Poverty among ethnic minorities: the transition process,inequality and economic growth

This article investigates the process of reducing poverty in ethnic minority households. Using two recent Vietnam household surveys, we find that ethnic minority households are more likely to be persistently poor and less likely to be persistently non-poor than ethnic majority households. The within-group component generated by the variation in income within each ethnicity group explains more than 90% of the change in total inequality. Income redistribution plays an important role in decreasing the poverty gap and decreasing poverty severity. Different ethnic groups have different poverty patterns, which should be noted when designing policies to alleviate poverty and inequality.     

General Equilibrium Impacts of Monetary and Fiscal Policies on Welfare of Households in South Asia

Impacts of fiscal and monetary policies are assessed in an open economy two sector multi‐household general equilibrium tax model with money for South Asia. Despite impressive growth rates there is evidence for alarming gaps in the distribution of income among households that require very careful design of economic policies. Generally the impacts of fiscal expansions are positive for all categories of households under the flexible price system but the gains are much higher for households in the upper income group than for those in the bottom. In theory the equilibrium relative prices guarantee the optimal allocation of resources in such economy. Simulation results show that demand, output and employment are sensitive to the preferences of consumers, confidence of producers and sector specific production technologies. Monetary policy is super‐neutral under flexible price regime but can complement fiscal policy well when aggregate prices are made sticky. Combination of monetary and fiscal policies in this manner can have extensive impacts in efficiency and redistribution. Higher taxes distort incentives to work and investment from richer households slowing down the economy. This reduces the welfare level of both rich and poor. Flexibility in prices enhances the market mechanism and makes the fiscal policy more effective and efficient.     

Trade policy in a Ricardian model with a continuum of goods under nonhomothetic preferences

We study the effects of trade liberalization in a Ricardian trade model with a continuum of goods and nonhomothetic preferences. Goods are ordered according to priority, and higher-ranked goods are consumed only by richer households. South (North) has a comparative advantage in the lower- (higher-) ranked goods. South's terms-of-trade unambiguously deteriorate as a result of unilaterally reducing its tariffs. North, by contrast, may experience a terms-of-trade gain when liberalizing its trade. It appears that the redistribution of tariff revenue from rich to poor households within each country increases the burden of trade liberalization for poor households.     

EFFECTS OF TAXES AND BENEFITS ON INCOME DISTRIBUTION IN KOREA

This paper examines the redistributive effects of Korea's fiscal policies, including consumption taxes and in‐kind benefits. Using the Household Income and Expenditure Survey of 2007, we find that taxes and transfers reduce income inequality in Korea by 13.8 percent. Contrary to the popular belief that direct taxes are the key tool for redistribution, in‐kind benefits, direct taxes, and social security contributions all decrease the Gini coefficient by 6.7, 4.7, and 2.9 percentage points, respectively. The redistributive effect of consumption taxes is small and negative (?0.5 percentage point). Policy simulations indicate that education spending financed by the personal income tax has a positive redistributive effect and that the lower 70 percent of households enjoy positive net benefits. Spending targeting the poor has a strong redistributive effect, which implies low popularity because the majority of households face net losses.     

Confronting the risk of asset loss: What role do livestock transfers in northern Kenya play?

In many low-income, high-risk environments households participate in informal risk sharing institutions involving inter-household transfers. This study focuses on: asset transfers and asset risk; the influence of past behavior on access to transfers; and wealth-differentiated transfer behavior. Panel data on livestock transfers in northern Kenya are analyzed. Three explanations of livestock transfers are investigated: ex post insurance; ex ante precautionary savings; and redistribution. Findings indicate that livestock transfers are of limited effectiveness in addressing asset risk and avoiding poverty. The findings have implications for both research on risk sharing institutions and for the design of development policies in pastoral areas.     

Fuel choices and fuelwood use for residential heating and cooking in urban areas of central-southern Chile: The role of prices,income, and the availability of energy sources and technology

This paper empirically analyzes the determinants of fuel choices and intensity of fuelwood use for residential heating and cooking in central-southern Chile. By using information from a sample of 2761 households in nine urban areas, we first investigate households’ choices of the main fuel used for heating by means of multinomial models. Then we examine the intensity of fuelwood use through fractional probit models. These models allow analyzing the interdependence of fuel use by households, while taking into account households’ individual heterogeneity. Our results indicate that households’ fuel choices are mainly driven by socioeconomic and dwelling characteristics. Moreover, while there is a component of fuelwood use that cannot be influenced by energy policies, such as meteorological conditions across the country, there are a number of characteristics that influence the share of the households’ energy production which is generated by fuelwood. These factors range from socioeconomic characteristics to the households’ perceptions regarding the link between air pollution and use of fuelwood, which presents an opportunity for designing future policy interventions aimed at incentivizing the adoption of cleaner devices.     

Equalization and the Decentralization of Revenue–Raising in a Federation

We study federal economies in which regional governments have responsibility for delivering public services and redistributive objectives apply. The implications of these for the assignment of revenue–raising instruments and fiscal transfers, both vertical and horizontal, are considered. Models of heterogeneous regions of varying degrees of complexity and generality are constructed. For each case, we determine what fiscal instruments must be given to the regions and what intergovernmental transfers must be made in order that the social optimum is achieved. With heterogenous households and regions, the social optimum can be decentralized by making regions responsible for redistribution and implementing equalization transfers that depend on the number of households of each type.     

Greenhouse Gas Abatement Cost Curves of the Residential Heating Market: A Microeconomic Approach

In this paper, we develop a microeconomic approach to deduce greenhouse gas abatement cost curves of the residential heating sector. Our research is based on a system dynamics microsimulation of private households’ investment decisions for heating systems to the year 2030. By accounting for household-specific characteristics, we investigate the welfare costs of different abatement policies in terms of the compensating variation and the excess burden. We investigate two policies: (i) a carbon tax and (ii) subsidies on heating system investments. We deduce abatement cost curves for both policies by simulating welfare costs and greenhouse gas emissions to the year 2030. We find that (i) welfare-based abatement costs are generally higher than pure technical equipment costs; (ii) given utility maximizing households a carbon tax is the most welfare-efficient policy and; (iii) if households are not utility maximizing, a subsidy on investments may have lower marginal greenhouse gas abatement costs than a carbon tax.     

A Micro-Econometric Analysis of Determinants of Unsustainable Consumption in The Netherlands

Recently, much attention has been given to the notion of `sustainable consumption'. Whereas environmental economics traditionally has focused environmental policy analysis on producers, this new notion broadens the perspective to include environmental policies aimed at directly influencing consumer decisions regarding buying, using, and recycling products. This could suggest policies that link not only to price incentives, but also and especially to persuasive instruments, such as education and information provision. These policies might take into account certain characteristics of households, such as lifestyle and family size. This article presents a first econometric analysis of consumption in the context of environmental sustainability. Relationships between different types of household expenditures and a range of household characteristics are assessed, based on a large micro data set of households for the Netherlands. Use is made of various demand models and econometric techniques to adequately address theoretical and technical issues involved. The article ends with a discussion of the implications of the results for environmental policy directed at stimulating sustainable consumption.     

THE REDISTRIBUTIONAL EFFECTS OF THE INFLATIONARY PROCESS IN JAPAN, 1955–75*

It is often discussed that inflation introduces a substantial, arbitrary and regressive redistribution of income and wealth under even mild inflation. But after a quarter century of experience with inflation in postwar Japan, very little is known about these costs of inflation on an empirical basis. Due to the complexity of the evaluation of the redistributional impact on Japan, the present paper analyzes the effects of inflation on individuals or groups as wage earners, debtors and creditors, taxpayers, and holders of real estate. The main results of the present investigation suggest that the Japanese inflation for 1955–75 did not seem to introduce much inequality in the income (flow) account in the economy, but that the inequality between households has appeared more in the wealth (stock) account, especially between the house-owner groups and non-house-owner groups. These observations are mainly derived from the following investigations; (i) the wage lag hypothesis about inflation, even if not wrong, does not seem acceptable when applied to the entire period (1955–75) as well as to each of the five sub-periods; (ii) there has been a substantial transfer of real purchasing power from households to non-financial corporations, and, to a lesser extent, to government entities in the debtor-creditor redistribution; (iii) among households, the most substantial redistribution takes place from the non-houseowners to houseowners with land, because of the huge amount of capital gains from the rapid increase in the price of real estate relative to the prices of other assets or the consumer price index, except for the last three years of rampaging inflation.     

Family networks and school enrolment: Evidence from a randomized social experiment

We present evidence on whether and how a household's behavior is influenced by the presence and characteristics of its extended family. Using data from the PROGRESA program in Mexico, we exploit information on the paternal and maternal surnames of heads and spouses in conjunction with the Spanish naming convention to identify the inter- and intra-generational family links of each household to others in the same village. We then exploit the randomized research design of the PROGRESA evaluation data to identify whether the treatment effects of PROGRESA transfers on secondary school enrolment vary according to the characteristics of extended family. We find PROGRESA only raises secondary enrolment among households that are embedded in a family network. Eligible but isolated households do not respond. The mechanism through which the extended family influences household schooling choices is the redistribution of resources within the family network from eligibles that receive de facto unconditional cash transfers from PROGRESA, towards eligibles on the margin of enrolling children into secondary school.     

Optimal Income Taxation with Risky Earnings: A Synthesis

We study optimal nonlinear income taxation when earnings can differ because of both ability and luck, so the income tax has both a redistributive role and an insurance role. A substantial literature on optimal redistribution in the absence of risk has evolved since Mirrlees's original contribution. The literature on the income tax as a social insurance device is more limited. It has largely assumed that households are ex ante identical so unequal earnings are due to risk alone. We provide a general treatment of the optimal income tax under risk when households differ in ability. We characterize optimal marginal tax rates and interpret them in terms of redistribution, insurance, and incentive effects. The case of ex ante identical households and the no‐risk case with heterogeneous abilities come out as special cases.     

Redistribution from a constitutional perspective

In its traditional form, Paretian welfare economics has little to say about policies of redistribution. I argue that by adopting a constitutional perspective, elements of a theory of redistribution can be developed without recourse to interpersonal utility comparisons. Individuals who find themselves under an imperfect veil of uncertainty at a constitutional stage face a tradeoff between the costs and benefits of redistribution. The benefits consist of a reduction in the variance of a risk-averse agent's income distribution. The costs are represented by deadweight losses caused either by bureaucracy or by disincentive effects associated with the transfer scheme. My simple formal analysis shows that individuals may, even under an imperfect veil of uncertainty, be able to agree unanimously on a certain transfer policy if their personal characteristics are not too different from each other. This paper is a modified version of a chapter from my Master's thesis, submitted at the University of Bonn in 1992. Revisions were done during a stay at DELTA/Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris. A scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service is gratefully acknowledged. I wish to thank Urs Schweizer, Hartmut Kliemt, Niclas Berggren, and an anonymous referee of this journal for valuable comments and suggestions, which have greatly improved the paper.     

Socioeconomic Impacts of Public Forest Policies on Heterogeneous Agricultural Households

Nepal has a long history of returning public forests to local people as part of its community forestry programme. In principle the community forestry programme is designed to address both environmental quality and poverty alleviation. However, concern has been expressed that forest policies emphasise environmental conservation, and that this has a detrimental impact on the use of community forests in rural Nepal where households require access to public forest products to sustain livelihoods. To study the effect of government policies on forest use, an economic model of a typical small community of economically heterogeneous households in Nepal was developed. The model incorporates a link between private agriculture and public forest resources, and uses this link to assess the socioeconomic impacts of forest policies on the use of public forests. Socioeconomic impacts were measured in terms of household income, employment and income inequality. The results show that some forest policies have a negative economic impact, and the impacts are more serious than those reported by other studies. This study shows that existing forest policies reduce household income and employment, and widen income inequalities within communities, compared to alternative policies. Certain forest policies even constrain the poorest households?? ability to meet survival needs. The findings indicate that the socioeconomic impacts of public forest policies may be underestimated in developing countries unless household economic heterogeneity and forestry??s contribution to production are accounted for. The study also demonstrates that alternative policies for managing common property resources would reduce income inequalities in rural Nepalese communities and lift incomes and employment to a level where even the poorest households could meet their basic needs.     

家庭劳动供给的影响因素研究： 文献综述视角

随着招工难、用工短缺问题的持续蔓延,从微观角度特别是家庭角度来剖析劳动供给行为的基本规律,显得愈发重要。本文从家庭劳动供给的决策模式、家庭特征变量与外部环境变量的影响、家庭成员间的交互影响、公共政策的作用等五个维度梳理了国外对家庭劳动供给行为的最新研究成果,这对引导我国家庭劳动供给决策、缓解工业劳动力供求矛盾具有重要的借鉴意义。     

On The Distributional Effects Of Reducing Capital Taxes*

This article asks whether household heterogeneity and market incompleteness have quantitatively important implications for the welfare effects of tax changes. We compare a representative‐agent economy to an economy in which households face idiosyncratic uninsurable income risk. The income process is consistent with empirical estimates and implies a realistic wealth distribution. We find that capital tax cuts imply large welfare gains in the representative‐agent economy. However, when households are heterogeneous, substantial redistribution during transition means that only a minority will support capital tax cuts, whereas most households can expect large welfare losses.     

中国居民消费需求不足原因研究——基于中国城乡分省数据

This paper uses Chinese urban and rural panel data for 30 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities (except Tibet and Taiwan) on the consumption of Chinese urban and rural households in 1995–2005, by constructiong a random effect model, to analyze the impact of sources of household’s consumption demand on the Chinese economy. The quantitative analysis reveals that the per capita disposable income of households is highly relevant in explaining households’ per capita consumption expenditure, in these eleven years, and that China’s consumption function was fairly stable. On the basis of flow of funds accounts (barter transaction) data in 1992–2004, the paper further reveals that, since 1997–1998, China’s consumer demand remains in the doldrums because of the following distribution and redistribution process of the national income: The Government’s share of total income and disposable income is becoming ever larger, while the share of households is declining. Aside from the result that a rise in the burden of personal tuition has a negative impact on per capita consumption demand for urban households, we have not found that housing reform or medical expenses significantly reduce consumer demand in China. We believe that low household consumption demand is caused mainly by the income redistribution between households, government, and corporations rather than the inequality in income distribution across households.     

Assessment of the effects of targeted poverty alleviation policy on differently poverty-stricken households: A multi-propensity score weighting model

Eliminating poverty is a multifaceted global challenge and a focal point of global development governance. With the implementation of targeted poverty alleviation (TPA), China's poverty alleviation efforts have had significant achievements. This study provides a new perspective by classifying poverty-stricken households based on poverty root causes at the household level, a multi-propensity score weighting model based on counterfactual inference is employed to examine the poverty reduction effect and policy precision on six non-equivalent poverty-stricken household groups in a Chinese county. The results reveal that the poverty reduction effects differed among poverty-stricken households with different root causes of poverty. Specifically, households impoverished due to disability have the lowest income of the six groups. The assistance policy effects also vary significantly and are found to be poorly suited to poverty-stricken households a lack of labor force and funds. A robustness test confirms this conclusion and a more nuanced analysis reveals that these differences are reflected in the wage and transfer incomes. Therefore, to ensure the stability of poverty reduction and the sustainability of income for poverty-stricken households, relevant associated aid policies need to place different emphases based on their household characteristics.     

Indirect Tax Reform in Australia: The Welfare Effects on Different Demographic Groups

The welfare effects of several indirect tax reforms in Australia are examined for a number of types of household in a range of income groups. The welfare changes, measured using equivalent variations, are based on the use of the linear expenditure system, where parameters are different in each of the income groups. The effects of the current system and of several reforms are found to differ significantly among the household types. However, the results suggest that the extent of vertical redistribution involved in the current indirect tax structure, and possible reforms to it, are small. The role of exemptions are examined in the case of food, for which the budget shares are systematically higher in lower income households, and health services. In view of the strong assumptions used at each stage, the results must be regarded as tentative.