The permanent income/life cycle hypothesis is tested using Australian data for periods covering the regulated and deregulated financial systems. The hypothesis is rejected for the entire sample period. Further investigation reveals that the rejection is confined to the period in which the...

This paper examines the relationship between cross-sectional and life-time income distributions using a simple simulation model. It takes as its point of departure some broad conclusions regarding earnings inequality and mobility that were drawn by the OECD. These concerned comparisons between...

Wage functions provide much useful descriptive information about those characteristics of individuals which are associated with relatively high or low wage rates. In any cross-sectional survey there are many individuals who are not working at the time the survey is carried out. Such people may...

This paper uses a lifetime income simulation model to examine the effects on inequality and progressivity of extending the time period over which income is measured. The income tax schedule typically displays increasing marginal rates, and there is a substantial amount of relative income...

Economic growth in Less Developed Countries (LDCs) over the last fifty years has often been accompanied by increasing income inequality. To explore this problem, we studied the relationship between income equality and development for forty LDCs using principal component analysis followed by...

In Kuznets's (1955) classic paper on the relationship between economic growth and income inequality, the process of population shift from traditional to modern activities forms the basis of the theory of distributional change during the process of development. This relationship, known at...

Various inequality and social welfare measures often depend heavily on the choice of a distribution of income. Picking a distribution that best fits the data in some sense involves throwing away information and does not allow for the fact that, by chance, a wrong choice can be made. It also does...

This paper explores an approach to modelling the income distribution which involves both deterministic and stochastic components. The model is used to estimate the changing distribution of income with age for New Zealand males and females.

The experimental and field studies surveyed by Latane and Nida (1981) establish an inverse relationship between the probability that a person is helped and the size of the group of potential helpers. Harrington (2001) attempts to account for this phenomenon using a 'rational choice' model in...