Search results for "equality"
showing 10 items of 1338 documents
Regional inequalities, economic crises and policies: an international panel analysis
2021
This paper examines the effects of economic downturns on regional inequalities. In a sample of 25 OECD countries for 1990–2014 period, we show that economic downturns are associated with a significant and long-lasting reduction in regional inequalities. Expansionary fiscal policy as well as higher share of the European development (cohesion) funds facilitate the response of lagging regions to negative nation-wide shocks, contributing to further stimulate the reduction in regional disparities. Additional evidence suggests that the effect of downturns tends to be larger in economies with a higher initial level of regional disparities in unemployment and human capital endowment.
Redistribution, selection, and trade
2017
Abstract This paper examines the distributional effects of international trade in a general equilibrium model with heterogeneous agents and a welfare state redistributing income. The redistribution scheme is financed by a progressive income tax and gives the same absolute transfer to all individuals. Ceteris paribus, international trade leads to an increase in income per capita but also to higher income inequality on two fronts. Inter-group inequality between managers and workers increases, and intra-group inequality within the group of managers goes up as well. We show that for a given tax rate, there is an endogenous increase in the size of the welfare state that works against the increas…
Do we value mobility?
2015
Is there a trade-off between people's preference for income equality and income mobility? Testing for the existence of such a trade-off is difficult because mobility is a multifaceted concept. We analyse results from a questionnaire experiment based on simple precise concepts of income inequality and income mobility. We fnd no direct trade-off in preference between mobility and equality, but an indirect trade-off, applying when more income mobility can only be obtained at the expense of some income inequality. Mobility preference - but not equality preference - appears to be driven by personal experience of mobility.
Changing returns to education in Spain during the 1980s
1998
We present evidence on returns to education for Spanish employees during the 1980s, a period of remarkable structural transformations. The results show a declining payoff to education between 1981 and 1991 for lower and intermediate educational levels, whereas higher education does not show a reduction in its return. At the same time, earnings inequality by gender declined noticeably as educational attainment expanded. [JEL I21, J31]
Human capital and income inequality revisited
2021
This paper revisits the relationship between human capital and income inequality, using an updated data set on human capital inequality and a novel database on earnings inequality. We find an inver...
How does fiscal consolidation impact on income inequality?
2012
In this paper, we assess the impact of fiscal consolidation on income inequality. Using a panel of 18 industrialized countries from 1978 to 2009, we find that income inequality significantly rises during periods of fiscal consolidation. In addition, while fiscal policy that is driven by spending cuts seems to be detrimental for income distribution, tax hikes seem to have an equalizing effect. We also show that the size of the fiscal consolidation program (in percentage of GDP) has an impact on income inequality. In particular, when consolidation plans represent a small share of GDP, the income gap widens, suggesting that the burden associated with the effort affects disproportionately house…
Is technical change directed by the supply of skills?
2002
Abstract In a recent contribution, Acemoglu [Quarterly Journal of Economics 113 (1998) 1055] modelled the effects of an increase in the supply of skills on the skill premium. We estimate a model to disentangle the short-run substitution effects and the effects of skill-biased technical change using industry data for South Korea for the period 1974–1998.
Youth Transition from School to Work in Spain
2001
Using a data set drawn from the Encuesta Socio-Demográfica conducted by the Instituto Nacional de Estadística in 1991, we analyze the labor market entrance of Spanish school leavers and the match between education and work at the early stages of working life. The empirical evidence shows that human capital exerts a strong influence on the duration of unemployment. With regard to the job match between education and work we find that young workers are more likely to be underutilized compared to their adult co-workers. Regression results indicate that people with higher education have, all else being equal, a lower probability of being overeducated and a shorter lenght of unemployment. They al…
Human Capital Inequality, Life Expectancy and Economic Growth
2006
This article presents a model in which inequality affects per capita income when individuals decide to invest in education taking into account their life expectancy, which depends to a large extent on the human capital of their parents. Our results show the existence of multiple steady states depending on the initial distribution of education. The low steady state is a poverty trap in which children raised in poor families have low life expectancy and work as non-educated workers. The empirical evidence suggests that the life expectancy mechanism explains a major part of the relationship between inequality and human capital accumulation. Increases in life expectancy and human capital accumu…
Demand for Primary Schooling in Rural Mali : Should User Fees Be Increased ?
1996
International audience; This paper presents estimates of the price elasticity of demand for primary schooling, using household and school survey data from rural Mali. The elasticity of enrolment with respect to the local school fee is compared with the effects on enrolment of distance to the school and various indicators of school quality, including books per classroom and the number of grades offered. Fees have a negative effect; however, certain improvements in school quality could easily offset in terms of enrolment any negative effect of higher fees to finance such improvements. For example, the astonishingly low average of two books per classroom could be doubled for a 10 per cent incr…