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on Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty |
| By: | Jenkins, Stephen (London School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | This paper fits four-parameter GB2 distributions to UK unit record household survey data for 42 years from 1977 to 2018. Parameter estimates are used to describe key features of the household income distribution and its evolution over time, including inequality. The paper also discusses and illustrates issues of statistical inference and data quality, and the relative goodness of fit of distributions that are special cases of the GB2. Singh-Maddala distributions typically fit better than Dagum distributions, and the two-parameter Fisk distribution fits the UK income distribution well for almost every year in the 2003–2018 period. |
| Keywords: | income inequality, Generalized Beta distribution of the Second Kind, Singh-Maddala distribution, Dagum distribution |
| JEL: | C16 C46 D31 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18926 |
| By: | Richard Blundell; Monica Costa-Dias; Graham Mazeine; Costas Meghir; Tom Waters |
| Abstract: | Work experience has been found to be a key determinant of work and wages for educated women, but it seems to play a smaller role for the less educated. For them, welfare, tax credits and family composition matter more, and increasingly so does participation in disability programmes. Here we document how labor supply, wages, health, and disability claims have evolved in the UK over the last three decades, and examine how reforms to tax credits, disability benefits and other welfare programs have changed work incentives over this period. We then introduce these features into an empirical dynamic structural model of life-cycle labor supply, human capital and disability benefit application, in which human capital combines health capital, experience accumulated in work, and education. Estimating the model on a panel of working-age women in the UK, we examine the interactions between experience capital and health capital in driving life-cycle earnings across different education groups. Our results highlight the importance of interactions in the disability benefit, welfare and tax credit systems for understanding the life cycle pattern of hours, employment, earnings, and disability claims, and for evaluating policy counterfactuals. |
| Date: | 2026–01–30 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bri:uobdis:26/851 |
| By: | Bryson, Alex (University College London) |
| Abstract: | Most of the literature estimating the gender wage gap (GWG) in the UK uses regression techniques adjusting for a range of covariates measured in adulthood, many of which are likely endogenous. In doing so, they typically find that about half the raw gap can be accounted for by gender differences in those conditioning variables. Using data for a birth cohort born in 1958 collected prospectively across ten survey sweeps, I depart from the literature in two ways. First, I condition solely on covariates measured in childhood to minimize potential biases arising from conditioning on endogenous variables. Second, I use a range of matching estimators to recover the GWG among ‘like’ men and women. I show that the raw GWG rises until cohort members enter their 40s, then falls but remains sizeable until age 63. In contrast to literature, when conditioning solely on childhood variables the covariate-adjusted GWG is similar to the raw GWG. This is the case at all ages regardless of the matching estimator I use and the set of conditioning childhood covariates. The implication is that among those born in 1958 women have lower earnings than men across the life-course which cannot be accounted for by their pre-labour market experiences. |
| Keywords: | gender wage gap, birth cohort, National Child Development Study, propensity score matching, entropy weighting, inverse probability weighted regression-adjustment (IPWRA) |
| JEL: | J16 J31 J71 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18960 |
| By: | Fiorani, Federico (Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER); University of Luxembourg); Sologon, Denisa (Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER)); Jara, Xavier (London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), Universidad Loyola Andalucia) |
| Abstract: | Government satisfaction rose sharply in Ecuador between 2007 and 2014, a period marked by declining inequality and substantial changes in fiscal and social policy. We examine how far this increase is associated with changes in individual economic circumstances, the wider income distribution, and the tax–benefit system. Using nationally representative household survey data, we combine distributional Fairlie decompositions with a tax–benefit microsimulation counterfactual. Changes in observed socioeconomic characteristics explain around one fifth of the increase in satisfaction in the middle of the distribution. Within this explained component, the decline in provincial income inequality is more important than changes in individual disposable income. The tax–benefit counterfactual points in the same direction: predicted satisfaction would generally have been lower had the 2014 population faced the 2007 tax–benefit rules. The results reveal substantial heterogeneity across income groups, with the counterfactual differences more pronounced among the poor. Overall, the findings highlight the importance of distinguishing individual economic resources from broader distributional conditions when examining evaluations of government. |
| Keywords: | satisfaction with government, income inequality, tax-benefit policy, political support, tax-benefit microsimulation, Ecuador |
| JEL: | D31 D72 H24 I38 O54 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18958 |
| By: | Fabrizio Adriani (University of Leicester); Abigail Barr (University of Nottingham); Anna Hochleitner (Norwegian School of Economics); Silvia Sonderegger (University of Nottingham) |
| Abstract: | We investigate the impact of rising inequality on social instability through a novel multi-period laboratory experiment. In each period, members of two groups are randomly matched to play a battle of the sexes game, in which payoffs are either zero for both or positive but unequal. At the beginning of the game, the implied payoff inequality is low but, under some treatments, it increases over time. While under low initial inequality, unequal conventions – where one group is systematically better off – tend to emerge, increasing inequality causes destabilization. This is initiated by the group disadvantaged by the unequal convention and is particularly pronounced when not only the relative, but also the absolute position of the disadvantaged group is worsening. These findings are consistent with a simple model incorporating disadvantageous inequality aversion. Finally, we show that history matters; responses to current inequality depend on past experiences of inequality and stability. |
| Keywords: | Inequality; Conflict and Revolutions; Coordination; Group Behavior; Experiments |
| Date: | 2026–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:not:notcdx:2026-04 |