The role of real income level and income distribution in fulfillment of basic needs

Using internationally comparable estimates of real GDP per capita, along with World Bank data on seven basic-needs indicators and one income equality measure, relative importance of real income level and income equality, for improvement in the provision of basic needs, is assessed on the basis of a multiple regression model. Income level seems important in almost all cases; but the importance of income equality is observed only on a limited scale. Although income is probably more important in low-income LDCs, the relationships studied appear broadly similar in the low-income and the middle-income LDC contexts.     

Determinants of fertility in developing countries

The contribution of agricultural modernization to changes in fertility in developing countries was examined. A model for the determinants of both fertility and infant mortality--hypothesized to be positively related--was specified and applied to cross-sectional data for 75 developing countries for the year 1971. The infant mortality rate, productivity per unit of labor and land, and density of population for agricultural land were highly correlated with the crude birth rate. The only other exogenous variables highly correlated with each other were productivity per unit of labor and infant mortality, and productivity per unit of land and population density for agricultural areas. The coefficient of population density of agricultural areas suggested a negative impact of density on fertility. The infant mortality rate, productivity per unit of land and labor, and density of population of agricultural areas explained 85% of the intercountry variation in fertility. The infant mortality rate, productivity of land, and productivity of labor were of descending order of importance in determining the crude birth rates in the countries analyzed. 68% of the intercountry variation in infant mortality was explained by fertility, adult literacy, per capita energy consumption, gini-coefficient of income distribution, population per hospital bed, and protein supply. Adult literacy, crude birth rates, population per hospital bed, per capita energy consumption, per capita protein supply, and gini-coefficient of income distribution were of descending order of importance in determining infant mortality rates. All of the variables that affected infant mortality directly affected fertility indirectly; conversely, all the variables that affected fertility directly affected infant mortality indirectly. Overall, these results confirm that agricultural modernization does exert an effect on fertility. The task in developing countries is to break the vicious cycle of infant mortality and fertility. This can be achieved both through family planning programs and the diffusion of health programs to lower infant mortality.     

Does income affect fertility or does fertility affect income?

"This paper tests for the dynamic causal connection between real income per capita and the birth rate for a subset of developing countries. These countries are Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, and Uruguay. Our empirical findings show that, for the historical period under review, in several countries real income per capita affected the birth rate. Virtually no evidence is found to support the hypothesis that the birth rate affected real income per capita."     

Health Expenditures and Health Outcomes in Africa*

Abstract: This paper provides econometric evidence linking African countries’ per capita total as well as government health expenditures and per capita income to two health outcomes: infant mortality and under‐five mortality. This relationship is examined using data from 47 African countries between 1999 and 2004. Health expenditures have a statistically significant negative effect on infant and under‐five mortality rates. The magnitude of our elasticity estimates are in consonance to those reported in the literature. For African countries, our results imply that total health expenditures (as well as the public component) are certainly important contributors to health outcomes. In addition, we find that both infant and under‐five mortality are positively and significantly associated with sub‐Saharan Africa. The reverse is true for North Africa. While ethnolinguistic fractionalization and HIV prevalence positively and significantly affect the health outcomes, higher numbers of physicians and female literacy significantly reduce these health outcomes. These results have important implications for attaining the targets envisioned by the Millennium Development Goals. The data implications are also discussed.     

Biases in the allocation of foreign aid: Some new evidence

The purpose of the paper is to examine the pattern of bilateral and multilateral foreign aid allocations during the 1970s. Cross-section and pooled regressions for a set of roughly 90 countries where aid allocations have been relatively free of gross political overtones confirm the well-known bias in per capita aid flows against populous countries, butdo not provide evidence of a middle income bias. Instead, regressions on 1976–1978 aid flows and per capita incomes of recipient countries seem to suggest a low income bias, i.e. low income countries received more aid per capita than middle income countries. Yet, there was asample of extremely poor countries which remained neglected in foreign aid allocations.     

四川农村正规金融发展与农民收入增长关系研究——基于灰色关联度分析

本文选取了四川省1999～2009年的统计数据,运用灰色关联度分析方法对农村正规金融发展与农民收入增长之间的关联度进行了分析,由此得出结论:农村正规金融的发展对农民人均纯收入的增长有明显的影响,其中农村金融发展效率的提高对农民收入增长的促进作用最大,满足农民的信贷资金需求是金融支持农民增收的主要途径。     

Economic Convergence in the African Continent: Closing the Gap

The paper attempts to analyse the conditional β‐convergence and its sources for 32 African countries over the period 1960‐2008. The augmented Solow model with both gross domestic product (GDP) per worker and per capita income is estimated using the dynamic system generalized methods of moments (GMM) technique with the panel data. This is the first study on the sources of conditional β‐convergence for African countries. According to the results of the augmented Solow model, income convergence rates are lower than those of GDP per worker. Moreover, total factor productivity convergence, human capital convergence and capital labour convergence are contributing towards the convergence of GDP per worker in Africa. This means that growth in the poorest African countries is being augmented by “catch‐up factor,” which is good news for them. However, convergence in terms of GDP per worker is not being fully translated into income per capita convergence. The demographic structure in the African continent with its record of persistent population growth has played an important role in lowering the income convergence of its countries.     

Urbanization and economic development

"This paper seeks to contribute to the discussion on the relationship between the levels of urbanization, levels of economic development and the pattern of economic activities." The focus is on the situation in developing countries, and the data are from published World Bank sources. Data on per capita income are used to stratify countries into development levels. The study includes data on centrally planned economies and on African countries.     

中国经济如何跨越中高等收入陷阱

我国2010年人均GDP已经突破3945美元,根据世界银行对世界各经济体的最新分类标准,我国已经步入中高等收入国家行列,但与此同时我国的收入差距不断拉大。如何将收入差距控制在合理范围内,成功地跨越中高等收入陷阱是当前的紧要问题。本文通过对我国人均GDP及其基尼系数的协整检验发现,我国经济增长与收入分配之间存在一种稳定的长期均衡关系。只有合理的处理我国的收入分配差距问题才能达到经济的持续发展,从而跨越高中等收入陷阱。     

避免“中等收入陷阱”的国际比较

从国际经验看,人均GDP超过4000美元阶段,如果不及时转型,继续延用过去的经济发展战略,容易积累矛盾,陷入"中等收入陷阱"。拉美一些国家在长达30年里没有走出"中等收入陷阱",原因也在于此。当前,中国人均GDP已经超过4000美元,正处在向高收入国家迈进的阶段。通过国际比较,探索避免"中等收入陷阱"的一般规律,有助于中国加快转变经济发展方式,实现公平与可持续的发展。     

Barriers to labor mobility and international trade: The case of China

This paper quantitatively evaluates the potential impacts of removing China's Hukou system on the world economy. By denying migrant workers the right to health benefits and housing, China's Household Registration (Hukou) system presents a significant distortion to the Chinese labor market that discourages the reallocation of its labor from agriculture to non-agriculture. I find that the elimination of Hukou could increase China's real income per capita by about 4.7%. Moreover, although for most countries the impact of removing Hukou is modest (less than 1% changes in real income per capita), substantial changes in real income could take place for China's small neighboring economies. For example, the decreases in real GDP per capita are 2.7%, 3.2%, and 4.1% for Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam, while Thailand stands to enjoy a 3.8% increase in its income.     

Unequal access to education and income distribution

Summary This paper attempts a new specification of the education variable in accounting for differences in income distribution in a cross-sectional analysis of 49 countries. The specification refers to the steepness of the educational pyramid, as measured by the coefficient of variation of enrolments within a given country. This variable alone explains 23 per cent of income inequality across countries (as measured by the Gini coefficient), while in the presence of it the traditional (catch-all) per capita income variable becomes insignificant.This finding indicates the importance of the supply side in relative income determination. It is also suggestive that a policy aiming at equalisation of access to the different levels of education might help in reducing income inequality.I would like to thank Arnold Anderson, Mary Jean Bowman, Jan Tinbergen and Peter Wiles for commenting on an earlier draft of this paper.     

Indicators of development: The search for a basic needs yardstick

The measurement of development efforts in developing countries has generally focused on the growth of GNP per head and related concepts. Increasingly, development economists have become aware that growth of output or income by themselves are not adequate indicators of development, and that the reduction of poverty and the satisfaction of basic human needs are goals that should show up in a measure of development. There has been growing interest in designing better measures of development, including modifications of GNP, social indicators and associated systems of social accounts, and composite indices of development. A review of these approaches and concepts points to the conclusion that the use of social and human indicators is the most promising supplement to GNP, particularly if work on social indicators is done in areas central to the basic needs approach.     

Does Financial Intermediation Development Increase Per Capita Income in Rural China？

This paper investigates the impacts of financial intermediary （or banking） development on village-level per capita income using a Chinese dataset for selected years between 1993 and 2006. The empirical results from a random effect regression model indicate that mean per capita income in rural villages follows an inverted U-shaped path as financial intermediation develops. However, using a pooled quantile regression approach, we find that median per capita income in rural villages follows a positive linear path, rather than an inverted U-shaped path, as financial intermediation develops. The positive linear effect of financial intermediary development is observed at the lower and higher ends of the conditional per capita income distribution. This suggests that development of financial intermediation in China might not have statistically significant differential effects in low-income or high-income rural villages.     

Product price differences across countries: determinants and effects

A substantial part of international differences in prices of individual products, both goods and services, can be explained by differences in per capita income, wage compression, or low wage dispersion among low-wage workers, and exchange rate fluctuations. Higher per capita income is associated with higher prices and higher wage dispersion with lower prices. The effects of higher income and wage dispersion are moderated for the more tradable products. The effects of wage dispersion, on the other hand, are magnified for the more labor-intensive products, particularly low-skill services. The differences in prices across countries are reflected in differences in the composition of consumption. Countries in which prices of labor-intensive services are very high, such as the Nordic countries, consume much less of them. For some services, the shares of GDP consumed in high-price countries are less than 20% of the shares in low-price countries. Since these are services of very low tradability, the low consumption levels of these services imply low employment in them.     

Revisiting Growth‐Poverty Relationship: A Medium‐Term Causality Approach

This article examines the potential medium‐term causal relationship between changes in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita and poverty in developing countries during the 1970s–1990s. For this purpose, we use panel data model evaluation techniques to test the out‐of‐sample forecasting performance of competing models. We conclude that the evidence supports the hypothesis that increases in GDP per capita cause unidirectional poverty reduction, measured by the $1/day poverty rate, in the period 1970s–1980s. The results are similar when analysing low‐ and middle‐income countries and mid‐high‐ and very high‐inequality countries separately. However, in the period 1980s–1990s, it is only statistically significant for low‐income countries.     

Fiscal flows in Europe: The redistributive effects of the EU budget

Fiscal Flows in Europe: The Redistributive Effects of the EU Budget. — In this paper we analyze the redistributive effects of the EU budget among European countries, exploring the relationship between income and fiscal flows, both in per capita terms. Using a new data set on EU budgets from 1986 to 1998, we find that the EU budget has a redistributive effect, though only on its expenditure side. The most redistributive expenditure category is the Regional Fund, followed by the Social Fund and by the guarantee section of the EAGGF. All of them have become increasingly redistributive in time. Total budgetary revenues show only proportionality with income. As regards the net financial balance, three groups of countries are identified, given the treatment they get from the EU budget that cannot be explained by their per capita income levels.     

Trade flows and differences between countries

Conclusions In answer to the question of whether trade between countries is motivated by differences or by similarities, the results of this paper indicate that it is predominantly differences and not similarities which lead countries to trade with each other. Greater differences in agriculture land per capita, per capita income, the urban proportion of the population, and temperature results in general in greater trade between two countries, everything else the same. The traditional theory of trade based on relative price differences is, therefore, supported. The exception is the measure of differences in the crude birth rates. Apparently, the more similar are the crude birth rates for two countries, the greater will be the amount of trade. This exception could arise from multicollinearity, from crude birth rate differences having effects systematically opposite to other differences, or from Linder's hypothesis that trade is most intensive between similar countries. The author is indebted to Professors Edward Ames, Niels Bolwig, J?rgen Gelting, Svend Hylleberg, Chung Lee, Delbert Snider and Charles Staley for helpful comments. Remaining errors are the author's responsibility.     

对新疆实现跨越式发展和长治久安主要目标的测算与分析

中央新疆工作会议提出了新形势下推进新疆跨越式发展和长治久安的目标任务,并明确提出到2015年新疆人均生产总值要达到全国平均水平,城乡居民收入和人均基本公共服务能力达到西部地区平均水平,确保2020年实现全面建设小康社会奋斗目标。结合新疆工作会议提出的目标,本文对2015年新疆人均GDP达到全国平均水平、城乡居民收入达到西部平均水平,以及2020年与全国同步实现全面建设小康社会目标三项指标进行测度分析,以期为政府决策和＂十二五＂规划目标的制定提供依据。     

The rise and fall of worldwide income inequality, 1820–2035

The development process and the demographic changes that are a central element of it explain both the nearly two centuries of increasing income inequality prior to 2000 and the reversal of this trend that followed. There are at least four phases of the development process: (1) Malthusian pre-development, (2) initial growth, (3) improved productivity, and (4) receding growth. Prior to the industrial revolution, the entire world was in the Malthusian Phase 1. During 1820–1950, about 20 countries, mostly in Western Europe, North America, and Oceania, moved out of Phase 1 and began to grow more rapidly. But, per capita income levels in the rest of the world continued to stagnate and worldwide income inequality widened continuously for at least 150 years following the Industrial Revolution. Around 1960, developing countries began to escape the Malthusian trap and move into Phase 2 of development. By the latter part of the 20th century, many developing countries were achieving growth rates equal to or greater than the high-income countries, slowing the rise in inequality. By 2000–2015 most developing countries were in either Phases 2 or 3 of development, while most of the high-income countries were moving into Phase 4, leading to a sharp reduction in worldwide income inequality. The recent reductions in worldwide income inequality are likely to continue in the near term because of the continuation of the more favorable demographic changes in developing compared to high-income countries.