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on Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty |
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Issue of 2011‒08‒02
nine papers chosen by |
| By: | Jean-Yves Duclos (Département d’Économique, Université Laval); Abdelkrim Araar (Département d’Économique, Université Laval); Luis Huesca (Departamento de Economía, Centro de Investigación en Alimentación y Desarrollo A. C.) |
| Abstract: | Esta presentación muestra los beneficios que ofrece al usuario el paquete de Análisis Distributivo en Stata (DASP) para la evaluación del bienestar y su distribución, la medición de la pobreza y la desigualdad, y la m anera en que los datos requeridos por DASP se relacionan con temas importantes en la economía del bienestar entre otros tópicos, tales como los efectos impositivos y el impacto de las transferencias. El objetivo es que de forma general, se comprenda la estructura básica del funcionamiento de los módulos de DASP y su fuerte potencial en conjunto con las bondades del programa Stata. Se presentan casos empíricos para mostrar sus aplicaciones. |
| Date: | 2011–07–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:boc:msug11:08&r=ltv |
| By: | Chiswick, Barry R. (George Washington University) |
| Abstract: | This policy analysis paper explores the implications for the host country population of alternative immigration policies. The two immigration options considered are a policy based on admitting primarily high-skilled workers and another that has the effect of admitting primarily low-skilled workers. The implications for the native-born population for their aggregate level of income, the distribution of their income by skill level, and the size of the income redistribution system are considered. The paper was prepared for the Productivity Commission of Australia. |
| Keywords: | immigration policy, immigrant skills, immigrant impact |
| JEL: | F22 J24 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izapps:pp28&r=ltv |
| By: | Anderson, Gordon |
| Abstract: | The most popular general univariate polarization indices for discrete (Esteban and Ray 1994), and continuous (Duclos, Esteban and Ray 2004) variables are combined and extended to describe the extent of polarization between agents in a distribution defined over a collection of many discrete and continuous agent characteristics. A formula for the asymptotic variance of the index is also provided. The implementation of the index is illustrated with an application to Chinese urban household data drawn from six provinces in the years 1987 and 2001 (years spanning the growth and urbanization period subsequent to the economic reforms). The data relates to household adult equivalent log income, adult equivalent living space, which are both continuous variables and the education of the head of household which is a discrete variable. For this data set combining the characteristics changes the view of polarization that would be inferred from considering the indices individually. -- |
| Keywords: | Multivariate polarization measurement |
| JEL: | C14 C30 I32 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ifwedp:201120&r=ltv |
| By: | Taylor, Mark P.; Jenkins, Stephen P.; Sacker, Amanda |
| Abstract: | We examine whether financial capability has impacts on psychological health independent of income and financial resources more generally using a nationally representative survey. British Household Panel Survey data are used to construct a measure of financial capability, which we relate to respondents psychological health using the 12-item General Health Questionnaire. We find that financial capability has significant and substantial effects on psychological health over and above those associated with income and material wellbeing more generally. The sizes of these impacts are considerably larger than those associated with changes in household income. Furthermore having low financial capability exacerbates the psychological costs associated with unemployment and divorce. |
| Date: | 2011–07–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ese:iserwp:2011-18&r=ltv |
| By: | Thomas Masterson; Ajit Zacharias; Selcuk Eren; Edward Wolff |
| Abstract: | We construct estimates of the Levy Institute Measure of Economic Well-Being for France for the years 1989 and 2000. We also estimate the standard measure of disposable cash income (DI) from the same data sources. We analyze overall trends in the level and distribution of household well-being using both measures for France as a whole and for subgroups of the French population. The average French household experienced a slower rate of growth in LIMEW than DI over the period. A substantial portion of the growth in well-being for the middle quintile was a result of increases in net government expenditures and income from wealth. We also found that the well-being of families headed by single females relative to married couples deteriorated much more, while the well-being of households headed by the elderly relative to households headed by the nonelderly improved much more than indicated by the standard measure of disposable income. The conventional measure indicates that a steep decline in economic inequality took place between 1989 and 2000, while our measure indicates no such change. We argue that these outcomes can be traced to the difference in the treatment of the role of wealth in shaping economic inequality. Our measure also indicates that, on balance, government expenditures and taxes did not have an inequality-reducing effect in France for both years. This is, again, contrary to conventional wisdom. |
| Keywords: | Levy Institute Measure of Economic Well-being (LIMEW); France; Economic Well-Being; Economic Inequality; Household Income Measures |
| JEL: | D31 D63 P17 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lev:wrkpap:wp_679&r=ltv |
| By: | Andrew Sharpe; Alexander Murray; Benjamin Evans; Elspeth Hazell |
| Abstract: | This report presents estimates of the Levy Institute Measure of Economic Well-Being (LIMEW) for a representative sample of Canadian households in 1999 and 2005. The results indicate that there was only modest growth in the average Canadian household’s total command over economic resources in the six years between 1999 and 2005. Although inequality in economic well-being increased slightly over the 1999–2005 period, the LIMEW was more equally distributed across Canadian households than more common income measures (such as after-tax income) in both 1999 and 2005. The median household’s economic well-being was lower in Canada than in the United States in both years. |
| Keywords: | Well-being, Inequality, Income, Wealth, Government Expenditure, Household Production, LIMEW, (Canada) |
| JEL: | D13 D31 D63 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lev:wrkpap:wp_680&r=ltv |
| By: | Stefan Groot; Henri de Groot |
| Abstract: | <p>Using detailed micro data on the entire wage distribution in the Netherlands, this paper examines trends in Dutch (real pre-tax) wage inequality between 2000 and 2008. </p><p>For many years, the Netherlands has been considered an exception to the general trend of growing wage inequality that most OECD countries have experienced since the 1980s. This OECD trend is generally explained by increasing relative demand for skilled labour due to skill biased technological progress and – to a lesser extent – by globalization.</p><p>Using detailed micro data on the entire wage distribution in the Netherlands, this paper examines trends in Dutch (real pre-tax) wage inequality between 2000 and 2008. We show that the aggregate flatness of the distribution hides dynamics between different groups and regions. We find that inequality, after correcting for observed worker characteristics, decreased somewhat at the lower half of the wage distribution, while increasing slightly at most of the upper half (both before and after correcting for differences in human capital). Residual wage inequality is high and increasing in most larger cities, which is in line with recent evidence on the increasing importance of agglomeration externalities.</p> |
| JEL: | D31 E24 J31 O15 R23 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpb:discus:186&r=ltv |
| By: | Fiorillo, Damiano; Sabatini, Fabio |
| Abstract: | This paper presents the first empirical assessment of the causal relationship between social capital and health in Italy. The analysis draws on the 2000 wave of the Multipurpose Survey on Household conducted by the Italian Institute of Statistics on a representative sample of the population (n = 50,618). Our measure of social capital is the frequency of meetings with friends. Based on probit and instrumental variables estimates, we find that higher levels of social capital increase perceived good health. |
| Keywords: | health; instrumental variables; income; social interactions; social capital; Italy |
| JEL: | I12 H51 I19 Z13 I10 |
| Date: | 2011–07–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:32367&r=ltv |
| By: | Francine D. Blau; Lawrence M. Kahn |
| Abstract: | We use Michigan Panel Study of Income Dynamics data and data from a 2008 telephone survey of adults conducted by Westat for the Princeton Data Improvement Initiative (PDII) to explore the importance and feasibility of adding retrospective questions about actual work experience to cross-sectional data sets. We demonstrate that having such actual experience data is important for analyzing women’s post-school human capital accumulation, residual wage inequality, and the gender pay gap. Further, our PDII survey results show that it is feasible to collect actual experience data in cross-sectional telephone surveys like the March Current Population Survey annual supplement. |
| JEL: | C81 J16 J24 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:17241&r=ltv |