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on Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty |
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Issue of 2016‒09‒04
seven papers chosen by |
| By: | Ifcher, John (Santa Clara University); Zarghamee, Homa (Barnard College); Graham, Carol Lee (Brookings Institution) |
| Abstract: | U.S. income inequality has risen dramatically in recent decades. Researchers consistently find that greater income inequality measured at the state or national level is associated with diminished subjective well-being (SWB) in the U.S. We conduct the first multi-scale analysis (i.e., at the ZIP-code, MSA, and state levels) of the inequality-SWB relationship using SWB data from the U.S. Gallup Healthways Well-Being Index and income inequality data from the American Community Survey. We use the rich set of well-being measures afforded by the dataset (evaluative, positive- and negative-affective hedonic, and health measures) to examine the consistency of the relationship. We find that the relationship is both scale-dependent and measure-dependent: income inequality is SWB-diminishing in large regions for all measures, SWB-diminishing in small regions for negative-affective hedonic measures, and SWB-improving in small regions for most other measures. Lastly, we find that taking all regions together, the net relationship between income inequality and SWB is negative. |
| Keywords: | subjective well-being, income inequality, happiness, distribution of income, health, scale-dependence, measure-dependence |
| JEL: | D3 I14 D6 |
| Date: | 2016–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp10155&r=ltv |
| By: | Stephen P. Jenkins |
| Abstract: | This article assesses two secondary data compilations about income inequality – the World Income Inequality Database (WIIDv2c), and the Standardized World Income Inequality Database (SWIIDv4.0) which is based on WIID but with all observations multiply-imputed. WIID and SWIID are convenient and accessible sources for researchers seeking cross-national data with global coverage for relatively long time periods. Against these undoubted benefits must be set costs arising from lack of data comparability and quality and also, in the case of SWIID, questions about its imputation model. WIID and SWIID users need to recognize this benefit-cost trade-off and ensure their substantive conclusions are robust to potential data problems. I provide detailed description of the nature and contents of both sources plus illustrative regression analysis. From a data issues perspective, I recommend WIID over SWIID, though my support for use of WIID is conditional. |
| Keywords: | global inequality; inequality; Gini; imputation; WIID; SWIID |
| JEL: | C81 C82 D31 |
| Date: | 2015–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:62173&r=ltv |
| By: | Kirk Hamilton; John F. Helliwell; Michael Woolcock |
| Abstract: | We combine theory with data from different domains to provide an empirical analysis of the scale and variability of social capital as wealth. This is used to argue, given what we have learned in the literature on social capital, that the welfare returns to investing in trust could be substantial. Using social trust data from 132 nations covered by the Gallup World Poll, we present a range of estimates of social trust’s wealth-equivalent values. The estimates of the wealth embodied in social capital are very large, and with a structure and distribution quite different from those for physical capital. These estimates reflect values above and beyond what social trust contributes to supporting incomes and health. Although social trust is an important component of total wealth in all regions and country groupings, there are nonetheless big variations within and among regions, ranging from as low as 12% of total wealth in Latin America to 28% in the OECD. |
| JEL: | E21 E22 I31 |
| Date: | 2016–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:22556&r=ltv |
| By: | Maniquet, François (CORE, Université catholique de Louvain); Neumann, Dirk (Université catholique de Louvain) |
| Abstract: | In a model in which agents differ in wages and preferences over labor time-consumption bundles, we study labor income tax schemes that alleviate poverty. To avoid conflict with individual well-being, we require redistribution to take place between agents on both sides of the poverty line provided they have the same labor time. This requirement is combined with efficiency and robustness properties. Maximizing the resulting social preferences under incentive compatibility constraints yields the following evaluation criterion: tax schemes should minimize the labor time required to reach the poverty line. We apply this criterion to European countries and the US. |
| Keywords: | well-being, poverty, labor income taxation |
| JEL: | D63 H21 I32 |
| Date: | 2016–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp10181&r=ltv |
| By: | Croke, Kevin; Hicks, Joan Hamory; Hsu, Eric; Kremer, Michael; Miguel, Edward |
| Abstract: | The WHO has recently debated whether to reaffirm its long-standing recommendation of mass drug administration (MDA) in areas with more than 20% prevalence of soil-transmitted helminths (hookworm, whipworm, and roundworm). There is consensus that the relevant deworming drugs are safe and effective, so the key question facing policymakers is whether the expected benefits of MDA exceed the roughly $0.30 per treatment cost. The literature on long run educational and economic impacts of deworming suggests that this is the case. However, a recent meta-analysis by Taylor-Robinson et al. (2015) (hereafter TMSDG), disputes these findings. The authors conclude that while treatment of children known to be infected increases weight by 0.75 kg (95% CI: 0.24, 1.26; p=0.0038), there is substantial evidence that MDA has no impact on weight or other child outcomes. We update the TMSDG analysis by including studies omitted from that analysis and extracting additional data from included studies, such as deriving standard errors from p-values when the standard errors are not reported in the original article. The updated sample includes twice as many trials as analyzed by TMSDG, substantially improving statistical power. We find that the TMSDG analysis is underpowered: it would conclude that MDA has no effect even if the true effect were (1) large enough to be cost-effective relative to other interventions in similar populations, or (2) of a size that is consistent with results from studies of children known to be infected. The hypothesis of a common zero effect of multiple-dose MDA deworming on child weight at longest follow-up is rejected at the 10% level using the TMSDG dataset, and with a p-value |
| Keywords: | meta-analysis; weight gain; worms |
| JEL: | C49 I15 I18 O15 |
| Date: | 2016–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:11458&r=ltv |
| By: | Caliendo, Marco (University of Potsdam); Künn, Steffen (Maastricht University); Uhlendorff, Arne (CREST) |
| Abstract: | In some countries including Germany unemployed workers can increase their income by working a few hours per week. The intention is to keep unemployed job seekers attached to the labour market and to increase their job-finding probabilities. To analyze the unemployment dynamics of job seekers with and without marginal employment, we consider an inflow sample into unemployment and estimate multivariate duration models. While we do not find any significant impact on the job finding probability in a model with homogeneous effects, models allowing for time-varying coefficients indicate a decreased job finding probability of marginal employment at the beginning of the unemployment spell and an increased job finding probability for the long-term unemployed. Our results suggest that job seekers with marginal employment find more stable post-unemployment jobs, and we find some evidence that the relationship between marginal employment and wages and employment stability varies with respect to skill levels, sector and labor market tightness. |
| Keywords: | marginal employment, mini-job, unemployment duration, job search, employment stability, multivariate duration models |
| JEL: | J64 C41 C33 |
| Date: | 2016–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp10177&r=ltv |
| By: | Anthony Heyes; John List |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:feb:artefa:00448&r=ltv |