Home-product bias, capital mobility, and macroeconomic volatility

This paper uses a dynamic general equilibrium two-country optimizingmodel to analyse the consequences of international capital mobilityfor macroeconomic volatility. To this end, the dynamic macroeconomiceffects of a monetary policy, a fiscal policy, and a labor supplyshock are analysed. Simulations are used to analyse the implicationsof changes in the degree of capital mobility for the propagationof shocks. The simulation results obtained for a bond economyare compared with the simulation results obtained for a complete-marketeconomy. It is shown that allowing for a home-product bias inpreferences has a number of interesting implications for theway changes in international capital mobility and in the structureof international financial markets affect how shocks propagatethrough an open economy.     

Capital mobility and labor market volatility

We used a dynamic two-country optimizing model featuring efficiency wages to analyze the implications of capital mobility for labor market volatility. Capital mobility magnifies the short-run effects of productivity shocks and monetary shocks on employment and the real wage, but dampens the medium-run effects. The overall effects of capital mobility on the volatility and the cyclical properties of employment and the real wage are moderate.     

Income growth, inequality and poverty reduction: A case study of eight provinces in China

This paper examines the growth performance and income inequality in eight Chinese provinces during the period of 1989–2004 using the China Health and Nutrition Survey data. It shows that income grew for all segments of the population, and as a result, poverty incidence has fallen. However, income growth has been uneven, most rapidly in coastal areas, and among the educated. A decomposition analysis based on household income determination suggests that income growth can largely be attributed to the increase in returns to education and to the shift of employment into secondary and tertiary sectors.     

Income inequality in central Spain, 1690–1800

This paper studies the evolution of income inequality in central Spain during the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, taking as case study the province of Guadalajara. The first part of the paper presents the sources and the dataset that was created to estimate income inequality using grain tithes. The second section shows that through the period grain represented the lion share of total income and therefore that it can be used as a reliable proxy. The following part of the paper introduces an analysis of income inequality in the province during the period 1690–1800 and concludes that inequality decreased during the last third of the eighteenth century. Finally the paper addresses this unexpected result and concludes that it was consequence of the success of the land reform carried out by the central government in the late 1760s. The reform was a success in Guadalajara, thanks to the characteristics of its population and the lack of bargaining power of pressure groups.     

Rank, income and income inequality in urban China

While some workers in China attain senior professional level and senior cadre level status (Chuzhang and above), others attain middle rank including middle rank of professional and cadre (Kezhang). This aspect of the Chinese labour force has attracted surprisingly little attention in the literature, a fact which this paper aims to rectify. We define various segments of the urban population in work-active ages and use data from the Chinese Income Project (CHIP) covering eastern, central and western China for 1995 and 2002. For 2002, persons of high rank make up 3% and persons of middle rank make up 14% of persons in work-active ages.Factors that affect a person's likelihood of having high or middle rank are investigated by estimating a multinomial probit model. We find that education, age and gender strongly affect the probability of being employed as a worker of high rank. There is relatively little income inequality among workers of high rank as well as among workers of middle rank. Mean income and household wealth per capita of highly-ranked workers developed more favorably than for other segments of the population studied, and personal income is more polarized by segment in 2002 than in 1995. Workers of high rank, and to a lesser degree, workers of middle rank, are among the winners in economic terms while the increasingly large category of non-workers is the losers. Rates of return to education have increased but income function analysis indicates that this provides only a partial explanation for the increased favorable income situation for workers of high and middle ranks.     

Geography and educational inequality in China

Since the 1980s, educational reforms in China have decentralized administration and finance and privatized costs. These changes have emerged in the context of rapid economic growth and rising regional economic disparities. The reforms have mobilized new resources in support of education, but they have also exacerbated regional disparities in funding for schools. Analyses of trends in school finance and expenditures have emerged, but detailed studies of the shifting ties between geography and educational outcomes in the population have not.Using 2000 census data on year and location of birth and educational attainment, we begin to address this gap. We compare the links between birth province and educational outcomes across 5-year birth cohorts to illuminate trends in region-based inequalities. Results show that the percent of variation in years of schooling explained by birth province declined for cohorts born through the early 1960s, and then increased thereafter.Additional analyses use a dissimilarity index to characterize the strength of the link between geography and access to each level of schooling. This index indicates that the link between geography and access to primary school has greatly increased across cohorts, as the few without access to primary school are ever more concentrated in poor areas. The link between birth province and access to subsequent levels of schooling shows mixed trends through cohorts born in the early 1960s: stability for junior high school and a weakening trend for senior high school and college. Thereafter, the dissimilarity index increased, substantially for junior high school and slightly for senior high school and college.Results attest to the enduring significance of geography as an educational stratifier in China. More broadly, results suggest the importance of regional inequalities in conditioning the relationship between development and educational stratification.     

Divergence or convergence?: Income inequality between cities,towns and villages in Japan

Researchers have emphasized different aspects of income inequality, including the statistical evidence of interregional per capita income convergence (following the economic growth theory) and the increase in individual income inequality. This study clarifies these issues, by analyzing the interregional income inequality of cities, towns and villages data in Japan from 1986 to 1999. The results of this empirical analysis show that the interregional income inequality decreases in the 1990s, in spite of the increase in individual income inequality.     

The impact of education on income inequality and intergenerational mobility

This paper analyses the effects of innate ability, compulsory education (grades 1–9), and non-compulsory education (grades 10–12 and higher education) on inequality and intergenerational mobility of income, by constructing a four-period overlapping-generation model. We find that innate ability and family investment in early education play important roles in explaining income inequality and intergenerational income mobility. Though children from the wealthiest families are only 1.36 times ‘smarter’ that those from the poorest, the gap in human capital expands to 2.35 at the end of compulsory education and to 2.89 at the end of non-compulsory education. One important reason for the increase is that poor families invest relatively less in children's early education than do wealthy families; therefore, their children attend lower-quality schools, which results in them being much less likely to participate in higher education. By simulating policy experiments for different types of government education expenditure, we find that direct subsidies to poor parents are the most efficient and effective policy for mitigating poor families' budget constraints with regard to early-education investment in their children.     

Savings,investment, and capital mobility within China

This paper addresses the capital mobility among regions within China. Using a range of panel estimators which deals with the non-stationarity of time series components, individual heterogeneity and common unobserved factors, we show that the savings and investment (both expressed as ratios to GDP) are positively correlated for a sample of 28 Chinese provinces over the period of 1978 to 2006. According to the Feldstein-Horioka's argument (1980, Economic Journal (90), pp.314–329), such a correlation can be interpreted as evidence of low capital mobility. In addition, by means of Granger causality test, we fail to provide consistent evidence to support the hypothesis of efficient capital allocation in China. Combining the results given above, it is believed that the capital may be inefficiently retained within the provincial confines. We conjecture that the intermarriage between financial power and local authorities is primarily responsible for this worrying phenomenon.     

Income inequality as an indicator of discrimination in housing markets

In this article we develop an alternative empirical method for identifying discrimination in the housing market, and test it using 1980 census data for the city of Philadelphia and four counties that are in close proximity to Philadelphia. A variety of models are estimated, and the results of the analysis appear to support the view that discrimination was an important factor in both the central city county of Philadelphia, and the suburban counties.     

收入和流动性风险约束下家庭金融资产选择的实证研究

本文采用SCF数据,运用TOBIT模型从实证的角度研究收入风险和流动性约束对投资者资产选择的影响。研究结果表明：控制其他变量的影响之后，收入风险的增加会使得投资者降低对风险资产的需求．预期未来流动性的约束也减少投资者的风险资产投资比例。接着本文采用分类回归及将风险资产投资比例概念由狭义转变为广义，得到的结论都和前面的研究一致。最后．本文采用迭代LAD回归技术所得到的结果也证明了本模型的结论具有稳健性。     

Unemployment, Poverty and Income Disparity in Urban China

This paper studies the issues of unemployment and poverty that have been appearing recently in urban China. It estimates the urban unemployment rate, poverty rate and income disparity using a new sample survey data set. Meanwhile, it analyzes the relationship between unemployment and poverty, and the effects of poverty on urban inequality. The main findings are that: (i) the urban unemployment rate reached 11.6% in 1999 and was a major cause of urban poverty; (ii) growing urban poverty is becoming the significant source of worsening urban inequality; and (iii) migrant households have an increasing influence on urban poverty and the pattern of urban income distribution. The paper concludes that urban income distribution has worsened since 1995, and urban unemployment and poverty are the major factors in this worsening.     

Foreign direct investment, intellectual property rights, and wage inequality in China

This article incorporates foreign direct investment (FDI) and product differentiation in a general equilibrium trade model. The analysis shows that freer trade and FDI will upgrade China's technology, improve its skills of labor, and increase the competitiveness of local firms in the international market. At the same time, the relative wage of skilled labor to unskilled labor will rise. The size of this rise will be affected by the degree of protection for intellectual property rights. These theoretical results are consistent with empirical evidence. The analysis provides insights in coordinating policies on FDI, labor market reform, and intellectual property rights protection.     

Household Income Determination and Regional Income Differential in Rural China

Income inequality in China at the household level is assessed by taking into account differences in needs between households and by using individuals as the unit of analysis. Inequality in China as a whole is not particularly low, largely for locational reasons. The urban — rural gap in average income is very important and very little of it can be attributed to household characteristics. Inequality is also due to differences in mean income between coastal China, central China and western China. A considerable number of characteristics measured at the household level are found to affect income. There are, however, some segments of Chinese society in which income is quite equally distributed.     

Village Elections,Accountability and Income Distribution in Rural China

1. Introduction The village election was first envisioned by the late chairman of the National People’sCongress (NPC), Mr Peng Zhen, in the mid-1980s to enhance village governance after the commune system was dissolved in China in the early 1980s. In 1987, the NPC passed a tentative version of The Organic Law of the Village Committee (OLVC), and started a 10 year experiment of village elections. In 1998, the NPC formally passed the law and elections quickly spread to the whole count…     

Trade openness and income inequality in China and the SAARC Region

The paper empirically examines the effects of trade liberalisation on income inequality in China and the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation countries. Panel data analysis is conducted for the period of 1973 to 2012. The results show that liberal trade policies have increased income inequality in these countries. These results are robust to alternative liberalisation measures. The control variables used have differing effects on income distribution. Per capita income has an increasing effect on income inequality, while education, financial development, financial openness, democracy, and government size are shown to reduce income inequality. These outcomes can be expected to have important policy implications for the use of trade liberalisation in these countries.     

中国的对外开放和收入差距

本文主要研究中国的对外开放对收入差距的影响。首先,根据传统的Heckscher-Ohlin模型以及Stolper-Samuelson定理,由于中国在劳动密集型的产品上具有比较优势,贸易开放有利于出口更多劳动密集型产品,进口更多资本和技术密集型产品,贸易的增加最终促使要素价格均等化,从而降低收入不平等的程度。其次,对外开放引入了大量的外商直接投资(FDI),外资企业支付的高工资使技术工人工资提高,从而扩大了收入差距。另一方面,如果中国进口更多资本和技术密集的产品,同时引入更多的外资,就会促进技术进步。本文先建立了简单的模型讨论“技术偏向性的技术进步”(skill-biased technological progress)对收入差距的影响,再考虑了发生在技术密集产业的中性的技术进步,在中国的实际劳动力市场特征下,这两种技术进步将会使技术工人(skilled worker)相对于非技术工人(unskilledworker)的工资上升,从而收入差距扩大。开放程度对收入差距的实际影响在理论界上历来是存在着广泛的争议,最终要取决于定量研究的结果。当作者将教育、失业率、中国经济转型过程中的发展战略等变量同时引入模型以后,实证分析结果显示中国的贸易开放倾向于扩大中国的个人之间的收入差距。     

Racial/Ethnic Differences in Income Inequality Across US Regions

In this study we investigate the differences in income inequality among different racial/ethnic groups in the United States using both personal and household income. We find that income inequality is negatively related to the percentage of males but that the impact is muted for blacks as opposed to whites or Hispanics. In addition, we find income inequality among blacks and Hispanics is affected in vastly different ways, due to unemployment, than for whites. Finally, the impacts on inequality from the exclusion of given groups is significantly influenced by education and the percentage of males contributing to household income but not in a uniform manner for whites, blacks, and Hispanics.     

Income inequality between one-earner and two-earner Households: Is it real or artificial

Summary Most welfare comparisons between countries or between household types are made on the basis of monetary income only. Taking into account the value of income in kind may change these comparisons considerably. In this paper we focus on one type of income, viz., home production. We estimate the monetary value of home production in Dutch one-earner and two-earner households. We find that if we account for this forgotten income component, income inequality between the groups of one-earner and two-earner households is almost reduced to nil. In most of the world the share of income in kind via non-market production may be assumed to be much higher than in a Western-type economy. Application of this analysis to less developed countries may be particularly revealing.He is now with SWOKA, Institute for Consumer Research.He is also a member of the Scientific Council for Government Policy, The Hague.