Wealth and Income Inequality in Europe

While it has long been apparent that global levels of wealth and income inequality have been steadily increasing since the 1970s, the issue received scant attention in Europe until the recent fi nancial crisis and the resulting Great Recession illuminated for the general public just how great the chasm between the very rich and everybody else had grown. This realisation was coupled with an increased focus on inequality among economists and other academics, leading to a fresh drive for policy ideas to remedy the alarming trend. This Forum comprises a diverse range of viewpoints on the recent history and dynamics of inequality within Europe, each striving to defi ne the root causes in the various countries being examined. The defi nition of these causes, of course, can inform the direction of policies aimed at alleviating the growing inequality in many European countries and thereby curtail one of the major political and social issues of our time.     

Wealth and Income Inequality: An Economic and Ethical Analysis

I perform an economic and ethical analysis on wealth and income inequality. Economists have performed many statistical studies that reveal a number of, often contradictory, findings in connection with the distribution of wealth and income. Hence, the statistical findings leave us with no better knowledge of the effects that inequality has on economic progress. At the same time, the existing theoretical results have not provided us with a definitive answer concerning the effects of inequality on progress. By gaining knowledge of the nature of inequality, and bringing basic economic principles to bear on the subject, we can come to an understanding of what the causal relationship is between inequality and economic progress. Furthermore, I apply a new theory of ethics – rational egoism – to assess economic inequality. I show that, in the right context, economic inequality is both economically and morally desirable.     

Globalisation and Inter‐occupational Inequality: Empirical Evidence from OECD Countries

How does globalisation affect inter‐occupational wage inequality within countries? This paper examines this by focusing on two dimensions of globalisation: openness to trade and openness to capital flows, using a relatively new data set on occupational wages. Estimates from a dynamic model for 15 OECD countries spanning the period 1983–2003 suggest that increased openness increases occupational wage inequality in poorer OECD countries as predicted by the Heckscher–Ohlin–Samuelson model, but for the more advanced OECD countries, we find no significant effect. The absence of the expected result for the latter category can be due to a rapid increase in the supply of skilled labour, to outsourcing of skilled jobs or because changes in the trade flows are too small to have any significant effect in those countries.     

中国收入差距中的机会不均等

本文使用中国综合社会调查(CGSS)数据和基于回归方程的分解方法,将全国、城镇和农村地区的收入差距分解为源于环境因素的机会不均等、源于努力因素的收入不均等,以及源于运气和未知因素的收入不均等三大成分,研究结果如下。(1)2010—2015年,全国、城镇和农村机会不均等均经历了先上升后下降的过程,但出生时户籍的贡献度有上升趋势。(2)通过估算,2010年我国机会不均等为24.39%,2012年为28.04%,2013年达到峰值35.72%,2015年下降到30.56%,而如果不考虑党员身份、迁移两个努力变量以及环境变量与努力变量的交互影响,估算结果会被高估至少8个百分点;居住地、性别、出生时户籍是机会不均等的重要来源。(3)2010—2015年,农村机会不均等平均水平达到33.31%,高出城镇约8个百分点。其中,年龄与性别因素是导致农村机会不均等过高的原因,而居住地差异是城镇机会不均等的主要来源。基于此,本文建议从协调区域发展、完善就业公平竞争机制、加快户籍制度改革三个方面减缓机会不均等。     

Wealth Inequality and the Great Recession

The study of wealth and wealth inequality has received far less attention than income, but the increasing importance of wealth, debt and wealth inequality means closer attention must be paid to their concomitant dynamics. Policy interventions to reduce economic inequality continue to target income more than wealth, but targeting the latter – especially through taxes on financial assets – is arguably more effective.     

The Intergenerational Propagation of Wealth Inequality

This paper highlights the crucial role of demographic assumptions in models of the intergenerational transmission of wealth inequality. Specifically, we show that Alan Blinder's surprising predictions that bequest and mating practices can sustain but cannot cause wealth inequality are extremely fragile. We show that these predictions depend on a common and apparently minor demographic assumption: fixed sex ratios in family composition. We implement the Blinder model as an agent‐based simulation and show that without this demographic assumption such familial institutions are causative for wealth inequality, even in the long run.     

我国城镇居民收入分配差距的实证分析

1978－1999年,中国经济高速发展,带动城镇居民人均可支配收入增长3倍以上,与此同时,收入差距也不断扩大。对改革开放以来收入分配进行了回顾,并作了国际比较。深入分析了城镇居民收入差距的成因和现状。     

Income Inequality and the Financial Industry

The paper examines how the size of the banking industry can affect inequality arguing that the wage share is influenced by the workers’ ability to capture the increases in value added per worker, by the input composition of the productive structure and by the size of the banking industry. Piketty and other literature overlook the latter two elements. After examining Piketty's interpretation, the paper underlines the relevance of considering the financial sector as an industry and ascertains the conditions for a negative influence on the wage share of the input and output composition of the productive structure.     

收入不平等与最优个人所得税-转移支付再分配系统

本文构建了个人所得税、转移支付以及个人所得税-转移支付系统对于居民收入不平等的实际、最优和最大效应指标。运用中国省份数据分析,发现中国个人所得税正在加速恶化居民收入不平等,并且在对收入不平等的影响中发挥主要作用;转移支付对收入不平等有一定的抑制作用,但力量较弱,而且离最优指标"要求"越来越远;个人所得税-转移支付系统加剧了收入不平等,并且加剧程度越来越严重,最后提出了相应的政策建议。     

Profit-Sharing in OECD Countries: a Review and Some Evidence

This article starts by describing the extent of profit-sharing schemes in OECD countries. It suggests that firms have increasingly introduced profit-sharing schemes not only because of the tax breaks they involve, but also because of accumulating information on the link between profit-sharing and productivity. It concludes with a summary of new research among UK manufacturing companies, which shows a productivity improvement of about 6% in cases where profit-sharing bonuses were of order 5–10% of market wages.     

OECD国家的经济增长与税收结构变化

本文分析了1995~2009年OECD国家的税收结构随经济发展而发生的变化。研究发现,用人均GDP衡量的经济增长对OECD国家的税收结构没有显著影响,而旅游收支、失业率和资本形成等代表经济结构的变量以及代表政府政策取向的政策变量对税收结构的影响显著。从总体来看,OECD国家的税收结构目前处于稳定状态,开始于20世纪70年代的发达国家税制结构改革已基本完成,＂双主体＂的税制结构已基本形成。     

Income Inequality in Europe Since the Crisis

Economic inequalities are engendered by a complex process, characterised by several steps and involving the interaction of several factors. The best indicator of individual economic well-being is disposable equivalised income. Evidence shows that welfare states retain a crucial function in Europe and that they have been central in limiting the detrimental effects of the financial crisis on disposable income distribution.     

调节收入分配防止两极分化

防止两极分化、实现共同富裕是"三个代表"的本质要求.我国当前城乡之间、行业之间、高收入阶层与低收入阶层之间收入分配差距过大,居民收入分配的基尼系数已进入国际公认的警戒区间.如果听任收入差距继续扩大,将会随时出现两极分化,引发一系列的经济风险、社会风险和政治风险.本文就如何防止两极分化、实现共同富裕,提出了具体的政策建议.     

对外开放与发展中国家的收入不平等:基于亚洲和拉美国家的比较研究

本文基于要素禀赋理论,在将劳动力划分为低、中、高技能三类的基础上,选取亚洲和拉丁美洲部分发展中国家1960-2005年的数据,建立非平衡面板模型,分析两地区的开放对国内收入分配的影响。实证结果表明,亚洲和拉丁美洲发展中国家的对外开放确实对国内收入不平等起到推动作用。目前的开放有利于中等技能劳动力相对丰裕的发展中国家,而不利于低技能劳动力相对丰裕的国家。总体的贸易依存度对拉美不平等的推动作用更大,但外资对亚洲不平等的推动作用更大;制造业出口倾向于扩大拉美国家的收入差距而缩小亚洲国家的收入差距。     

Military Expenditures and Profit Rates: Evidence from OECD Countries

This article provides evidence of the effect of military expenditures on the rate of profits for 24 OECD countries for the period of 1963–2008 by employing a panel autoregressive distributed lag model within a Marxist framework for the first time. Findings show that while for the whole period there is positive linkage between military expenditures and profit rates, in the post‐1980 era the impact of military expenditures is negative. Findings suggest weak evidence that there is positive linkage between military expenditures and profit rates for arms‐exporting countries and negative linkage for non‐arms‐exporting countries.     

Decomposing the Income Insurance Channel across OECD and Emerging Markets

This paper investigates the underlying forces driving income insurance channels for the Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development (OECD) and emerging markets. We find income insurance channels across countries to be driven by different subchannels. For the OECD, income insurance is mostly governed by payments for financial liabilities; for the emerging markets, income flows from nationals working abroad constitute the main income smoother. Despite the growth in cross‐border financial asset trading over the years, we could not find evidence of income smoothing via foreign assets receipts for the OECD. For the majority of emerging markets, neither receipts of foreign assets nor foreign liability payments are strong enough to insure income as well.     

Labour Market Institutions and Household Consumption Insurance within OECD Countries

This paper tests empirically whether the effect of idiosyncratic income shocks on aggregate consumption depends on institutional features of national labour markets. The results show that, in a sample of 15 OECD countries, institutional heterogeneity is a significant determinant of the response of household consumption to country‐specific income shocks. This is consistent with the idea that institutionally provided social insurance may help increase income stability when people differ in their ability to access financial markets and smooth consumption fluctuations.     

The Practice of Mining and Inclusive Wealth Development in Developing Countries

This study uses the institutional perspective to examine the interaction effects between the subnational institutional context and firm-level parameters on corporate environmental behaviors, based on a unique cross-sectional data set of private firms compiled from three different sources in China. Our results suggest that both enforcement stringency of environmental regulations at the provincial-level and private firms’ foreign ownership negatively affect compensation fees, which are levies charged for firms’ emissions. Enforcement stringency also moderates the firm-level relationship between foreign ownership and compensation fees, but such a cross-level moderating effect holds only for private firms with non-HMT (Hong Kong, Macau, or Taiwan) investments.