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.     

Export taxes and income distribution: The Philippines coconut levy

Export Taxes and Income Distribution: The Philippines Coconut Levy. — A large, empirically based general equilibrium model of the Philippine economy is used to analyze the implications of a tax on coconut oil exports. The analysis shows how general equilibrium models can be used to derive optimal tax rates and to show the detailed relationship between the rates at which these taxes are applied and their economic effects. The analysis explores in particular the effects such taxes have on economic welfare and on income distribution within the country. The distributional effects of this export tax are shown to be highly regressive, revealing more clearly the policy trade-offs such taxes involve.     

The impacts of environmental pollution and brain drain on income inequality

This paper establishes a two-sector general equilibrium model of a small open economy to examine the impact of environmental pollution on income inequality via brain drain. The results of the equilibrium modelling show that environmental pollution in the source country can widen the income gap between skilled and unskilled workers and that brain drain caused by environmental pollution will amplify this effect; furthermore, improving the environmental quality in the recipient country will widen the skilled-unskilled income gap in the source country. Our empirical results show that deteriorating the environmental quality in the source country increases income inequality and that brain drain caused by environmental quality will amplify the effect. Our sample is divided into four sub-samples: stage of national development, level of national income, status of environmental pollution and situation of brain drain. We find that environmental pollution has different effects on income inequality via brain drain in these sub-samples. Comparing the heterogeneous components of environmental quality, we find that brain drain caused by diminished ecosystem vitality and by air quality affecting human health will widen income inequality but that other factors related to environmental quality have no significant impacts on the effect of brain drain on income inequality. The results of a robustness test support these conclusions.     

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.     

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。     

International trade and income distribution: reconsidering the evidence

This article reassesses the link between international trade and income distribution. We argue that one way to assess the influence of international trade upon income distribution is to take account of each country’s specific trade patterns by measuring the changes in the factor content of trade. The econometric specification is based on changes in Gini indices (over non-overlapping 4-year intervals), computed exclusively from series drawn from the same source. Our results show that a change in the factor content of trade has a significant impact on income distribution. The sign and magnitude of this impact is conditional on the national income level. We find that an increase in the labor content of trade raises income inequality in poor countries, but reduces it in rich countries (the reverse is true for the capital content of trade). In particular, we show that in the 1980s and 1990s, international trade may have contributed significantly to widening income inequalities in developing countries.     

Basic education and income inequality in Brazil

This paper attempts to elucidate the long-term impact of basic education on income inequality in Brazil. It does so, first, by examining how investment in basic education affects incomes and, second, by assessing the extent to which government involvement in the financing of education services and the taxing of the returns of education investment contributes to the achievement of a more equitable distribution of income.On the basis of the empirical evidence available in Brazil, it is possible to suggest that: (i) education per se cannot significantly reduce inequality, (ii) government policies in terms of education subsidies and taxes on lifetime earnings do not show a clear redistribution pattern, and (iii) there exist effective policy tools in the area of employment, education wastage, cost recovery practices which could help bridge the gap between rates of return to education and reduce income inequality.     

An ideal Kyoto protocol: emissions trading, redistributive transfers and global participation

We demonstrate that an interregional policy scheme featuringtrading of carbon dioxide emissions, redistributive resourcetransfers and global participation, a scheme which we call ‘IdealKyoto Protocol’, yields an efficient equilibrium allocationfor a global economy. An altruistic international agency—say,the Global Environment Facility—should operate the resourcetransfer mechanism. In addition, regional governments shouldbe able to make independent policy commitments regarding howto control regional emissions of carbon dioxide in anticipationof the redistributive transfers. Our efficiency result suggeststhat the USA should be ‘bribed’ to reverse its decisionof not participating in the Kyoto Protocol.     

Investigating causality among unemployment,income and crime in Taiwan: evidence from the bounds test approach

This paper examines the long-run and causal relationships among unemployment, income and crime in Taiwan. The results clearly indicate that there is a long-run level equilibrium relationship among unemployment, income and total crime. There are also long-run relationships among unemployment, income and theft and among unemployment, income and economic fraud. The causality test results from the ECM-VAR and level VAR models indicate that there is a neutral relationship among unemployment, income and total crime, and a neutral relationship among unemployment, income and all three categories of crime. It is concluded that there is no strong evidence in favor of the unemployment-led crime (ULC) or the crime-led unemployment (CLU) hypotheses in Taiwan.     

Openness and income disparities: does trade explain the “Mezzogiorno effect”?

We use Italian regional data to answer the question whether trade affects within-country income differentials. In Italy, the more affluent Northern regions trade more with the rest of the world than the poorer ones in the Southern “Mezzogiorno” regions. Prima facie, there is a positive correlation between external trade and per capita income. Studying this relationship empirically requires taking into account the endogenous component of trade. We argue that panel cointegration models can complement instrumental variables techniques to account for the endogeneity of trade in a panel context. Both methods show a positive link between trade openness and the level of income per capita.     

Analysis of income inequality factors

This paper is a report of the analysis of the basic factors, which form the income differentiation of Russia’s population in the 2000s. This describes the methods and results of calculating differentiated balances of money income and expenditures of the population in 2007–2012.     

On the geometry and the numerical approximation of cost of living and real income indices

Summary The economic theory of the “true” cost of living and real income index numbers is described and illustrated geometrically in the logarithmic price-income space. Special attention is paid to the real income index evaluated at the geometric means of the prices in the two periods and to the cost of living index evaluated at the utility level which is associated with these geometric mean prices and geometric mean income. It is shown that this particular pair of index numbers is the only pair which satisfies a certain simple set of axioms. It is also shown how these index numbers can be approximated on the basis of observable price-quantity data. The approximation is accurate up to the second order in price and income log-changes.     

A positive theory of optimal personal income distribution and growth

The core of this paper (in a microeconomic foundation on three levels—income generation, income spending, and social climate of the society) consists of a concave relationship between the (in) equality of personal income and the per capita growth rate. The results mentioned are derived in conjunction with a social welfare function which is bounded by the concave function. Furthermore, ample empirical evidence is shown for the suggestions made in this paper.     

THE EMPIRICAL FAILURE OF THE LIFE CYCLE MODEL WITH PERFECT CAPITAL MARKETS

The paper calibrates a life cycle model which incorporates standardassumptions, similar to those in Modighani's (1986) ‘strippeddown’ version, including perfect capital markets. Theresulting model generates strongly counter-factual predictions,planned wealth is negative for all or most of life, followinga W-shaped rather than a hump-shaped profile. (Equivalently,the debt profile is M-shaped.) The paper argues that introducingcapital market imperfections can resolve many of the problems,though some issues remain, and further research is warranted ‘The hypothesis of utility maximisation (and perfect markets)has, all by itself, one very powerful implication—theresources that a representative consumer allocates to consumptionat any age, t, will depend only on his life resources (the presentvalue of labour income plus bequests received, if any) whencombined with the self-evident proposition that the representativeconsumer will choose to consume at a reasonably stable rate,close to his anticipated average life consumption the size ofsaving over short periods of time, like a year, will be swayedby the extent to which current income departs from average liferesources the main parameter that controls the wealth-incomeratio and the saving rate for given growth is the prevailinglength of retirement’ (Modigliani, 1986, pp 299 and 301)     

The evolution of pension size in pensioner’s income parameters

Preliminary results from the first stage of the 2002–2008 pension reform, as well as the state of pension provision in the prereform period and their effect on pensioner’s income provision, are examined in terms of a methodological problem in organizing a pension system.     

On the dependence of population growth on income: New results in a ricardian - Malthus model

Summary We have been able to complete an investigation of Niehans' well-known neoclassical growth model with endogenous population by analytical methods so that the full range of steady-state solutions and their properties are revealed. For certain ranges of the equilibrium capital-labor ratio, an increase in the saving rate decreases equilibrium growth rates and per capita income, and an increase in the marginal propensity to proliferate increases equilibrium growth rates and per capita income. Thus a complete analysis provides new results, some contrary to expectations, which provide a basis for comparing Niehans' model with other specifications of the population sector.Professors, respectively, of Economics and Systems Engineering at the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle. This research was supported by a grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.     

论政府收入再分配功能

利益矛盾分为纵向和横向两种。公平与效率问题和纵向、横向矛盾交织在一起。为了兼顾公平与效率,促进经济社会和谐发展,政府要通过干预,实现收入的再分配。在这个过程中,政府要①准确把握经济社会运行的阶段和各阶层的相对情况;②合理把握纵向利益矛盾的限度③科学把握横向利益矛盾的限度。改革开放以来政府收入再分配的经验,主要就是合理利用和发挥社会成员的横向利益矛盾,激发人们的劳动积极性,促进经济效率的提高;同时善于运用纵向利益矛盾,发挥政府的作用,保证社会的基本公平。     

农村居民收入结构解析与增收路径

农民增收困难,城乡收入差距扩大是我国面临的突出问题,并且成为制约经济发展的重要障碍。要提高农民收入,必须对农民收入来源进行解析,努力保持现有的增收优势,发掘、培育农民收入新的增长点,有针对性地提出增收路径。     

Immigration,international capital flows,and long run income distribution in Canada

Conclusion This study derives long-run income distributional impacts of immigration and capital flows in a general equilibrium model of Canada. While each factor is its own enemy, results indicate that capital and skilled professional labor are enemies as well. Both of these productive inputs are friends of other labor groups, which are common enemies. Factor friendship patterns are useful in evaluating income distributional impacts of a variety of policies designed to influence the international flow of productive labor and capital.     

Comparing the welfare effects of income and excise taxes in the presence of the other taxation paradox

This paper implements numerically a general equilibrium model in which all private producers are price makers and the government utilizes tax revenues to provide a public good. After deriving the partial equilibrium condition for an excise tax to increase price by more than the tax (for a monopoly firm), numerical examples are given, demonstrating this phenomenon for both partial and general equilibrium. In the general equilibrium context, optimal excise taxation and optimal flat-rate income taxation are compared. In the excise tax regime, prices increase by more than the taxes. In the income tax regime, prices actually decline relative to the no-tax regime. In all of the examples given, flat-rate income taxation is superior to excise taxation in terms of welfare. The author has benefitted from exceptionally helpful comments received from J. Ronnie Davis, John D. Wilson, Ralph W. Pfouts, and Amy Crews. He has also benefitted from conversations with Franz Gehrels, David E. Wildasin, Herbert J. Kiesling, and Harold York. The usual disclaimer applies.