Inpres and Inequality: A Distributional Perspective on the Centre's Regional Disbursements 1

Central government funding of local expenditures under the Inpres programs is a potentially important policy instrument for redressing regional inequalities in Indonesia. This paper examines the implicit distributional objectives underlying Inpres. The scheme is modelled as the outcome of a constrained social choice problem facing the centre. An econometric model of Inpres allocations is used to identify the centre's implicit social preferences over alternative regional distributions of consumption. Mild absolute-inequality aversion is revealed, although it is somewhat swamped by province-specific preference factors related to population size and density. No other local welfare indicators appear to influence Inpres allocations.     

Ethnic Minorities, Race, and Inequality in China: A New Perspective on Racial Dynamics

An Introduction to the volume. Special Edition: Review of Black Political Economy. December, 2012. The Political Economy of Race and Ethnicity in China.     

中印城乡不平等比较:经济学分析视角

从总体上看,目前中印两国农村内部不平等程度基本上差不多,但是两国收入分配不平等的历史变化和趋势不一样;中国城乡之间无论是收入差距,还是消费差距所反映的不平等程度都明显高于印度的不平等;中国是农村不平等大于城市不平等程度,而印度则是城市不平等大于农村不平等。导致这些结构性差异的原因主要是:印度的经济增长包括技术变化、对外开放、人力资本等因素对于城乡内部以及城乡之间、地区之间等收入不平等变化产生的影响和作用更大;而中国经济增长和对外开放等因素虽然对于收入不平等也有一定影响,但是政府的政策导向和理念(先富后富政策理念与城市和沿海偏向政策)则对于城乡内部以及同一地区内城乡之间的不平等的影响更大一些。     

Black-White Differences in Consumption: An Update and Some Policy Implications

Marcus Alexis, in his Ph. D. dissertation and in later published work, conducted pioneering work in the area of black-white differences in consumption behavior and thereby influenced our understanding of household behavior and significantly impacted the field of marketing. This paper recapitulates his findings and reviews some contemporary work on black-white differences in consumption and some implications for future work on differences in consumption behavior.     

Literacy Practices and Schooling: A Case Study from Mozambique

A novel approach to the assessment of literacy is used to tackle the issue of effectiveness of years of schooling. The dichotomy inherent in the literacy rate is rejected in favor of a “practice-based” approach, which considers literacy as a multifaceted phenomenon as advocated in anthropological and economic research. Primary data collected in the poorest region in Mozambique suggest that years of schooling have a differentiated impact on acquired literacy practices of adults. Results that are robust to different specifications are reported.     

Inequality and socialism in rural China: A conceptual note

Given the serious failure to conceptualize inequality in relation to the developing mode of production in China and within socialist societies generally, more analytical attention needs to be focused on the sources, nature, significance and implications of equality and inequality at both theoretical and policy-oriented levels. Here a conceptual scheme which distinguishes between socialist inequalities based upon unequal human capabilities, and capitalist inequalities based on unequal ownership of or access to the means of production is applied to an examination of past and present inequalities in rural China, both those between villages and regions and those within collectives. Finally, suggestions are put forward for the reduction of these inequalities.     

通货膨胀与收入不平等关系的研究——基于信贷市场不完美的视角

在修正的现金预付经济中,考虑信贷市场不完美因素后,本文从理论上预言了通货膨胀与收入不平等之间的正向关系,且这种正向关系在某些条件下是U形关系.模型预言存在一个“最优”通货膨胀率,使得该通货膨胀率不会加大收入不平等.模型的理论预言与大量实证研究文献是符合的.我们的模型可以解释基于时间序列和基于截面数据的不同实证研究研究结果存在差异的原因.     

Regional Income Inequality and Welfare in China: A Dominance Analysis

Inference-based dominance analysis is applied to micro data containing comprehensive measures of rural and urban incomes in seven major regions of China. Ordinal inequality rankings are estimated for Lorenz curves of household income, per capita household income and square root equivalences scale adjusted income. Regional inequality is shown to be sensitive to the treatment of household size. The lack of reliable regional cost of living measures leads us to propose that entire food expenditure share quantile distributions be used as indicators of differences in well-being within and across regions. The results indicate that statistical rankings of Lorenz dominance and food share dominance are very different indicators of regional disparities in income and welfare in China. One urban region is shown to have been in the unenviable position in 1988 of being at the bottom of the Lorenz dominance ranking and tied for last in terms of food share dominance.     

Flying Ducks? Girls’ Schooling in Rural Vietnam: A Revisit

In Vietnam, girls are colloquially referred to as 'flying ducks' as they are regarded as a loss to the family upon marriage. Using the Vietnam Living Standards Surveys of 1992–1993 and 1997–1998, the method of Doiron and Riddell (1994) is applied to decompose the probability gap of being in school to explore gender differences in children's education and changes over time. The unexplained component is found to account for most of the observed gender probability gap in each period. Over time, however, the gap has narrowed. The explained component (namely, household income and children's involvement in housework or work activities) contributes to the narrowing gap. Cutting the indirect cost of education for girls (forgone contribution in work and housework) is crucial in ensuring girls have the same education opportunities as boys do.     

儒家文化降低企业内收入不平等了吗——基于区域信任度与公平感的视角

在我国不断推动区域均衡发展和收入公平分配的背景下,传统文化是否能够促进企业内收入分配均衡并提供有益的启示？文章首先对儒家文化所产生的企业内收入分配效应进行了理论分析;其次,基于 2007-2020 年 A 股上市公司数据对企业内收入不平等程度进行准确测算,同时手工整理出唐代至清末存在过的书院位置信息与数量,并与上市公司注册地位置匹配以表征儒家文化的影响力;最后,综合利用固定效应模型、中介效应模型以及工具变量法分析了儒家文化对企业内收入不平等的影响及其作用机制。研究发现,儒家文化对企业内收入不平等有着显著的“抑制效应”,这一结论在进行一系列稳健性检验并控制内生性问题后依然成立。中介效应检验表明,儒家文化的影响越大,区域信任度和公平感则越强,企业内收入不平等程度越低。异质性分析结果显示,“抑制效应”在受儒家文化影响较弱的少数民族聚居的边疆省份和民营企业中表现不明显,并且随着西方文化的冲击而减弱。研究结论从正面肯定了儒家文化的当代价值,为缩小贫富差距贡献了中国智慧,也为推动实现区域共同富裕提供了新的视角与证据。     

Inequality,Nonhomothetic Preferences,and Trade: A Gravity Approach

We construct the first direct classification of goods as luxuries or necessities that is compatible with international trade data. We then use it to test an idea that has not been tested directly in the literature: Countries' income distributions are important determinants of their import demand, and, in particular, of the difference in their import demands of luxuries versus necessities. We interpret this result with the aid of a model in which preferences are nonhomothetic, thus relaxing a long-held and standard—but empirically dubious—assumption in the theory of international trade. Our model is strongly borne out by the results: Imports of luxuries increase with the importing country's inequality, and imports of necessities decrease with it. Our calculations imply that if income distribution in the United States became as equal as in Canada, the United States would import about 9-13% fewer luxury goods and 13-19% more necessities.     

Land Inheritance and Schooling in Matrilineal Societies: Evidence from Sumatra

This paper explores statistically the implications of the shift from communal to individualized tenure on the distribution of land and schooling between sons and daughters in matrilineal societies, based on a Sumatra case study. The inheritance system is evolving from a strictly matrilineal system to a more egalitarian system in which sons and daughters inherit the type of land which is more intensive in their respective work effort. While gender bias is either non-existent or small in land inheritance, daughters tend to be disadvantaged with respect to schooling. The gender gap in schooling, however, appears to be closing for the generation of younger children.     

Structural Changes and Regional Income Inequality in Indonesia: A Bidimensional Decomposition Analysis*

Using the bidimensional decomposition method of a population‐weighted coefficient of variation, this paper analyzes the changes in the determinants of interprovincial income inequality associated with structural changes in Indonesia from 1983 to 2004. The method unifies two inequality decompositions by regional groups and gross regional product components (industrial sectors) and, therefore, enables us to assess the contributions of gross regional product components to within‐region and between‐region inequalities, as well as to overall inequality. As the share of mining has decreased, the spatial distribution of manufacturing has played a more important role in the inequality of Sumatra and Kalimantan, while the primacy of Jakarta, with strong urbanization economies, facilitated by globalization and trade and financial liberalization, has determined much of the Java–Bali region's inequality and, therefore, overall inequality in Indonesia.     

Inequality Trends in Indonesia, 1969–1981: A Re-Examination 1

This paper attempts to clarify the debate over trends in inequality in Indonesia from 1969 to 1981, by adjusting die standard inequality measures for the differential impact of inflation on different expenditure groups. It is shown that, once such adjustment is made, inequality increased in Indonesia between 1969/70 and 1976, but declined between 1976 and 1981. Adjustments are also made to the inequality indicators for urban and rural areas, and for Java and the Outer Islands.