We study whether the spatial distribution of natural resources across different ethnic groups within countries impede spatial inequality, national economic performance, and the incidence of armed conflict. By providing a theoretical rent-seeking model and analysing a set of geocoded data for...

Research has not yet been undertaken on the optimal level of urbanization, notwithstanding the pioneering work of Au and Henderson (2006) on optimal urban concentration. This paper develops two-sector general equilibrium models of urbanization, with and without equity consideration,...

This paper aims to study the impacts of financial development, urbanization, and globalization on income inequality in the People's Republic of China. It applies the regression-based inequality decomposition approach on a panel dataset, which is aggregated from a unique database of financial...

In determining the optimal redistribution of a given population's income, we ask which factor is more important: the social planner's aversion to inequality, embedded in an isoelastic social welfare function indexed by a parameter alpha, or the individuals' concern at having a low relative...

Credit rationing in the presence of asset inequality affects production and trade pattern in this paper, but not in the conventional way. A Ricardian general equilibrium framework with heterogeneous levels of asset ownership is developed to show that more equal asset distribution may contract...

In this paper, we employ stochastic dominance (SD) analysis on household unit records to measure relative welfare levels and investigate sources of inequality in the Philippines from 2000 to 2012. Using SD techniques developed in Chow, Valenzuela, and Wong (2016), we test for richness and...

This paper compares the sources of income inequality in Japan and the United States. We exploit two longitudinal household surveys to decompose the income inequality in both countries. For Japan, we use Keio Household Panel Survey data and the five latest waves (2009-2013). For the United...

Growing inequality is one important problem for a developing country, and Indonesia is no exception. Narrowing the gap between those at the top and the bottom of income distribution has become one of the government's main concerns. To achieve this goal, the sources of income inequality must be...

We model a higher education system that admits students according to their admission signal (e.g., matriculation GPA, SAT), which is, in turn, affected by their cognitive ability and socioeconomic background. We show that subsidizing education loans increases neither human capital stock nor...

Using the March Current Population Survey data from 1984 to 2013, I provide a comprehensive evaluation of how minimum wage policies influence the distribution of family incomes. I find robust evidence that higher minimum wages shift down the cumulative distribution of family incomes at the...

Household survey data provide a rich information set on income, household context and demographic variables, but tend to under report incomes at the very top of the distribution. Administrative data like tax records offer more precise information on top incomes, but at the expense of household...

This study examines the macroeconomic determinants of income inequality using dynamic panel data analysis. Specifically, the study employs dynamic panel data analysis based on the generalized method of moments over 1990–2013 across 33 Asian countries. The World Bank data series was widely used...

This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. This book brings together a range of ideas and theories to arrive at a deeper understanding of inequality in Latin America and its complex realities. To so, it addresses questions such as: What are the origins of inequality in Latin America?...

This paper provides a novel analysis of the trend in income inequality in the United States between 1979-2013. There are two ways in which this paper contributes to the literature. First, I analyze how much of the existing inequality in the U.S. is due to the demographic changes that happened...

A key aspect defining the contemporary income distribution is the (increasing) share the top holds compared to the rest. This paper shows that income concentration increases towards the very top of the distribution, while the shares the middle- and upper-middle-income groups hold remain stable...

The cumulative growth rate of the German economy since reunification would have been around two percentage points higher if income inequality had remained constant. This is whatsimulations using the DIW Macroeconomic Model have shown. They were made under the assumption that the income...

This paper argues that after a quarter century of sharp and sustained increase, Chinese inequality is now plateauing and even turning down. The argument is made using a range of data sources and a range of measures and perspectives on inequality. The evolution of inequality is further examined...

This paper explores the question of structural transformation and income distribution through the eyes of the pioneer in such analysis, Simon Kuznets. It argues that his 1955 paper stands the test of time in providing insights which are relevant to understanding current phenomena like the...

Non-communicable diseases represent one of the greatest challenges for health policymakers. The main objective of this study is to analyse the development of standardised mortality rates for cerebrovascular disease, which is one of the most common causes of deaths, in relation to income...

The aim of this research is to provide novel evidence regarding the functioning of the Nordic model of economic development and the robustness of its institutions. At first, the paper defines a conceptual analytical framework identifying the key features of the model for the Nordic economies...

Should public investment be targeted to big cities or to small towns, if the objective is to minimize national poverty? To answer this policy question we extend the basic Todaro-type model of rural-urban migration to the case of migration from rural areas to two potential destinations, secondary...

This paper examines the relationship between infrastructure development and income inequality in urban People's Republic of China. Recent policies target reductions in income inequality while increasing sustainable urban development. Infrastructure investment plays a key role in achieving both...

Income distribution is perceived to affect crime (Becker 1968; Thurow 1971; Merlo 2003). Consequently, economists have been modeling crime-employing inequality indicators as one of the explanatory variables, yielding mixed results. This paper argues that income polarization rather than inequality should...

The Gini coefficient of labor earnings in Brazil fell by nearly a fifth between 1995 and 2012, from 0.50 to 0.41. The decline in earnings inequality was even larger by other measures, with the 90-10 percentile ratio falling by almost 40 percent. Although the conventional explanation of a falling...

We study the link between tax progressivity and top income shares. Using variation from large-scale Western tax reforms in the 1980s and 1990s and the novel synthetic control method, we find large and lasting boosting impacts on top income shares from the progressivity reductions. Effects are...

We compile data spanning the period 1900-2014 and up to 30 countries to study long-run patterns in the tax elasticity of top incomes. Our results show that top tax elasticities vary tremendously over time; they were medium-to-low before 1950, virtually zero during the postwar era up to 1980 and...

This paper examines the relationship between city size, migration, and urban income inequality using the 1% sample of the 2005 Census in the People's Republic of China (PRC). We calculate various measures of within-city income inequality for 252 PRC cities. It is found that city income...

Using a case study about rural Tianjin and Shandong provinces, we try to explain what mechanism affects income inequality in rural areas, especially how rural dual structural transformation leads to the income inequality "inverted-U" Curve in some developed areas in the People's Republic of...

Evidence regarding the relationship between distribution, demand, and growth in the short run has been mixed. Open economy models that create the possibility of "beggar-thy-neighbor" growth offer one theoretical explanation for why this may be expected. Several authors have argued recently,...

We assess the correlations between mobile banking and inclusive development (poverty and inequality) in 93 developing countries for the year 2011. Mobile banking entails: 'mobile phones used to pay bills' and 'mobile phones used to receive/send money', while the modifying policy indicator is the...

This paper investigates the effects of international trade in a general equilibrium model with heterogeneous firms where a welfare state redistributes income. We look at a very stylised progressive non-distortionary redistribution scheme. We show that for a given tax rate international trade...

We study earnings and income inequality in Britain over the past two decades, including the period of relatively "inclusive" growth from 1997-2004 and the Great Recession. We focus on the middle 90%, where trends have contrasted strongly with the "new inequality" at the very top. Household...

This paper contributes to the scant body of literature on inequalities among and within ethnic groups in the Philippines by examining both the vertical and horizontal measures in terms of opportunities in accessing basic services such as education, electricity, safe water, and sanitation. The...

This report examines how income groups and forms of employment in Germany have changed in the past two decades. Since the mid-1990s, inequality in disposable household income in Germany has generally increased. This trend was in effect until 2005. While fewer people had disposable incomes in the...

Atkinson's book Inequality: What Can Be Done? (Harvard University Press, 2015) sets out a range of concrete proposals aimed at reducing income inequality, which cover a very broad span but include major changes to the income tax and social transfers system and the minimum wage. These are framed...