Occupational choice: Teacher quality versus teacher quantity

This article examines the relationship between skill-biased technological changes and the decline in both teacher quality and pupil–teacher ratio—called the “quality–quantity trade-off”—in the United States and other advanced economies during the past several decades. The study presents a theory of educational production that emphasizes teachers’ occupational choices. A key assumption is that talented agents have a comparative advantage in learning. The model endogenously generates a teachers sector with intermediate abilities between two types of skilled workers with tertiary education: highly skilled workers and vocational workers. This unique feature helps specify which technological changes may lead to quality–quantity trade-offs. In particular, a crucial element is that the ratio of incomes and thus the income inequality rises within the skilled sector. In this case, the most talented teachers depart from the teachers sector to join the highly skilled sector, and as such, teacher quality declines. In other cases, both teacher quality and teacher quantity may increase. The results are consistent with the observed patterns of technology, educational attainment, educational expenditure, and wage inequality in advanced economies. Finally, another potential cause for the quality–quantity trade-off is a reduction in teacher certification requirement unless the reduction is implemented exclusively on high-ability workers.     

Human capital inequality and income inequality: testing for causality

This study investigates the causal relationship between human capital inequality and income inequality in case of Pakistan. The annual time series data ranging from 1973 to 2009 is used for econometric analysis. Johanson co-integration and Granger Causality tests are used to confirm the existence of long run relationship and the causal relationship between human capital inequality and income inequality. The results indicate that there is positive relationship between the two types of inequalities in the long run. The estimates of causality test indicate that income inequality causes the human capital inequality but human capital inequality does not cause income inequality. Policy initiatives to reduce income inequality may empower people economically to avail skill building opportunities and accumulate their human capital through access to educational services.     

Generational Dimensions of Neoliberal and Post‐Fordist Restructuring: The Changing Characteristics of Young Adults and Growing Income Inequality in Montreal and Vancouver

There is growing concern over income inequality and its generational dimensions. Post‐Fordist and neoliberal restructuring have reshaped urban labour markets, resulting in growing inequalities that disproportionately afflict younger workers. This article empirically analyses the transition as experienced in Montreal and Vancouver, two Canadian cities that have undergone restructuring in different ways. The study of young adults' changing incomes reveals growing intra‐ and inter‐cohort inequality, and an increasing intergenerational income gap in both cities. Income inequality is greater in Vancouver, with its more pronounced post‐Fordist labour force composition and neoliberalized governance context. Known factors such as occupation and gender affect the earnings structure, but educational attainment has increased the most in terms of its effect on incomes. Inequalities among young adults are expected to magnify in the future due to unevenness in educational attainment. Urban research ought to pay close attention to the role of education in structuring inequalities, and the ways the impact of restructuring is unevenly distributed across generations.     

Effects of Educational Expenditures on Regional Inequality in the Social Quality of Life

A bstract . Earlier studies by Liu on Quality of Life (QOL) indicators have pointed out the problems of concentration interregional inequality among the fifty states in U.S.A. Noting that the interregional inequality problem has been gradually alleviated over the past two decades, this paper attempts to provide some rudimentary explanations about this converging phenomenon through a labor market adjusting process towards social, economic and spatial equilibrium. Published state data and QOL indicators developed by Liu for 1960, 1970 and 1978 tend to support the hypothesis that investment in human resources , especially through improved elementary and secondary education , would enhance social mobility which would in turn improve labor and capital productivity. The reduced regional inequality in economic QOL seemed to be more a response than a cause when compared to that in social QOL, because variations in educational expenditures were found to be more significantly related to the social QOL indicators than to the economic ones.     

The macroeconomic implications of corruption in the choice to educate

Educational corruption is a worldwide phenomenon, yet its macroeconomic implications are largely unknown. We formulate a fixed-price bribe model to explore the impact educational corruption may have on growth, income inequality and other factors. When using aggregate ability as our measure of growth, our model produces a v-shaped relationship between growth and corruption, suggesting that corruption is detrimental to growth at lower levels of bribery, but growth enhancing at greater levels. A cross-section of countries is used to empirically test our model and provides qualitative support for our modeling structure. Distributional analysis reveals that an increased prevalence of corruption leads to greater income inequality and reduces the ability of education to signal quality.     

Wage inequality and the labor market impact of economic transformation: Croatia, 1970–2008

In this paper, we examine wage inequality and wage differentials in Croatia from 1970 to 2008 using two long aggregate time series on the distribution of income. We focus especially on changing income inequality related to educational and vocational attainment, changing income inequality within those groups, and how these two components of inequality were affected by the economic transformation from socialism to capitalism. We find that income inequality between groups rose moderately post-transformation, while overall inequality increased more sharply. This finding is consistent with a growing importance of individual rather than group productivity in labor market compensation, a change broadly consistent with the economic transformation of the Croatian labor market.     

Public Sympathy for O. J. Simpson

ABSTRACT This paper examines those factors affecting public attitudes about the O. J. Simpson trial and the American criminal justice system. The separate and combined effects of these factors–which include race, age, gender, income, and education–were estimated using a logit model. It was found that blacks were more likely than whites to be sympathetic to Simpson and to believe he was innocent of the crimes he was charged with. Older individuals, males, those with higher incomes, and those with more education were less likely to be sympathetic to Simpson and more likely to think he was guilty. Finally, it was found that blacks were more likely than whites to perceive that the criminal justice system is biased against blacks.     

EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT AND THE RURAL-URBAN DIVIDE IN CHINA

A national household income survey and census data are used to examine the determinants of educational attainment in China. Rural and urban areas are analysed separately, and contrasted, owing to the sharp economic and institutional divide between them. The roles of income, age, gender, ethnicity, region and family background are explored. An attempt is made to distinguish between demand- and supply-constraints. The opportunity and other costs of rural schooling, and the reasons for leaving school, are examined. Income levels and incentives are important in explaining rural dropping out, and parental education is a powerful influence on enrolment and achievement. The considerable inequality of educational opportunity in China requires corrective policies.     

Spatial inequality and household poverty in Ghana

The study analyses district-level consumption inequality in Ghana, explores the relative contribution of within- and between-district inequalities to national inequality and examines the relationship between household poverty and inequality. The last three rounds of the Ghana Living Standard Survey are used. We observe that the contribution of within-district inequality to national inequality is higher than inequality between districts. Also, district-level consumption inequality shows a significant effect on household poverty, but with varying signs. We surmise that the variation in signs is as a result of the state of economic activity and factors that affect both poverty and inequality.     

Can educational expansion improve income inequality? Evidences from the CHNS 1997 and 2006 data

Rapid education expansion and rising income inequality are two striking phenomena occurring in China during the transitional period. Using the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS) data collected in 1997 and 2006, this paper studies how education affects individual earnings during the transitional process. We find that education accounts for only a small fraction of the personal earnings and income gap between different groups. We analyze the underlying mechanism of the impact of education on earning. More educated people tend to enter state-owned sectors, have a low probability of changing jobs in the labor market and work less time; all of these will have a pronounced impact on earning and income inequality. Quantile regression analysis shows that the low-income group's education return rate is lower, which helps little in narrowing the income gap. We decompose the earning gap into four factors: population effect, price effect, labor choice effect and unobservable effect. In explaining the earning gap in China, the price effect is more important than the population effect. The labor choice effect is also significant. We conclude that increasing educational expenditure with no complementary measures such as reforming the education system and establishing a competitive labor market helps less in reducing income inequality.     

The negative impact of barriers to entry on income inequality

Barriers to entry such as fees, licensing, or educational requirements make it more difficult to start businesses. Problematically, many barriers to entry are due to regulatory capture and serve only to benefit incumbent firms. These regulations, which are created by government, often make it exceedingly difficult for low-income individuals to start new businesses, denying individuals access to higher-paying occupations. I estimate two models and find that barriers to entry increase income inequality. A one-point decrease in the World Bank's ease of starting a business score equates to a 0.15–1.25-point increase in the Gini coefficient.     

Has Federal Student Aid Contributed to Equality in Higher Education?

ABSTRACT. TO analyze the effect of federal student aid on the structure of the higher educational system, an index of inequality of access is developed It measures the differences in the distribution of income of entering students , as compared to the U S distribution of income at thirteen different categories of institutions Its application shows that structural inequality exists in the nation's system of higher education and that while some improvements occurred in the 1970s, especially at the bottom of the system, by 1986 most of these gains had been eliminated When these indices were regressed against per capita federal student financial aid , relative student costs , and variables reflecting changes in the larger economy, using time series data, the aid variables show little or no statistical effect on the structural inequality of the nation's system of higher education, as measured by the index of inequality On the other hand, the cost variable generally has strong effect The general economic variables occasionally have significant effect     

Optimizing the spatial assignment of schools to reduce both inequality of educational opportunity and potential opposition rate through introducing random mechanism into proximity-based system

A serious spatial inequality of educational opportunity was revealed worldwide, for wealthy families can access good schools by buying real estate with good school' enrollment quota. Although the existing studies had revealed that random-based school assignment can significantly improve equality of opportunity allocation, random mechanism was adopted only in few places. Two major resistances of introducing random mechanism exist: the possibility of increased commuting distance to schools and the effected relative beneficiaries. In order to make the random-based allocation more feasible, this study proposes a spatial optimization model to take these two factors into account into proximity-based school assignment system. The proposed multi-objective allocation model, with the constraint conditions of assigning students to 3 closest schools and school capacities, was developed in this study to minimize the spatial disparity of educational opportunity and the potential opposition rate of introducing random mechanism into proximity-based assignment system. The model will be solved by a heuristic algorithm and applied to a case study area of Shijingshan District, Beijing. The results showed that the proposed model could improve spatial equality of educational opportunity significantly, but along with a minor increase on commuting distance to schools. In addition, potential opponents of introducing random mechanism decrease as the weight of parameters related to opposition rate increases in the model, reducing nearly 10% in the best case. Therefore, the solutions provided by proposed model may encounter less resistance in a democratic voting system. However, the results also indicated that there would be some relative beneficiaries who may oppose introducing random mechanism into proximity-based school system even in the best case. This implies that, to achieve equal educational opportunity in the context of proximity-based school system, optimized allocation is needed along with a more even distribution of educational resources.     

Gamma-minimax estimation of a multivariate normal mean

Summary The mean vector of a multivariate normal distribution is to be estimated. A class Γ of priors is considered which consists of all priors whose vector of first moments and matrix of second moments satisfy some given restrictions. The Γ-minimax estimator under arbitrary squared error loss is characterized. The characterization follows from an application of a result of Browder and Karamardian published in Ichiishi (1983) which is a special version of a minimax inequality due to Ky Fan (1972). In particular, it is shown that within the set of all estimators a linear estimator is Γ-minimax. The authors would like to thank the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft for financial support.     

Earnings inequality,returns to education and immigration into Ireland

We examine what has happened to earnings inequality and the returns to education in Ireland between 1987 and 1997. We find that while both increased between 1987 and 1994, the increases slowed dramatically between 1994 and 1997. We look to immigration as being a contributing factor to this pattern because a large group of skilled workers flowed into the Irish labour market between 1994 and 1997. We develop a model of the Irish labour market and use it to simulate the impact of an increase in skilled labour. The simulation suggests that immigration did indeed reduce earnings inequality. This result is an interesting corollary to work from the US that shows the immigration of unskilled workers' increasing earnings inequality.     

Separate when equal? Racial inequality and residential segregation

This paper sets out a new mechanism involving the emergence of middle-class black neighborhoods that can lead segregation in American cities to increase as racial inequality narrows. The formation of such neighborhoods requires a critical mass of highly educated blacks in the population, and leads to an increase in segregation when those communities are attractive for blacks who would otherwise reside in middle-class white neighborhoods. To assess the empirical importance of this “neighborhood formation” mechanism, we propose a two-part research design. First, inequality and segregation should be negatively related in cross section for older blacks if our mechanism operates strongly, as we find using both the 1990 and 2000 Censuses. Second, a negative relationship should also be apparent over time, particularly for older blacks. Here, we show that increased educational attainment of blacks relative to whites in a city between 1990 and 2000 leads to a significant rise in segregation, especially for older blacks, and to a marked increase in the number of middle-class black communities. These findings draw attention to a negative feedback loop between racial inequality and segregation that has implications for the dynamics of both phenomena.     

De ontwikkeling van de inkomensongelijkheid gemeten volgens informatietheoretische maatstaven

Summary Some years ago Theil introduced new inequality measures, originating from information theory. He applied them 8.0. to income distributions in the United States. This inequality coefficient is - in contrast to Pareto's constant - based on the whole income distribution. Moreover, the inequality can be disaggregated into inequalities for groups of population. The numerical value of the inequality depends on the chosen class intervals; this may be inconvenient when making comparisons between countries, between different periods and the like. Hence we suggest an appropriate standardizing procedure. The inequality of income distributions has been calculated for the period 1950–1964 and a cornparison is made with Pmm's constant. The investigation relates to three groups of population: wage earners, self employed and others. A remark is made about between-province inequalities.     

Public infrastructure provision and skilled–unskilled wage inequality in developing countries

In this paper, we develop several static three-sector general equilibrium models with diverse labor market structures to investigate the effects of government provision of public infrastructure on the skilled–unskilled wage inequality in developing countries. The basic full employment model shows that the production sectors' relative dependence on the public infrastructure provision plays a crucial role in determining the skilled–unskilled wage inequality. Different relative dependences on public infrastructure may even result in opposite changes in the skilled–unskilled wage inequality. The above results are robust even when we extend the basic full employment model to three fundamentally different cases.     

市场潜能加剧了性别工资不平等吗？

本文首先构造了我国338个城市包含海外和国内市场的总市场潜能指标,并利用2005年全国人口抽样调查数据和新经济地理学的基准工资方程,通过Heckman样本选择模型和RIF回归分解方法实证分析了市场潜能对性别工资不平等的影响。研究发现：市场潜能虽然对工资水平具有显著的正向拉动作用,并缩小了高技能劳动力的性别工资不平等,但扩大了低技能劳动力的性别工资不平等,从而加剧了整体的性别工资不平等,其中对低收入群体的加剧作用大于中高收入群体。RIF工资分解结果也证实了这一事实,且收入分布上半部分（90-50分位点）和工资结构效应对此贡献较大,尤其是市场潜能的工资结构效应贡献了总工资结构效应的60%以上,表明从城市间市场潜能及其对性别工资的影响入手,将是破解性别工资不平等难题的有效路径。     

Educational presorting and occupational segregation

This article concentrates on the measurement of both occupational and educational segregation between men and women of the Dutch labour force. The majority of studies which have been conducted in this area are rather one-sided, concentrating on occupational segregation only. However, occupational segregation can be split into three components. The first component concerns presorting as a consequence of the different educational choices made by boys and girls. The second component concerns postsorting (given their educational status), as a result of the differing occupational choices and opportunities for promotion between men and women during their careers. If men and women with the same educational background are directed towards different occupations, then postsorting may add to the occupational segregation which was already induced by the earlier educational segregation. This kind of postsorting increases the gap between occupational and educational segregation. The third component, which we refer to as reintegration, is also a kind of postsorting but narrowing the gap between occupational and educational segregation. This occurs when men with a `male type' of education and women with a `female type' of education come together in one occupation. Given that educational segregation of the labour force is fixed in the short term, reintegration is the only effective, but probably difficult affirmative action program to reduce occupational segregation in the short term. More usual programs are ineffective and can even be counterproductive. A more detailed insight into these three components is relevant when choosing the policy instruments needed to achieve equal employment opportunities for men and women. The paper shows that from 1979 until 1993/1994 educational segregation increased, but occupational segregation decreased. Partly, this is explained by increased reintegration, but the main cause of these developments is a clear increase in presorting in education.