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on Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty |
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Issue of 2012‒04‒10
nine papers chosen by |
| By: | Ponce, Juan; Vos, Rob |
| Abstract: | This study examines the rise and fall in income inequality in Ecuador over the past two decades. Falling income equality during the 2000s partly coincides with the rise to power of a .new leftist. government, but the trend was already set early in the decade. The recent trend is mainly associated with a recovery from the country.s deep crisis of the late 1990s. The new leftist regime.s social transfer policies helped reduce inequality further, but the continuation of Ecuador.s primary export-based growth model and the lack of structural economic change do not augur for a more structural decline in inequality. |
| Keywords: | education, welfare, poverty, Ecuador |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp2012-12&r=ltv |
| By: | Keifman, Saul N.; Maurizio, Roxana |
| Abstract: | Labour market incomes have been a major contributor to the important fall in inequality in Latin America during the 2000s. Indeed, it was the main contributor in countries where inequality fell more dramatically. A proper understanding of the workings of the labour market is necessary to comprehend why inequality fell, what lies ahead of us and what we can do to achieve more equitable societies in Latin America. Social progress was real in the last decade but we should not overlook the structural deficits that still remain in Latin American labour markets. Inequality fell more dramatically in countries where formality rose faster and real minimum wages increased more significantly. Labour market institutions have a played positive role in reducing inequity in the last decade. |
| Keywords: | labour institutions, inequality, Latin America, minimum wage |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp2012-14&r=ltv |
| By: | Damill, Mario; Frenkel, Roberto |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the macroeconomic policies and outcomes experienced by the Latin American economies during the period 1990-2010. Macroeconomic policies refer to exchange rates, monetary and aggregate fiscal policies, while macroeconomic outcomes, on the other hand, refer to the patterns of growth, inflation, employment, investment, balance of payments, and the evolution of external and public debts and international reserves. The analysis includes a discussion of the effects of macroeconomic outcomes on poverty rates. With regard to policy, the study examines the changes that took place in 1997-98, and then reviews the resulting new macroeconomic configuration that was established in 2002-03. This new configuration favoured the acceleration of output growth and employment creation, and contributed to reducing poverty rates. |
| Keywords: | Latin American economies, macroeconomic policies, economic growth, employment, poverty rates, inequality |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp2012-23&r=ltv |
| By: | Rosenzweig, Mark (Yale University); Zhang, Junsen (Chinese University of Hong Kong) |
| Abstract: | Data from two surveys of twins in China are used to contribute to an improved understanding of the role of economic development in affecting gender differences in the trends in, levels of, and returns to schooling observed in China and in many developing countries in recent decades. In particular, we explore the hypothesis that these phenomena reflect differences in comparative advantage with respect to skill and brawn between men and women in the context of changes in incomes, returns to skill, and/or nutritional improvements that are the result of economic development and growth. |
| JEL: | I15 I25 J16 J24 O15 |
| Date: | 2012–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ecl:yaleco:98&r=ltv |
| By: | Irina Denisova |
| Abstract: | The paper is a survey of literature and statistical sources on poverty and inequality in Russia in the 1990s and the 2000s. It serves as a background to OECD (2011), the OECD Labour Market and Social Policy Review of the Russian Federation that was released in 2011. We start with an overview of poverty and income inequality estimates available. Poverty and inequality trends are then complemented with poverty incidence analysis based on a nationally representative household survey. Long-term poverty patterns are examined using a panel dataset with survival analysis methods. Poverty prevention and reduction policies are discussed in the conclusion.<BR>Ce document fait le tour des sources statistiques et bibliographiques sur la pauvreté et les inégalités dans la Fédération de Russie dans les années 90 et 2000. Il a servi à l’élaboration de l’Etude publiée en 2011 par l’OCDE intitulée « OECD Reviews of Labour Market and Social Policy : Russian Federation ». Ce document débute par un examen des données disponibles sur la pauvreté et les inégalités de revenus. Les tendances en matière de pauvreté et d’inégalité sont ensuites complétées par des analyses qui s’appuient sur des enquêtes nationales représentatives des ménages. Les motifs de la pauvreté à long terme sont étudiés en utilisant un échantillon de données avec des méthodes d’analyse de survie. Les politiques de prévention et de réduction de la pauvreté sont présentées en conclusion. |
| Keywords: | poverty, inequality, poverty incidence, entry to and exit from poverty, RLMS-HSE, pauvreté, inégalité, incidence de la pauvreté, entrée et sortie de la pauvreté, RLMS-HSE |
| JEL: | I32 |
| Date: | 2012–03–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:elsaab:132-en&r=ltv |
| By: | Laurence Ales; Roozbeh Hosseini; Larry E. Jones |
| Abstract: | In this paper we study the efficient allocation of health resources across individuals. We focus on the relation between health resources and income (taken as a proxy for productivity). In particular we determine the efficient level of the health care social safety net for the indigent. We assume that individuals have different life cycle profiles of productivity. Health care increases survival probability. We adopt the classical approach of welfare economics by considering how a central planner with an egalitarian (ex-ante) perspective would allocate resources. We show that, under the efficient allocation, health care spending increases with labor productivity, but only during the working years. Post retirement, everyone would get the same health care. Quantitatively, we find that the amount of inequality across the income distribution in the data is larger that what would be justified solely on the basis of production efficiency, but not drastically so. As a rough summary, in U.S. data top to bottom spending ratios are about 1.5 for most of the life cycle. Efficiency implies a decline from about 2 (at age 25) to 1 at retirement. We find larger inefficiencies in the lower part of the income distribution and in post retirement ages. |
| JEL: | H4 H51 I18 I38 |
| Date: | 2012–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:17937&r=ltv |
| By: | Daniela Del Boca (University of Turin); Chiara Monfardini (University of Bologna); Cheti Nicoletti (University of York) |
| Abstract: | While a large literature has focused on the impact of parental investments on child cognitive development, very little is known about the children's own investments. Information on how children use their time separately from parents is probably less informative for babies and toddlers, but it becomes more important in later stages of life, such as adolescence, when children start to take decisions independently. The objective of this research is to explore and compare the impacts of time investments by parents and children on child cognitive outcomes. By using the Child Development Supplement of the PSID (Panel Study of Income Dynamics) 1997-2007 we show that own time investments have a significant effect on cognitive outcomes of children aged 11-15, while mothers' time inputs appear less important. For younger children, the impact of mothers' time is greater. |
| Keywords: | time-use, cognitive ability, child development, adolescence |
| JEL: | J13 D1 |
| Date: | 2012–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hka:wpaper:2012-006&r=ltv |
| By: | Martin Binder (Max Planck Institute of Economics, Jena, Germany); Andreas Freytag (School of Economics and Business Administration, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena) |
| Abstract: | Is the activity of volunteering something that benefits the volunteer as well as the recipient of the volunteer's activities? We analyze this relationship and apply matching estimators to the large-scale British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) data set to estimate the causal impact of volunteering on happiness. We take into account personality traits that could jointly determine volunteering behaviour and happiness. We find that the causal impact of volunteering on happiness is positive and increasing over time if volunteering is sustained. In a quantile analysis, we find that this effect seems to be driven by reducing the unhappiness of the less happy quantiles of the well-being distribution. We test the robustness of our findings and discuss their relevance for public policy. |
| Keywords: | volunteering, happiness, altruism, generosity, public policy, BHPS |
| JEL: | D6 D64 Z1 |
| Date: | 2012–03–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jrp:jrpwrp:2012-013&r=ltv |
| By: | Mark R. Cullen; Clint Cummins; Victor R. Fuchs |
| Abstract: | Life expectancy at birth, estimated from United States period life tables, has been shown to vary systematically and widely by region and race. We use the same tables to estimate the probability of survival from birth to age 70 (S70), a measure of mortality more sensitive to disparities and more reliably calculated for small populations, to describe the variation and identify its sources in greater detail to assess the patterns of this variation. Examination of the unadjusted probability of S70 for each US county with a sufficient population of whites and blacks reveals large geographic differences for each race-sex group. For example, white males born in the ten percent healthiest counties have a 77 percent probability of survival to age 70, but only a 61 percent chance if born in the ten percent least healthy counties. Similar geographical disparities face white women and blacks of each sex. Moreover, within each county, large differences in S70 prevail between blacks and whites, on average 17 percentage points for men and 12 percentage points for women. In linear regressions for each race-sex group, nearly all of the geographic variation is accounted for by a common set of 22 socio-economic and environmental variables, selected for previously suspected impact on mortality; R2 ranges from 0.86 for white males to 0.72 for black females. Analysis of black-white survival chances within each county reveals that the same variables account for most of the race gap in S70 as well. When actual white male values for each explanatory variable are substituted for black in the black male prediction equation to assess the role explanatory variables play in the black-white survival difference, residual black-white differences at the county level shrink markedly to a mean of -2.4% (+/-2.4); for women the mean difference is -3.7 % (+/-2.3). |
| JEL: | I0 I00 I10 I14 I3 I31 |
| Date: | 2012–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:17901&r=ltv |