Consumption and Wage Inequality in the US: The Dynamics of the Last Three Decades

In this paper, we look at the evolution of consumption and wage inequality from 1980 to 2016 in the US. We use data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey (CEX) and the Current Population Survey (CPS) to look at differences in consumption and wages across groups in the population defined by educational attainment of the household head and year-of-birth cohort. We show that the results obtained by Attanasio and Davis (1996) for non-durable consumption still hold in more recent decades. In addition to non-durable consumption and services, we look at inequality measured in terms of expenditure on and stock of vehicles. The advantages of looking at these measures are that information on cars is typically measured more accurately than other components of expenditure and consumers are more likely to react by adjusting their stock of vehicles on the basis of long-term expectations about their economic prospects.     

Fishing and consumption patterns of anglers adjacent to the Oak Ridge Reservation,Tennessee: higher income anglers ate more fish and are more at risk

The risks from consuming self‐caught fish are receiving international attention because of high levels of contaminants in some species. The ethnic, income, and educational differences in fishing and fish consumption patterns of 202 anglers fishing along the Clinch River arm of Watts Bar Reservoir adjacent to the US Department of Energy's Oak Ridge Reservation (ORR) or along Poplar Creek within ORR boundaries were analyzed to understand how to design a risk communication strategy. Because of elevated PCB concentrations in striped bass (Morone saxatilis), catfish (Ictalurus spp.), and sauger (Stizostedion canadense) due partly from contaminants released from the ORR in East Tennessee, the Clinch River arm of Watts Bar Reservoir is under a fish consumption advisory, while portions of Poplar Creek are under advisories because of mercury. Most studies find that a high proportion of anglers eat their catch, and people with lower incomes and less education generally eat more self‐caught fish than others fishing in the same region. Calculating fish consumption individually for each person indicated that a considerable number of people ate more fish from the study area than the amount used to calculate risks when developing fish consumption advisories, and people who ate fish more often usually ate larger portions. Unlike previous studies of fish consumption, this study indicated that a smaller proportion of anglers ate their fish, and those that ate the most were the high income anglers for this fishing population, rather than those with lower incomes. This suggests that risk communication strategies must include site‐specific information on the population at risk from fish consumption, and that targeting only low income, low education anglers will miss some people who are most at risk.     

The income elasticity of tax revenue: estimates for income and consumption taxes in the United Kingdom

This paper provides estimates of individual and aggregate revenue elasticities of income and consumption taxes in the UK over the period 1989–2000. It shows how budgetary changes, including changes to income‐related deductions, have substantially affected income elasticities. The estimates of consumption tax revenue elasticities show that changes in consumption patterns over time are important. A merit of the approach used here is that elasticity estimates can be calculated readily from official published sources.     

From the global income tax to the dual income tax: Recent tax reforms in the Nordic countries

The paper discusses the recent drive toward a system of dual income taxation (DIT) in the Nordic countries. The pure version of this system combines progressive taxation of labor and transfer incomes with a proportional tax on income from capital at a level equal to the corporate income tax rate. The paper considers the motives for the introduction of this new income tax system, ranging from abstract theoretical arguments to very pragmatic considerations. While the Nordic DIT system violates the principles of the conventional personal income tax, it is argued that it may in fact be more in line with the philosophy of a true Haig-Simons comprehensive income tax. It is also suggested that the DIT system may cause fewer distortions to resource allocation than the conventional income tax. On the debit side, the paper points out several practical problems of taxing income from small enterprises under the differentiated income tax.     

中国城乡财富分布的比较分析北大核心

利用奥尔多投资研究中心的家庭资产调查数据系统,本文计算了我国2007年城乡财富分布,分析了贫富差距的特征和家庭资产结构。研究结果表明,我国城乡出现了较严重的贫富差距,但这不在于最富有群体过于富有。提高教育水平和改善婚姻状况都有助于提高家庭财富水平。高财富家庭的资产组合呈现出多元化,而中低财富家庭则较为单一,因而规避风险的能力也就较弱。此外,城市和农村居民的融资能力取决于家庭财富,财富水平越高的家庭融资能力越强。     

Capital and income financialization: Accounting for the 2008 financial crisis

Financialization is recognised as a key feature of the 2008 financial crisis. We argue that a lesson is the need for an accounting framework which focuses upon financialization allowing it to be monitored and controlled by stakeholders. We argue that financialization has been permitted through the failure of accounting to distinguish distributable income from capital gains/transfers and to distinguish productive from speculative capital. We introduce an accounting presentation (4S accounting) which effectively makes these distinctions. We use a stylized example to illustrate how it should be applied to the financial reporting of banks.     

社会保障对收入分配差距的调节效应——基于陕西省宝鸡市住户调查数据的实证研究

社会保障具有重要的收入再分配功能,在很多国家社会保障都是调节居民收入分配差距最重要的手段。本文对陕西省宝鸡市住户调查数据的实证研究表明,社会保障转移性收入缩小了居民收入分配差距,使城乡居民收入的基尼系数下降了4.5%,其中城镇居民基尼系数下降22.8%,农村居民基尼系数下降1.82%。但由于农村居民获得的社会保障转移性收入远远低于城镇居民,从而导致城乡收入差距上升23.17%。为抑制收入分配差距的进一步扩大,中国应重视社会保障对收入分配的调节作用,进一步增加社会保障的财政投入。尤其要加大对农村社会保障的财政投入,尽快扭转社会保障对城乡收入差距的逆向调节。     

Changes in Assortative Matching and Inequality in Income: Evidence for the UK*

The extent to which like-with-like marry is important for inequality as well as for the outcomes of children who result from the union. In this paper, we present evidence on changes in assortative mating and its implications for household inequality in the UK. Our approach contrasts with others in the literature in that it is consistent with an underlying model of the marriage market. We argue that a key advantage of this approach is that it creates a direct connection between changes in assortativeness in marriage and changes in the value of marriage for the various possible matches by education group. Our empirical results do not show a clear direction of change in assortativeness in the UK between the birth cohorts of 1945–54 and 1965–74. We find that changes in assortativeness pushed income inequality up slightly, but that the strong changes in education attainment across the two cohorts contributed to scale down inequality.     

On the IASB comprehensive income project: an analysis of the case for dual income display

The IASB is presently involved in a project on reporting comprehensive income. Since the IASB accounting model mixes two income determination systems, namely, historical cost accounting and fair value accounting, an interesting question pertains to whether the display of comprehensive income should reflect the existence of these two paradigms. This article scrutinizes, from both the points of view of accounting theory and a valuation perspective, the typical arguments made by proponents of historical cost net income and comprehensive fair value income. It finds that claims for exclusive reliance on a single concept of income are untenable. The analysis provides arguments in defence of an income display that explicitly features both income concepts. Such a dual income display would correspond to a categorization of comprehensive income that is currently investigated in the IASB performance reporting project. However, given the importance of summarization in financial analysis, as is most extremely reflected in the focus on the earnings per share (EPS) number, the case for a dual income display should also be considered at the highest level of summarization of financial performance reporting. In other words, mandatory publication of two EPS numbers, one for net income, and one for comprehensive income, should be considered. Possible effects on perception and actual use of financial reports that should enter such a consideration are suggested as topics for experimental research.     

理顺分配关系是构建和谐社会主义分配制度的关键

党的十六大报告明确指出:"理顺分配关系,事关广大群众的切身利益和积极性的发挥."我们要在党的十六大和十六届六中全会精神指引下,按照科学发展观要求,通过积极采取措施来理顺分配关系,如必须坚持以公有制为主体多种经济形式共同发展的方针、正确处理公平与效率的关系、强化税收对收入分配的调节力度、建立和完善社会保障制度等,这对于体现社会公平,维护市场经济次序,构建和谐社会主义分配制度,更好地完善社会主义市场经济体制,都具有重要的现实意义.     

The income elasticity of mortgage loan demand

One explanation for the emergence of the housing market bubble and the subprime crisis is that increases in individuals’ income led to higher increases in the amount of mortgage loans demanded, especially for the middle class. This hypothesis translates to an increase in the income elasticity of mortgage loan demand before 2007. Using applicant‐level data, we test this hypothesis and find that the income elasticity of mortgage loan demand in fact declines in the years before 2007, especially for the mid‐ and lower‐middle income groups. Our finding implies that increases in house prices were not matched by increases in loan applicants’ income.     

The determinants of net interest income in the Mexican banking system: An integrated model

This paper analyzes net interest income in the Mexican banking system over the period 1993–2005. Taking as reference the seminal work by Ho and Saunders [Ho, T., Saunders, A., 1981. The determinants of banks interest margins: theory and empirical evidence. Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis XVI (4), 581–600] and subsequent extensions by other authors, our study models the net interest margin simultaneously including operating costs and diversification and specialization as determinants of the margin. The results referring to the Mexican case show that its high margins can be explained mainly by average operating costs and by market power. Although non-interest income has increased in recent years, its economic impact is low.     

An Estimation of the Intergenerational Income Elasticity of China

Abstract:

Using 1989–2006 waves of the China Health and Nutrition Survey data, we estimate the intergenerational income elasticity (IIE) of China. We find that the lower bound of the IIE is 0.491 using the son’s latest observed income and his father’s income averaged over three periods. We use the father’s number of years of education as an instrumental variable for his permanent income to derive the upper bound of the IIE, which is 0.556. We find that the intergenerational income mobility of rural China is higher than that in urban areas.     

Housing consumption in Urban China

Abstract. In this article we examine the effect of social, political, and economic factors on consumption of housing in China. First, we present income elasticities using time-series and cross-section analyses. We then compare the results for China with income elasticities for other countries as reported in the literature. Our elasticities range between 0.317 and 1.48-quite similar to the earlier studies by Houthakker in 1957 and Chow in 1985. Our estimates are also comparable with results from other countries. Based on our analysis, we found that rent reform alone cannot successfully improve the Chinese housing situation.     

Modelling the Distributional Impact of the COVID-19 Crisis*

The COVID-19 emergency has had a dramatic impact on market incomes and income-support policies. The lack of timely available data constrains the estimation of the scale and direction of recent changes in the income distribution, which in turn constrains policymakers seeking to monitor such developments. We overcome the lack of data by proposing a dynamic calibrated microsimulation approach to generate counterfactual income distributions as a function of more timely external data than are available in dated income surveys. We combine nowcasting methods using publicly available data and a household income generation model to perform the first calibrated simulation based upon actual data, aiming to assess the distributional implications of the COVID-19 crisis in Ireland. Overall, we find that the crisis had an equalizing real-time effect for both gross and disposable incomes, notwithstanding the significant hardship experienced by many households.     

Income Inequality and Mortality: A Norwegian Perspective*

While Norway has experienced income growth accompanied by a large decline in mortality during the past several decades, little is known about the distribution of these improvements in longevity across the income distribution. Using municipality‐level income and mortality data, we show that the stark income gradient in infant mortality across municipalities in the 1950s mostly closed in the late 1960s. However, the income gradient in mortality for older age categories across municipalities persisted until 2010 and only flattened thereafter. Further, the infant mortality gap between rich and poor Norwegian families based on individual‐level data persisted several decades longer than the gap between rich and poor municipalities and only finally closed in the early 21st century.     

The food problem and the evolution of international income levels

In most poor countries, large fractions of land, labor, and other productive resources are devoted to producing food for subsistence needs. We show that a model incorporating the “food problem” can provide new and useful insights into the evolution of international income levels. In particular, we find that the food problem can explain why some countries started to realize increases in per capita output more than 250 years later in history than others. We also show that the food problem has important implications for growth miracles and the speed at which a country converges to its balanced growth path.     

A pedagogical note on the relationship between valuation methods and lifetime income

This paper presents an algebraic analysis to help students understand that the choice of a valuation method may or may not produce a permanent difference in reported income, depending upon a number of factors. By analysing these factors and the relationships among them, accounting students can increase their understanding of alternative accounting techniques and, at the same time, obtain additional practice in developing crucial analytical skills.