New Economics Papers
on Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty
Issue of 2013‒11‒14
five papers chosen by



  1. An axiomatic approach to the measurement of envy By Öztürk Z.E.; Bosmans K.G.M.
  2. Permanent versus Transitory Wage Differentials and the Inequality-Hours Hypothesis By Gustavsson, Magnus
  3. Income mobility By Jantti, Markus; Jenkins, Stephen P.
  4. Consistent comparisons of attainment and shortfall inequality: A critical examination By Bosmans K.G.M.
  5. Women’s Education: Harbinger of Another Spring? Evidence from a Natural Experiment in Turkey By Mehmet Alper Dinçer; Neeraj Kaushal; Michael Grossman

  1. By: Öztürk Z.E.; Bosmans K.G.M. (GSBE)
    Abstract: We characterize a class of envy measures. There are three key axioms. Decomposability requires that overall envy is the sum of the envy within and between subgroups. The other two axiomsdeal with the two-individual setting and specify how the envy measure should react to simple changes in the individuals commodity bundles. The characterized class measures the envy of oneindividual to another by the relative utility difference using the envious utility function between the bundle of the envied and the bundle of the envious. The particular utility representation to be used is fixed by the axioms. The class measures overall envy by the sum of these transformed relative utility differences. We discuss our results in the light of previous contributions to envy measurement and multidimensional inequality measurement.
    Keywords: Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement;
    JEL: D63
    Date: 2013
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:umagsb:2013063&r=ltv
  2. By: Gustavsson, Magnus (Uppsala Center for Labor Studies)
    Abstract: This paper disentangles the effect of inequality in permanent and transitory wages on hours worked by, first, estimating the two components for Swedish industries and, second, using the resulting estimates as explanatory variables in an hours-worked equation. Consistent with Bell and Freeman’s (2001) inequality-hours hypothesis, permanent wage differentials are found to have a positive effect on individuals’ hours of work while transitory wage differentials have no effect. However, the analysis also shows that, in estimated hours-worked equations, inequality in observed wages is potentially a good approximation for inequality in permanent wages.
    Keywords: labor supply; wage dispersion; wage dynamics
    JEL: J22 J31
    Date: 2013–10–15
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:uulswp:2013_012&r=ltv
  3. By: Jantti, Markus; Jenkins, Stephen P.
    Abstract: This paper is prepared as a chapter for the Handbook of Income Distribution, Volume 2 (edited by A. B. Atkinson and F. Bourguignon, Elsevier-North Holland, forthcoming). Like the other chapters in the volume (and its predecessor), the aim is to provide comprehensive review of a particular area of research. We survey the literature on income mobility, aiming to provide an integrated discussion of mobility within- and between-generations. We review mobility concepts, descriptive devices, measurement methods, data sources, and recent empirical evidence.
    Date: 2013–11–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ese:iserwp:2013-23&r=ltv
  4. By: Bosmans K.G.M. (GSBE)
    Abstract: An inequality measure is consistent if it ranks distributions the same irrespective of whether health quantities are represented in terms of attainment or shortfalls. This consistency property severely restricts the set of admissible inequality measures. We show that, within a more general setting of separate measures for attainments and shortfalls, the consistency property is a combination of two conditions. The first is a compelling rationality condition that says that the attainment measure should rank attainment distributions as the shortfall measure ranks shortfall distributions. The second is an overly demanding condition that says that the attainment measure and the shortfall measure should be identical. By dropping the latter condition, the restrictions onthe admissible inequality measures disappear.
    Keywords: Distribution: Other; Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement; Health and Inequality;
    JEL: D39 I14 D63
    Date: 2013
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:umagsb:2013064&r=ltv
  5. By: Mehmet Alper Dinçer; Neeraj Kaushal; Michael Grossman
    Abstract: We use the 1997 Education Law in Turkey that increased compulsory formal schooling from five to eight years to study the effect of women’s education on a range of outcomes relating to women’s fertility, their children’s health and measures of empowerment. We apply an instrumental variables methodology and find that a 10 percentage point increase in the proportion of ever married women with eight years of schooling lowered number of pregnancies per woman by 0.13 and number of children per women by 0.11. There is also some evidence of a decline in child mortality, caused by mother’s education, but effects turn statistically insignificant in our preferred models. We also find that a 10 percentage point increase in the proportion with eight years of schooling raised the proportion of women using modern family planning methods by eight to nine percent and the proportion of women with knowledge of their ovulation cycle by five to seven percent. However, we find little evidence that schooling changed women’s attitudes towards gender equality.
    JEL: I1 I24 I25 J12 J13 J16
    Date: 2013–10
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:19597&r=ltv

General information on the NEP project can be found at https://nep.repec.org. For comments please write to the director of NEP, Marco Novarese at <director@nep.repec.org>. Put “NEP” in the subject, otherwise your mail may be rejected.
NEP’s infrastructure is sponsored by the School of Economics and Finance of Massey University in New Zealand.