The (International) Political Economy of Falling Wage Shares: Situating Working-Class Agency

This paper relates the financial and monetary dimensions of the contemporary economic crisis to working-class agency via a central concern of classical political economy: the distribution of surplus between the chief factors of production. The fall in the wage share of value added is now accepted as a stylised fact in the empirical economic literature. This paper argues that the punctuated pattern of the development validates the regulation theoretical narrative of an epochal shift from Fordism to finance-led accumulation. Furthermore, synthesising econometric studies supports a class-centred explanation. In the last instance, the falling wage share is due to successful transnational class rule in the form of a neoliberal hegemonic paradigm. Crucially, such class rule restructured the environment of trade unions, rendering increasingly ineffective its relational power resources. The paper concludes by considering the contradictory implications for organised labour of the current financial crisis. On the one hand, the financial crisis offers an opportunity to link its particular interests to the general interest of macroeconomic management since low wage share inhibits growth rates. But how might trade unions assert a higher wage share in the face of the structural power of (financial) capital?     

The Regressive Recovery: Distribution,Inequality and State Power in Britain's Post-Crisis Political Economy

This article interrogates the underlying mechanisms at the heart of Britain's post-crisis political economy. We argue that the contemporary economic recovery has been characterised by a dynamic of ‘regressive redistribution’: a socially regressive dynamic of state-led economic restructuring that has worked through two axes at the centre of the recovery. The first axis, a monetary policy framework centred upon Quantitative Easing, has driven asset-price inflation to the benefit of the wealthiest asset holders. The second axis centres upon the politics of regressive labour market restructuring which has provoked widespread wage deflation. In combination, these two axes have been central to defining the contours of the Britain's post-crisis political economy paradigm: characterised by rising asset wealth for the few, and falling living standards alongside increasing economic insecurity for wage earners. The opportunity to change path from the trends of deepening inequality that defined the pre-crisis era has not been taken. Instead, the prevailing policy paradigm of the post-crisis period – discursively unified and sustained by David Cameron's government – has intensified the regressively redistributive dynamics at the core of the neo-liberal project. Ultimately, this is likely to further entrench structural weaknesses in Britain's economy in the years ahead.     

欠发达省域经济差异的时空演变分析

基于1989—2012年广西89个县域经济数据,利用分解的Theil指数和马尔可夫链方法,探索欠发达省域差异的时空演变。结果表明:广西区域差异对地理尺度很敏感,县域间的差异最大,其次为地市间,区域间的发展最为平衡。三大区域内部差距的增大是促成广西整体差异拉大的主导力量。广西区域经济发展存在俱乐部趋同现象,2000—2012年间的更为显著,欠发达地区极有可能陷入"贫困陷阱"。区域间的两极分化趋势增强,趋同俱乐部总体上呈环状分布特征。高水平趋同俱乐部的分布逐渐由市辖区扩散到邻近的县域。低水平趋同俱乐部主要分布在桂西资源富集区。中高水平趋同俱乐部环绕高水平趋同俱乐部外围,而中低水平趋同俱乐部集中分布在中高水平趋同俱乐部外围。广西县域单元平稳者居多,向上转移有所增加。     

A Proposal to Compare Consistently the Inequality Among the Poor

A poverty index should be sensitive to the number of poor people, the extent of the shortfall of the poor, and the inequality among the poor. A difficulty arises when inequality among the poor needs to be assessed. The inequality may be analyzed in terms of either incomes or gaps. Depending on what side we focus on, the inequality level comparisons may be contradictory. This paper proposes a reinterpretation of the inequality component involved in the decompositions of well‐known poverty indices. The alternative indices we introduce measure equally the income and gap inequality among the poor. The comparisons in inequality as measured by these indices are then independent of the viewpoint. An empirical application illustrates the proposal.     

Decomposing Poverty Change: Deciphering Change in Total Population and Beyond

In the understanding of decomposing poverty change, the growth effect of mean income is replaced with the growth effect of total income and the impact of change in total population. These two, along with changes in inequality, form the three broader effects that can be computed in multiple ways depending upon the base period and the sequence of calculation. Changing the base does not alter the broader effects while specific attributions within each effect get interchanged. For a given base, there will be six possible sequences and we take an average of these to compute the three broad effects. Finally, poverty change on account of the three broad effects comprising growth of total income, change in inequality, and change in total population are shown as part of the within‐group effect while change in population shares, which is different from change in total population, is a between‐group effect. We provide empirical illustrations with data from India.     

The Distributional Incidence of Growth: A Social Welfare Approach

This paper provides a normative framework for the assessment of the distributional incidence of growth. By removing the anonymity axiom, such framework is able to evaluate the individual income changes over time and the reshuffling of individuals along the income distribution that are determined by the pattern of income growth. We adopt a rank dependent social welfare function expressed in terms of initial rank and individual income change and we obtain partial and complete dominance conditions over different growth paths. These dominance conditions account for the different components determining the overall impact of growth, that is the size of growth and its vertical and horizontal incidence. We then provide an empirical application for Italy: this analysis shows the distributional impact of the recent economic crisis suffered by the Italian populaltion.     

Real effects of financial market integration: does lower home bias lead to welfare benefits?

This paper proposes equity home bias as a proxy for financial integration in the ongoing empirical debate on the impact of financial integration on economic growth. In integrated markets, investors are expected to take full advantage of the potential for international diversification. The extent of equity home bias (i.e. overinvesting in domestic stocks and foregoing gains from international diversification) provides a relevant quantity-based measure of financial integration. Using different techniques to compute home bias, this paper investigates whether countries with lower home bias experience faster economic growth. Additionally, the analysis extends to the link between (decreasing) home bias and international risk sharing and income inequality. The results suggest that financial integration, proxied by the decreasing equity home bias, is positively associated with economic growth and international risk sharing. At the same time, it appears that higher financial integration pairs with higher income inequality.     

Does Economic Growth Really Benefit the Poor? Income Distribution Dynamics and Pro-poor Growth in Indonesia

We explore the nexus between poverty, inequality, and economic growth in Indonesia between 2002 and 2012, using several pro-poor growth concepts and indices to determine whether growth in this period benefited the poor. Our regression-based decompositions of poverty into growth and redistribution components suggest that around 40% of inequality in total household expenditure in Indonesia was due to variations in expenditure by education characteristics that persisted after controlling for other factors. We find that economic growth in this period benefited households at the top of the expenditure distribution, and that a ‘trickle down’ effect saw the poor receive proportionately fewer benefits than the non-poor. If reducing poverty is one of the Indonesian government's principal objectives, then policies designed to spur growth must take into account the possible impacts of growth on inequality.     

中国城乡居民收入差距的制约因素和缩小路径——基于收入结构视角的实证研究

利用2000—2012年中国全国及31个省(自治区、直辖市)的年度数据,测度了全国和各省区的城乡居民在收入结构中分项收入上的差距对其城乡居民总收入差距的影响方向和影响程度。结果显示:无论从全国层面还是省际层面来看,城乡居民在工资性收入、家庭经营纯收入、转移性收入和财产性收入上的差距较大,与城乡居民总收入差距的发展趋势不一致;不同分项收入对总收入差距的作用效果不同、影响性质相异;城乡居民在财产性收入、工资性收入和转移性收入上差距的拉大是导致城乡居民总收入差距扩大的主要原因,而经营性收入差距的缩小可有效缩小城乡居民总收入差距。最后提出进一步缩小城乡居民收入差距、优化城乡居民收入结构的政策建议。