REGIONAL INCOME INEQUALITY IN INDONESIA AND THE INITIAL IMPACT OF THE ECONOMIC CRISIS

This paper estimates regional income inequality from 1993 to 1998, using a Theil index based upon district-level GDP and population data. Between 1993 and 1997, when Indonesia's annual average growth rate exceeded 7%, regional income inequality rose significantly. A two-stage nested inequality decomposition analysis indicates this was due mainly to an increase in within-province inequality, especially in Riau, Jakarta and West and East Java. In 1997, the within-province component represented about 50% of regional income inequality. The crisis caused per capita GDP growth to revert to its 1995 level, but the impact was spread unevenly across provinces and districts. In 1998 regional income inequality declined to its 1993-94 level. In contrast to 1993-97, three-quarters of the 1998 decline was due to a change in between-province inequality, with the Java-Bali region playing a prominent role. The crisis appears particularly to have afflicted urban Java and urban Sumatra.     

MACROECONOMIC PERFORMANCE AND INEQUALITY: BRAZIL, 1983–94

We examine how poor macroeconomic performance, mainly in terms of high rates of inflation, affected earnings inequality in the 1980s and early 1990s in Brazil. The results, based initially on aggregate time series, and then on sub‐national panel time‐series data and analysis, show that the extreme inflation, combined with an imperfect process of financial adaptation and incomplete indexation coverage, had a regressive and significant impact on inequality. The implication of the results is that sound macroeconomic policies, which keep inflation low and stable in the long run, should be a necessary first step of any policy package implemented to alleviate inequality in Brazil.     

THE INCOME DISTRIBUTION IN JAPAN

In this paper the author has atempted to clarify the characteristic of the chanes in he income distribution in post-war Japan, in particular from he viewpoint of income equalization. The problem of equaliation in income distribution is the most important one for every welfare state, and in the case of Japan, there is a willingnes to create a welfare state, whether the trend of income distribution trends towards equalizations or not is attracting increasing atention among he authorities and among persons having an interest in Japanee affaris. The results of the author's analyses show an equalization trend up to 1949; an unequalization trend after 950; and again an equalization trend from around 1965.     

THE EMERGENCE OF THE MIDDLE CLASSES AND POLITICAL CHANGE IN THE PHILIPPINES

This article provides a study of the middle classes in the Philippines. First, the process of their emergence was examined in relation to that of Philippine industrialization, which started in the 1930s but from the 1960s progressed slowly and was accompanied by the expansion of the tertiary industries and informal sector. Then, the composition and characteristics of the middle classes, including their relatively small population size, distinctness from the lower classes, and internal diversity were analyzed. Finally, based on the data of the middle‐class‐centered organizations formed during the anti‐Marcos struggle, their political aspects were discussed, with emphasis placed on the new pattern of political participation which appeared after the Aquino assassination.