BULGARIA'S NATIONAL INCOME AND ECONOMIC GROWTH, 1913–45

The article concerns Bulgarian statisticians' work on accounting of national income within the first half of the 20th century. Basic concepts of these authors are described, and aggregate data sets derived by them presented. The trend of economic growth in Bulgaria is analyzed, mainly from 1924 to 1945. The statistics of industrial and agricultural change, as well as the foreign trade activity are considered. An historical interpretation of that change is given.     

CAPITALISM, SOCIALISM AND INCOME DISTRIBUTION

A Review of Anthony B. Atkinson and John Micklewright, Economic Transformation in Eastern Europe and the Distribution of Income     

THE DISTRIBUTION OF INCOME AND WEALTH IN JAPAN

This paper reviews research on the distribution of income and wealth in Japan, identifies sources of data on income and wealth, and describes limitations of these data. Evidence that Japan's poorest income groups are relatively well-off is convincing, but there is less evidence that the overall distribution of income in Japan is more equal than in other OECD countries. Agricultural policy, social welfare policy, the tax system, trends in earnings differentials, and the role of the Japanese family are among the many factors that have shaped Japan's income distribution. The rapid appreciation of the stock market and land prices during the late 1980s led to greater inequality in the distribution of wealth. Rapid population aging is expected to lead to an increase in total national wealth relative to national income which may have an adverse impact on the distribution of income.     

POVERTY IN POLAND, 1978–88

This paper considers the issue of poverty in Poland in the decade 1978–88, during which the Polish economy experienced a severe slump (1979–81), and started a modest recovery (1983–88). The estimated poverty rate increased from less than 10 percent of the population in the late 1970s to about 18–20 percent ten years later. The increase was almost entirely due to pauperization of the urban (workers and pensioners) households. As real wages decreased, the percentage of the poor workers' households increased from 6 to almost 20 percent. The total number of pensioners, a social group with the highest poverty incidence, went up due to demographic trends and government policy of early retirement in response to market reforms undertaken in 1982–83. In addition, poverty incidence among pensioners increased to 25 percent. Overall, out of the total estimated number of 7 million poor, about 3.1 million are the new poor, i.e. people who before the crisis lived above the poverty level, and have since fallen below it. Such a deterioration in living standards, to a large extent limited to urban areas, probably had a significant impact on the ever growing disenchantment with the Communist regime which eventually resulted in its overthrow.     

POVERTY AND INCOME INEQUALITY IN PUERTO RICO, 1969–89: TRENDS AND SOURCES

The paper examines Puerto Rican trends in income distribution during the 1970s and 1980s, then attempts to ascertain the source of the changes in income inequality through a decomposition of the Gini coefficient by factor income source. The study finds that poverty and inequality declined unambiguously during the twenty-year period. The source of the fall in income concentration was found to have been tied, not to changes in the distribution or share of earned income, but to that of unearned income, particularly transfers. These appear to have also accounted for the decline in poverty.     

FACTOR MIGRATION AND INCOME DISTRIBUTION IN SOME DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

A three factor, two sector general equilibrium model is used to determine long run income distributional impacts of factor supply changes associated with international migration in developing and newly industrializing countries. Factor intensity rankings among three factors (capital, skilled and unskilled labor) between two industries (agriculture and manufacturing-services) play a critical role in determining which factors are natural friends with respect to migration. A result common to all countries is observed friendship between capital and unskilled labor: reducing (increasing) the supply of one will lower (raise) payments to the other.     

NATIONAL ACCOUNTING AND INCOME DISTRIBUTION

Conventional national accounts are often seen as concentrating on the production process, on how goods and services are produced, rather than on consumption, or who the products serve. Production finances consumption via income generation, distribution and re-distribution. This paper demonstrates this inter-action by elaborating a full economic accounting matrix, and takes both theoretical and practical considerations into account. The aim is to explore how far the revised SNA can and should give emphasis to issues of income distribution and consumption.     

IMPUTED RENT AND INCOME DISTRIBUTION

This paper uses unit record survey data to implement a 1977 United Nations recommendation that imputed rent from owner-occupied housing be included in household income in statistics collected for income distribution purposes. The conceptual difficulties associated with employing the recommended National Accounts approach are highlighted by a comparison of the methodologies used to impute housing income for National Accounts purposes, for use in income distribution analyses and for income taxation purposes. The empirical difficulties associated with implementing the preferred approach are also discussed. The results reinforce the significant impact owner-occupation has on the well-being of many households and point to the importance of a disaggregate analysis of its distributional impact.     

GLOBAL FINANCE, INCOME DISTRIBUTION AND CAPITAL ACCUMULATION

The appreciation of the consequences of financial globalizationis an important task for contemporary political economy. Thispaper maintains that industrial and macroeconomic instabilityfaced by many developed and developing countries is likely tobe attributed, to an extent, to changes in income distributionin favour of rentiers, financiers and other groups of financialcapitalists. We elaborate on Marx's and Keynes's ideas and arguethat a rise in rentiers' income might have been an obstacleto industry's investment decisions, and detrimental to capitalaccumulation. The econometric analysis conducted provides evidencein line with the paper's major hypothesis for the United Statesand the UK.     

CHANGES IN INCOME INEQUALITY: AUSTRALIA, 1968–69 TO 1973–74

The period 1968–69 to 1973–74 saw a redistribution of incomes in Australia. This is evidenced first by declining differentials between dissimilar persons and secondly by changes in two measures of income inequality, the Gini and Theil coefficients.
The inequality coefficients are decomposed into components which distinguish between that part of total inequality due to income differences between dissimilar persons and that part due to inequality between similar persons. It is found that the reduction in inequality was due to the reduction in differentials between dissimilar persons and that inequality between similar persons probably did not change over the period.     

ACCRUED CAPITAL GAINS, PERSONAL INCOME AND SAVING IN THE UNITED STATES, 1948–1964

Capital gains are an important source of personal income in the United States but they are not included in the national accounts or the official estimate of personal income and saving. Individuals report their realized gains for tax purposes but the economic theorist would include both realized and accrued gains in income. National income theorists continue to debate whether capital gains should be included in income but, because of the many conceptual and statistical problems involved in estimating capital gains, no satisfactory estimates have been developed. Consequently, the debate has stayed mainly at the theoretical level. This paper deals with the methodology of estimating accrued capital gains. A simple analytical model is developed to estimate capital gains from data on market value and net acquisitions of an asset but the model can be adapted to incorporate asset prices directly. It is shown that the methods used for estimating accrued gains in the past are special cases of the model proposed in the paper. The model is then used for estimating gains accruing to individuals in the United States on their holdings of corporate stock, real estate and livestock during 1948–1964.
During this period accrued gains have amounted to roughly five times the realized gains reported for tax purposes; corporate stock and real estate are the most important sources of capital gains and corporate stock accounts for almost two-thirds of all accrued gains. The paper goes on to examine the implications of these estimates for the existing series on personal income and saving in the United States. The inclusion of accrued gains would increase the variance in the official estimates but personal saving is affected more than personal income. The paper concludes with an evaluation of these results and some suggestions for further research.     

THE INCOME UNIT AND THE ANATOMY OF INCOME DISTRIBUTION*

This paper focuses on a neglected aspect of the treatment of the income unit in the construction of size distributions of income. If the size distribution is to be an indicator of the distribution of economic welfare, and if the economic welfare of each individual in society is to count equally, then conventional distributions are inconsistent with individualistic welfare functions. We estimate size distributions with each person's welfare weighted equally, and contrast these results with those weighting each household unit's welfare equally. The choice of weights is shown to affect both the level and the trend in income inequality.     

THE DISTRIBUTION OF HOUSEHOLD INCOME AND EXPENDITURE IN PORTUGAL: 1980 AND 1990

From 1980 to 1990 Portugal experienced a generalized liberalization of economic activity, due in large part to its 1986 integration in the European Union. This paper studies the changes in the Portuguese distribution of household income and expenditure during this period, using micro-data on household budgets and applying recent developments in statistical inference for Lorenz curves. We find a significant increase in six measures of welfare and an unambiguous decrease in the inequality of the respective distributions. Different explanations for the findings of decreased inequality are discussed.     

THE TREND IN URBAN INCOME INEQUALITY IN TWO CHINESE PROVINCES, 1986–90

This paper discusses to what extent the economic growth in China in the 1980's has improved the economic well-being in urban regions of the provinces Sichuan and Liaoning and whether or not the economic growth has been attained at the cost of increased inequality. The study is based on individual household data from the State Statistical Bureau's Urban Household Survey during the 1986–90 period.