Income comparisons and attitudes towards foreigners - Evidence from a natural experiment

We exploit a natural experiment related to the German re-unification to address whether disutility from income comparisons affects attitudes towards foreigners. Our empirical approach rests upon East German individuals with West German relatives and friends. We use the exogenous variation of wealth of West Germans shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall as an instrument to identify the effect of disutility from income comparisons on East Germans’ attitudes. We find robust evidence that East Germans express more negative attitudes towards foreigners, particularly from low-wage countries, if they worry about their economic status compared to better-off West Germans.     

Income inequality dynamic measurement of Markov models: Application to some European countries

In this paper we present a methodology for measuring income inequality dynamically within a Markov model of income evolution. The proposed methodology requires knowledge of the evolution of the population and the averages and medians of the incomes in a country and allows the computation of dynamic inequality indices. The methodology is supported with statistics from Eurostat data applied on France, Germany, Greece and Italy.     

Income Mobility and Income Inequality in Rural China

The economic literature has argued for a long time that income mobility could attenuate the degree of cross-sectional inequality by offering people opportunities to improve their socio-economic position. Using the longitudinal data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS) from 1989 to 2011, we measure income mobility as the degree to which longer-term incomes are distributed more or less equally than yearly income. Five main results are emphasized. First, there is strong income mobility in rural China that partly offsets yearly income inequality. Second, income mobility has decreased since the 2000s, indicating that income distribution is becoming more rigid. Third, mobility is mainly associated with transitory income fluctuations, particularly in the two tails of the distribution. Fourth, income mobility has an equalizing effect on income distribution. Fifth, we show that non-agricultural income mobility has substantially increased over the period and that its equalizing nature has also recently increased. While the development of the non-agriculture sector in rural China was a crucial factor in explaining the increase in rural inequality until the mid-2000s, we suggest that the large-scale generalisation of such non-agricultural opportunities partly accounts for the decline in rural inequality observed since the mid-2000s.     

浅析农民收入结构与农民增收

文章择取国家统计局公布的统计数据样本,对我国农村居民的收入从来源的权重结构方面进行了实证研究。通过研究发现:在农民纯收入结构中,工资性收入和家庭经营收入权重,一方面单项波动幅度大且相互挤兑;另一方面双项加总后又长期占有多数份额且比较稳定。据此,本文简单分析了其成因并从中得出了增加农民收入的两个重要启示:第一,重点抓好工资性收入和家庭经营收入增收;第二,调整国家财政对农民转移支付的方式和方向。     

International Trade as Determined by Income and Income Distribution

Abstract

In standard trade theory, consumption is normally assumed to be homothetic. Consequently, income and its distribution have no role in determining international trade patterns. This paper examines the assumption and its implications. The assumption of homothetic preferences is rejected at the 1% level. It further demonstrates that the Heckscher–Ohlin–Vanek (HOV) model modified by allowing for non-homothetic taste improves the performance of HOV prediction and explains some of the trade puzzles and paradoxes.     

收入、收入类别与环境库兹涅茨曲线

利用2000-2009年我国省际面板数据,对人均收入、收入类别与六种污染指标之间的关系进行了实证检验.结果表明:环境库兹涅茨倒U型关系取决于污染指标的选择,在样本期内,部分污染指标呈现出倒U型EKC关系;在倒U型曲线的转折点处,城镇人均可支配收入的临界水平高于农村人均纯收入的临界水平.     

Global welfare comparisons

Abstract To provide a normative foundation for transfers between different economies, one needs information on their ‘per capita welfare.’ This paper considers various methods for doing this and reaches the following conclusions: (i) Such global welfare comparisons are more demanding than usually thought. (ii) The ranking of methods differs from that of local (over‐time) comparisons, with real comprehensive per capita NNP being the least impractical method. The lesson is that global welfare comparisons should be performed with great care. The comparisons must be made in local real prices calculated according to ‘purchasing‐power‐parity,’ where non‐traded environmental amenities play an important role.     

农民收入构成与农民增收的实证分析——以河北W村调查为基础

农民增收问题一直是制约我国农村发展的根本问题。文章从农民收入构成的角度研究农民收入,以期找到农民增收的途径。文章通过对河北南部W村农民收入构成的实际调查,对W村的农业、非农业状况进行分析,认为家庭非农业生产经营收入和外出打工工资性收入逐渐成为我国农民收入增长的主要来源与动力。针对W村的实际,提出农民增收的途径是调整农业产品结构,促进农业生产规模化;规范半农户企业,促进农村非农产业的发展;合理协调农业与非农业,实现共同发展。     

Income tax incidence in an ageing population: An examination of the measurement of income redistribution

The distribution of income in a population consists of the different distributions in the various age groups weighted by the age structure. In using inequality statistics to measure the redistributive effect of taxation, it is desirable to remove the arbitrary effect of the age-weighting. Formulae for ‘conventional’ and for ‘correct’ indices of incidence are given, and are evaluated in a stochastic-process model that captures many features of actual income distributions. For the lognormal distribution, the direction of bias of conventional incidence indices is determined simply by writing them as functions of the lognormal dispersion parameter.     

个税改革、收入不平等与社会福利

2005年以来,历次中国个税改革均以提高免征额和调整税率表为主要内容,上述改革措施的分配效应一直存在争议.文章通过建立一个能体现个税累进性与税负归宿的新凯恩斯动态随机一般均衡模型,分解并模拟了提高免征额和增加税率累进幅度所导致的分配效应.结果表明:(1)提高免征额扩大了税前收入不平等的波动,恶化了宽松货币政策等外生冲击下的初次分配.此外,免征额的提高削弱了累进税率对收入初次分配的调节能力.(2)在就业扩张过程中,提高免征额所带来的税负归宿变化改善了税后收入不平等,而且在免征额提升后,税率累进幅度的提高能进一步改善收入再分配.当然,个税改革的初次分配效应和再分配效应均具有状态依存特征,在就业与劳动收入下降时会带来相反的分配效应.(3)提高免征额会导致更大的福利损失,并削弱累进税率对福利损失的抑制作用.     

The Effects of Relative Income and Absolute Income on Happiness

The authors consider the absolute income effect and several relative income effects on happiness. The latter include both a longitudinal comparison, which consists of both upward and downward comparisons, and a parallel comparison with individuals of similar traits. It is found that the longitudinal comparison and parallel comparison exist simultaneously, although the downward comparison is insignificant. However, the symmetry of the upward comparison, downward comparison, and parallel comparison cannot be rejected. Because the absolute income effect and the relative income effects countervail, the effect of income growth on subjective well-being is likely to be negligible.     

Income inequality and colonialism

This paper proposes that colonialism is a major explanation behind today's differences in income inequality across countries. We argue that income inequality has been higher in the colonies where the percentage of European settlers to total population was higher, as long as Europeans remained a minority. The countries where Europeans became the majority of the population did not suffer from high inequality. These initial differences continue to hold today. The empirical evidence we provide strongly supports our thesis.     

Beyond Income and Wealth

This paper proposes four criteria for the selection of a better measure of living standards: it should be comprehensive, correlation sensitive, preference based, and fairness based. These criteria are applied to the following measures: income, equivalent income, capabilities, and satisfaction. The paper then explores the relationship between the space of goods and services, the space of budgets, and the more fundamental space of the aspects of life that people really care about. The importance of the fairness principles guiding interpersonal comparisons is highlighted.     

农民收入水平的决定及增加农民收入的有效途径

提高农民收入的关键在于减少农民数量、加速劳动力向城市的转移。在农村存在剩余劳动力的情况下,无法通过提高农业生产率来提高农业收入。根据理论上的分析与世界各国的经验,农村劳动力向城市转移的速度与城市化水平决定了农民收入的增长水平。     

中国居民家庭的收入变动及其对长期平等的影响

本文利用“中国经济、人口、营养和健康调查”1 989— 1 997年期间 4期家庭收入和家长特征的模块数据 (paneldata) ,用时间依赖定义收入变动 ,度量了全体家庭和分4种类型的家庭在上世纪 80年末至 90年后半期的收入变动。发现在总体收入分配中 ,高比例持续贫困的发生比较分散 ,并不固定在哪一类型的家庭上。平均而言 ,农村家庭的持续贫困比例稍高。与此相反 ,持续高收入的家庭集中在城市、郊区和城镇 ,农村的富裕家庭变动大 ,收入不稳定。分组家庭之间 ,农村家庭的收入变动最大。分组家庭内部 ,家长为中年和壮年人的家庭人收入景况较好 ,富裕老人家庭能否保持富裕在农村和在其它分组差别很大。总体而言 ,我国居民家庭收入分配的变动在这一时期减慢 ;收入变动在所有4个时期内都有利于分配的平等 ,2 0世纪 90年代中期后在农村和城镇家庭的作用大幅减弱 ,但对改善城市家庭的平等分配作用增强。     

我国推行全面收益报告的思考

20世纪30年代以来,损益表在企业报表中逐渐占据了重要地位,成为企业向外部报告经营业绩的主要报表.但到了20世纪70年代以后,由于企业面临的经济环境的迅速变化以及企业经营活动目趋复杂化和多样化,企业不断产生新的收益来源.某些很有可能实现但尚未实现的项目已允许加以确认,但处理方法通常是绕开损益表而在资产负债表中的所有者权益部分来确认的.更重要的是,随着衍生金融工具的兴起和发展,根据历史成本原则和实现原则,大多数的衍生工具无法在财务报表内得到反映.这样,原来的损益表就不能完整地、全面地反映一个企业的经营业绩.     

Aid and Income Stabilization

The potential stabilization of output shocks through official assistance flows is investigated is this paper. It contributes to the current debate on aid instability and argues that official assistance might cope with exogenous output shocks in recipient countries and stabilize resources available for national expenditure, including consumption and investment. High aid dependency and vulnerability to output shocks positively affect the stabilization property of aid. Contrasting with the current literature, the paper documents that aid volatility is not a significant determinant of the stabilizing or destabilizing impact of aid.     

Income Distribution and Redistribution

Abstract:

It seems that some observable structural trends in recent decades such as globalization, skills-biased technological advances and level of unionization all over the world have been affected by income distribution, in addition to other economic variables. The latest trends in the 2000s exhibited a widening gap between the rich and the poor not only in some of the already high inequality countries, but also in traditionally low inequality countries. In order to mitigate inequality, many countries have followed redistribution policies (taxes and transfers). In this article, we will mainly focus on the effects of redistribution policies consisting of income taxes and social transfers on income inequality using the micro data in Turkey. Additionally, since financial crises have been becoming more important with increasing frequency of crises all over the world, we also search for the effects of crises on inequality and the degree of mitigation of redistributive policies, especially during the Global Recession.