The Economic Value of Time: Evidence from Africa

When excessive and inefficiently implemented, government interventions can result in significant economic losses for citizens. These include the often‐significant cost of lost time. This paper thus aims to estimate the potential economic welfare benefit of reducing public office waiting times. Based on data from Johannesburg, Lagos and Addis Ababa, we show that a one‐hour reduction in waiting time improves welfare by 66‐74% of the average local wage. High‐income earners, college graduates and private‐sector employees enjoy higher gains. Moreover, we note that the proxies currently used to quantify time‐saving benefits diverge significantly from the rate at which individuals substitute time for money. Our analysis also indicated a substantial delay‐induced citywide efficiency loss. Introducing public–private partnership and charging premium fees for faster service delivery are justifiable both on grounds of equity and efficiency.     

Trade integration and regional inequality: a theoretical framework with empirical implications for China

In this paper we present a theoretical framework for studying integration and inequality in China, followed by some empirical discussions of the Chinese regions. Employing the inframarginal methodology, we set up a theoretical framework based on transaction efficiency and comparative advantage in order to explain integration and inequality in developing economies. Our analyses imply that, among other findings, increases in domestic transaction efficiencies tend to reduce welfare inequalities in a developing economy while increases in international transaction efficiencies tend to raise the overall welfare level of a developing economy. These and other related results of this paper may have important implications for developing countries (China) in their policy-making.     

Equity,efficiency, and labor-market reforms in urban China: the impact of bonus wages on the distribution of earnings

Economic reforms in China have led to a shift in emphasis away from equity towards greater efficiency with a consequent increase in income inequality. In this paper, we focus on the causes of the rising inequality of individual earnings and the link with the reform program by analyzing the components of individual earnings (i.e. standard and bonus wages) separately. Increasing inequality is seen to reflect a rising share and inequality of bonus wages. This, in turn, predominantly reflects the unequal distribution of enterprise profitability combined with labor immobility across enterprises, rather than increasing returns to personal characteristics, such as human capital or gender. Based on these results, we argue that the future evolution of earnings inequality will be determined by the sequence of reforms in, for example, capital and labor markets.     

The Influence of Demographics and Household-Specific Price Indices on Consumption-Based Inequality and Welfare: A Comparison of Spain and the United States

Previous research has suggested that inequality is lower in Spain than in the United States when it is based on income. For the present article, both inequality and social welfare are examined, with household consumption expenditures used as a proxy for household welfare. For tractability, equivalence scales depended only on the number of people in the household. Household-specific price indices were used to express the 1990-1991 expenditure distributions in 1981 and 1991 winter prices. Our results reveal that inequality and welfare comparisons are drastically different for smaller and larger households. When all households are considered, the two-country comparison suggests that the income inequality ranking can only be maintained for expenditure distributions when economies of scale are small or nonexistent. However, welfare is always higher in the United States than in Spain. Because inflation during the 1980s in both countries was essentially distributionally neutral, all results appear to be robust to the choice of time period.     

碳排放量和能源利用效率不公平及其原因探析——基于中国37个规模以上工业行业数据研究

＂高排放（高消耗）低产出＂是社会公平正义在经济学领域出现偏颇的映照。文章引入福利经济学领域洛伦茨曲线和基尼系数,发现我国行业碳排放量与能源利用效率差距很大,基尼系数分别为0.59、0.49;并利用分位数回归探索行业碳排放行为存在不公平的关键因素在于要素禀赋结构不合理,行业投资拉动型增长方式是碳排放行为不公平的根源;进一步测算行业碳排放量存在拐点,当且仅当单位能耗低于1.6-1.7万吨标准煤/亿元;1/3左右的行业能源效率需进一步改进,主要集中在能源采选业、以能源加工为主的冶炼业和以能源使用或转变为主的发电、制水、制气和化工等重工业领域。最后提出促进行业能源利用效率提高,实现能源分配公平的政策建议。     

A pessimistic view on the impact of regional inequalities

The Chinese government has now to face increasing regional disparities. Despite a high growth rate in the whole country, we may observe a relative failure of the “step ladder strategy”. The expected spillover effects between provinces didn't still exist and it seems that the poorest regions have no protection against risk of fluctuations or shocks. So, my pessimistic opinion is based on the negative effects of regional inequality on efficiency and on equity.     

我国公共医疗卫生支出绩效分析

近年来,我国卫生总费用的绝对数每年都在上升,但政府预算的公共卫生支出所占比重却逐年减少,与其他国家相比显得总量不足。本文分别从经济、公平、效率三个方面对绩效进行分析,说明我国公共卫生支出的绩效不容乐观,必须重新审视公共卫生支出规模与结构,重新思考应该如何分配有限的资源,提高全民福利水平。     

人口老龄化对城乡收入不平等的影响效应研究——基于中国二元经济结构演变的视角

理论分析表明,二元经济结构下人口老龄化能够通过要素禀赋结构调整和社会福利改善对城乡居民收入产生不同的收入效应和替代效应,进而影响城乡收入不平等。利用中国2000-2014年省际面板数据进行实证检验发现：中国人口老龄化显著的扩大了城乡收入不平等,但要素禀赋结构和社会福利水平对老龄化条件下的城乡收入不平等影响效应不同;随着对老年人口供养负担的加重,社会福利支出对老龄化条件下的城乡收入不平等主要表现为替代效应,城市偏向的社会福利支出使得农村因照料老人引起的劳动力供给减少扩大了城乡收入不平等;而要素禀赋结构的转变则使得老龄化主要表现为收入效应,劳动力相对资本的稀缺性导致转移劳动力工资上涨,从而缩小了城乡收入不平等;随着老龄化深化,通过社会福利改善和要素禀赋结构调整能够有效抵消老龄化对城乡收入不平等的负面影响;研究也证实了二元经济结构的优化和农业规模化经营对城乡收入不平等的缩小作用,而失业率上升和城乡投资差距却会加剧城乡收入不平等。     

Comparing marginal commodity tax reforms in Japan and Korea

We examine the impact of the marginal commodity tax reforms in Japan and Korea, using data from the official household surveys of the two countries. Based on the estimations of two demand systems (linear expenditure system (LES) and almost ideal demand system(AIDS)), we compare the marginal costs of taxing major commodity groups, examine distributive gains from tax reforms based on concentration curves, and assess the impact on poverty based on consumption dominance curves. In particular, we find that revenue-neutral marginal tax reforms incorporating a reduced tax on food and beverages are more likely to face an efficiency–equity trade-off in Korea than in Japan.     

Growth, inequality, and welfare: comparisons across space and time

We propose and apply several welfare measures that combine averageincome with a measure of inequality to undertake cross-countrycomparisons of aggregate welfare for the 1970 to 2000 period.Our welfare measures, which are based on theoretical and empiricalfindings on the role of inequality in social welfare, drasticallychange the impression of levels of welfare, significantly affectthe welfare ranking of countries in different benchmark years,affect changes in ranking over time, and affect convergencebetween industrialized and developing countries. While the resultsare sensitive to the type of inequality and its presumed effecton welfare, the results are robust to different ways to addresscomparability problems inherent in the inequality data used.     

Is income a good welfare indicator for Spanish households? A comparison between both distributions

This paper compares the income and welfare distributions of Spanish households, with the objective of determining whether the first is a good indicator of the second. We consider different inequality measures of both adjusted income and welfare. The results show that the income ranking does not represent the welfare ranking of households and, secondly, that monetary inequality is higher than welfare inequality, which gives support to the idea that leisure time has a compensating effect on household welfare.     

减税降费有助于缩小中国家庭经济不平等吗——来自2011年个税改革的证据

共同富裕要求我们从多维视角审视物质层面的不平等，在当前减税降费的大背景下，个人所得税是调控收入分配的关键手段。文章从收入、消费和财产所构成的多维经济不平等视角出发，对2011年个人所得税改革调节家庭经济不平等的效应进行了探讨。研究发现：个人所得税改革的公平效应是显著的，使经济不平等程度下降了13.64%，其中对城市地区的调节效应更强，对低福利阶层和高福利阶层的影响相对显著。在作用机制方面，个人所得税改革主要影响收入不平等，并进一步作用于消费不平等和财产不平等，最终影响经济不平等。为充分发挥个人所得税的调节效应，应逐步提高个人所得税比重，补充和细化专项附加扣除项目与标准，逐步以家庭为基础征收个税。     

Labour markets, welfare, and the personal scope of employment law

The issues which confront those concerned with employment law,about the types of workers to whom employment laws apply, arehighly relevant to the subject of labour markets and welfare.The formulation and application of the personal categories ofemployment law is or involves a welfare allocation, often seenas a trade-off between welfare and efficiency. This articledescribe the basic legal framework for determining the personalscope of employment law in the UK, considers some recent adaptationsto that framework, engages in comparison with some continentalEuropean legal systems, examines empirical evidence about theworking of the personal categories of employment law, describesthe debate within the ILO about employment status and 'contractlabour', canvasses some ideas about the growth of complex workrelationships, and concludes by assessing a remaining task offurther refinement of theory in this area.     

A decade's story of childhood malnutrition inequality in China: Where you live does matter

A concentration index methodology to analyze the inequality in childhood malnutrition in China is outlined. Height-for-age z-score is used as a measure of childhood malnutrition. Using household survey data from nine Chinese provinces, we found that per capita household income, household head's education, urban residence and access to a bus stop are associated with lower malnutrition. Child's age has a nonlinear relationship with the malnutrition status. Income growth and access to public transportation are associated with less severe inequality, while rural–urban gap, provincial differentials, and unequal distribution of household head's education are associated with higher levels of inequality in childhood malnutrition. Gender is not relevant for either malnutrition status or inequality. Investments in infrastructure and welfare programs are recommended to ameliorate the inequality in childhood malnutrition.     

中国人口年龄结构与养老保险制度的福利效应

预测表明,中国人口老龄化程度则在2005年以后不断增加;与此同时,在2030年以前城镇有效劳动力数量不断增加,随后会下降。在此背景下中国的养老保险制度应该在多大程度上发挥再分配的功能是养老保险制度改革需要确定的一个原则。采用中国的参数．评价养老保险制度的福利效应是本文的主要目的。养老保险的福利效应对不同时期出生的人有所差异,如果政府的目标函数兼顾效率和公平。可以得到一个对于社会总福利而言最优的养老保险规模。我们的模拟表明一个合适的现收现付制的养老保险制度在中国可以改进社会总福利。     

Welfare receipt and the intergenerational transmission of work‐welfare norms

This article investigates the role of welfare receipt in shaping norms regarding work and welfare using unique Australian data from the Youth in Focus Project. We begin by incorporating welfare into a theoretical model of the transmission of work‐welfare norms across generations. Consistent with the predictions of this model, we find evidence that youths' attitudes toward work and welfare may be influenced by socialization within their families. Young people are more likely to oppose generous social benefits and to believe that social inequality stems from individual characteristics if (i) their mothers support these views; (ii) their mothers were employed while they were growing up; and (iii) their families never received welfare. Finally, youths' work‐welfare norms appear to be unrelated to their neighbors' welfare receipt suggesting that socialization occurs primarily within families rather than within neighborhoods.     

New evidence and new methods to measure human capital inequality before and during the industrial revolution: France and the US in the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries

We explore pre‐ and early industrial inequality of numeracy using the age heaping method and anthropometric strategies. For France, we map differential numeracy between the upper and lower segments of a sample population for 26 regions during the seventeenth century. For the US, inequality of numeracy is estimated for 25 states during the 19th century. Testing the hypothesis of a negative impact of inequality on welfare growth, we find evidence that lower inequality increased industrial development in the US, whereas for France such an effect was only evident in interactions with political variables such as proximity to central government.     

The utilitarian–maximin social welfare function and anomalies in social choice

Two major criteria of distributive justice are the utilitarian criterion and the maximin criterion. We offer a simple axiomatic characterization of a mixed utilitarian–maximin social welfare function. This social welfare function explains recent empirical violations of the standard cardinal social choice theory such as the social Allais paradox and the social common ratio effect. In addition, it offers a new foundation for the positively skewed wealth distributions in society. It also provides an objective function for mechanism design applications that trades off maximizing surplus and minimizing inequality.     

The challenge of growth,employment and poverty in the South African economy since democracy: an exploratory review of selected issues

The welfare challenges in post‐apartheid South Africa are best represented by the triumvirate of poverty, income inequality and unemployment. In turn, the one generally accepted mechanism for overcoming these challenges is for an economy to realise sustained levels of high economic growth. Herein lie the essential coordinates of this article. We attempt first to describe the post‐apartheid experience with economic growth and its determinants. Secondly, we describe the nature of the welfare challenges that the society faces in terms of poverty, income inequality and unemployment. Finally, and perhaps most critically, we explore the various constraints on economic growth that may be hindering the realisation of higher standards of living amongst the population.     

Relative income position,individual and social income satisfaction,and income inequality

Summary The survival probability as estimated by an individual is,ceteris paribus supposed to depend on his relative income position in a set of reference incomes. The relative income position is thus defined in close connection to the preference formation theory of Kapteyn. It is shown that then this survival probability, called ‘utility,’ may be equated to the relative income position. A nice result of this approach is the possibility to formulate a utilitarian welfare function, which leads to the definition of income inequality measures. It is shown that the use of sets of reference incomes may lead to considerably smaller measured inequality.