMBI or grades of rating agencies such as Standard & Poor's (S&P's) or Moody's, does not seem to truly reflect the fundamentals of an economy. Countries that pursue sound economic policies are frequently placed on the same level as countries with a populist orientation or with a recent history of default or debt restructuring. Such circumstance generates a feeling of unease with regard to these ratings. The objective of this article is to investigate whether these indicators truly reflect market fundamentals or whether some sort of prejudice, or intolerance towards certain countries, can be identified. We use the Oaxaca–Blinder decomposition to analyse the differences in country risk, measured as by EMBI+, for a group of emerging markets. This decomposition allows us to separate the ‘justified’ (differences in fundamentals) from the ‘unjustified’ differences (same fundamental differently evaluated).