In summer 1923, pursuant to the 'full powers' granted him by the Parliament to balance the budget, Alberto De Stefani - appointed in October 1922 as Mussolini's Treasury Minister - announced the abolition of inheritance tax. The most iconic act of Fascist 'financial restauration' of 1922-25, the...

Etwa jeder zweite Bundesbürger zählte im Jahr 2018 zur Einkommensmittelschicht im engeren Sinn (i.e.S.). Seit über einer Dekade hat sich dieser Anteil nur unmerklich verändert. Gestiegen sind jedoch die Schwellenwerte, ab denen man zur Einkommensmitte gehört - ein Ausdruck gestiegenen...

Ökonomische Unsicherheiten führen auch in der Mitte der Gesellschaft zu wachsendem Prekarisierungsdruck. Prekarisierungsprozesse durchziehen eine breite gesellschaftliche Gruppe (Castel, 2009, S. 30). Es ist nicht mehr die vielzitierte Unterschicht, die sogenannten Bildungsfernen oder Menschen...

Wir untersuchen die Mittelschicht in Österreich und Deutschland, wobei ein besonderer Fokus auf den Veränderungen der vergangenen 20 Jahre liegt. Es wird gezeigt, dass sich die Mittelschicht in Deutschland und Österreich in ihrer Zusammensetzung hinsichtlich Bildung, Familienkonstellationen...

Ökonomische Unsicherheiten führen auch in der Mitte der Gesellschaft zu wachsendem Prekarisierungsdruck. Prekarisierungsprozesse durchziehen eine breite gesellschaftliche Gruppe (Castel, 2009, S. 30). Es ist nicht mehr die vielzitierte Unterschicht, die sogenannten Bildungsfernen oder Menschen...

This paper studies the age-group-specific evolution of inequality of total income among highly and less educated females and males at ages 26-80 from 2005 to 2018. On the one hand, it presents time series of Gini coefficients and associated decompositions by different income components. On the...

This working paper utilizes income data to evaluate the claim that in the United States a middle class existence has come to require two full-time incomes where formerly it had commonly required only one. To that end it makes an argument for the usefulness of measuring income in relation to per...

Etwa jeder zweite Bundesbürger zählte im Jahr 2018 zur Einkommensmittelschicht im engeren Sinn (i.e.S.). Seit über einer Dekade hat sich dieser Anteil nur unmerklich verändert. Gestiegen sind jedoch die Schwellenwerte, ab denen man zur Einkommensmitte gehört - ein Ausdruck gestiegenen...

In a rare example of a national goal for income distribution besides reducing poverty (for which there is broad consensus), China’s leadership has recently committed to expanding the middle-income share—striving for a less polarized “olive-shaped” distribution. Recognizing the potential...

This working paper extends the author's prior line of analysis of precisely what "middle classness" may be considered to consist of, and just how widespread it may actually be (most recently seen in "The Remaking—and Decline—of the Middle Class: A Note"). In so doing it specifically...

The world is changing its socio-economic landscape. By doing so, the phenomenon of a growing middle-class appears. Both household surveys and growth projections suggest that only about one-third of the global middle class is based in Asia. However, between 2009 and 2017, the global middle-class...

Wir untersuchen die Mittelschicht in Österreich und Deutschland, wobei ein besonderer Fokus auf den Veränderungen der vergangenen 20 Jahre liegt. Es wird gezeigt, dass sich die Mittelschicht in Deutschland und Österreich in ihrer Zusammensetzung hinsichtlich Bildung, Familienkonstellationen...

As billions of people in the developing world seek to increase their living standards, their aspirations pose a challenge to global efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions. The emerging middle class is buying and operating energy intensive durables ranging from vehicles to air conditioners to...

Die Einkommensungleichheit ist in den letzten Jahren leicht zurückgegangen, nicht zuletzt, weil vor allem die mittleren Einkommen seit 2014 stetig gestiegen sind. Was bedeutet das für die sogenannte Mittelschicht und deren Abstiegsängste, die in den letzten Jahrzehnten vielfach thematisiert...

Die Einkommensungleichheit ist in den letzten Jahren leicht zurückgegangen, nicht zuletzt, weil vor allem die mittleren Einkommen seit 2014 stetig gestiegen sind. Was bedeutet das für die sogenannte Mittelschicht und deren Abstiegsängste, die in den letzten Jahrzehnten vielfach thematisiert...

This note, working from the basis of the author's prior paper, argues that the relatively high consumption standard associated with American "middle classness" was defined by the requirements of providing a household a minimum of comfort, mobility, security and economic opportunity in a context...

Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) reported over 30 million Coronavirus (COVID-19) cases and around 960,000 deaths as of May 2021. Official tracking data shows that Brazil, Colombia, and Argentina have the highest number of reported cases throughout LAC, which in turn is the region with among...

Empirical evidence for the U.S. suggests that illicit consumption of opioids increases in association with socio-economic deprivation of the middle-class. To explore the underlying mechanisms, we set up a task-based labor market model with endogenous mental health status and a health care...

In this paper we aim to disentangle how sectoral economic growth affects the size of the middle class, using state-level data of Bolivia from 2000 to 2017 and breaking the three main economic activities into subsectors to attain more-specific results. Because the data from Bolivia are limited,...

Defining the 'global middle class' as being neither poor nor rich in the developed world, we estimate the size of the global middle class in China and 33 other countries and analyze China's expanding middle class in international perspective. China's global middle class has grown rapidly and has...

This article studies global distributions of capital and labor income among individuals in 2000 and 2016. By constructing a novel database covering approximately the 80% of the global output and the 60% of the world population, two major findings stand out. First, the world underwent a...

Defining the ‘global middle class’ as being neither poor nor rich in the developed world, we estimate the size of the global middle class in China and 33 other countries and analyze China’s expanding middle class in international perspective. China’s global middle class has grown rapidly...

As the Covid-19 pandemic takes its disproportionate toll on African Americans, the historical perspective in this working paper provides insight into the socioeconomic conditions under which President-elect Joe Biden’s campaign promise to “build back better” might actually begin to deliver...

In light of the extreme imprecision, and even obfuscation, surrounding the concept of "middle classness" this working paper examines it critically, identifying it with the individual's enjoyment of a particular measure of comfort, security and opportunity. Historically these were founded on...

In the decade after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, African Americans made historic gains in accessing employment opportunities in racially integrated workplaces in U.S. business firms and government agencies. In the previous working papers in this series, we have shown that in the 1960s and...

Emerging markets' political, economic, and social transition processes led to altered demographic trends and new macroeconomic dynamics in these economies. These changes triggered the growth of the middle class that became an essential factor of emerging markets' attractiveness for sales and...

Over the last three decades, the wealth-to-income ratio (WIR) in many Western countries, particularly in Europe and North America, increased by a factor of two. This represents a defining empirical trend: a rewealthization (from the French repatrimonialisation) – or the comeback of (inherited)...

The aim of this research was to examine the investment behaviour of the middle income class households in Nagpur. The rationale behind choosing this research topic is the premise that the middle class in India has gained attention of the economists, policy makers & the marketers, as still there...

Aggregate savings in any economy, is dependent on a number of inter- dependent variables. For economic planning, the planners should have an idea regarding the volume of saving of different groups of people and the method by which saving can be improved. To frame appeals for saving there is the...

Empirical evidence for the U.S. suggests that illicit consumption of opioids increases in association with socio-economic deprivation of the middle-class. To explore the underlying mechanisms, we set up a task-based labor market model with endogenous mental health status and a health care...

The term, ‘middle class’, is constantly used to describe some average group of individuals, households or families. Various definitions and measures are used within the public policy, media and academic arenas. And, yet, there is no definitive consensus as to what middle class means or how...

The federal government and the states have recently enacted a slew of aid policies aimed at college students from middle- and high-income families. I estimate the impact of aid on the college attendance of middle- and upper-income youth by evaluating Georgia's HOPE Scholarship, the inspiration...

This paper takes up the much argued-over term "middle class" and specifically the standard of consumption the term may be said to denote. In the history this paper recounts it notes the ambiguities and evolution of the term, but holds that in the post-World War II United States it denoted a...

"This book examines the emergence of professional advertising in western India during the interwar period. It explores the ways in which global manufacturers advanced a 'brand-name capitalism' among the Indian middle class by promoting the sale of global commodities during the 1920s and 1930s, a...

As households move out of poverty, spending patterns change. This is good news from a development perspective, but changing consumer behaviour may imply substantially more carbon emissions. The lifestyle choices of the emerging middle classes are key, now and in the future. This paper explores...

Le mouvement social en Haïti pâtit depuis plusieurs décennies de l’absence d’un acteur majeur, les classes moyennes, dont l’appauvrissement et le déclin sont en train de donner naissance à d’importantes mutations sociales, économiques et politiques dans ce pays. L’action...

As a response to the economic crisis brought by COVID-19, the Philippine government has started to implement its Social Amelioration Program (SAP) which aims to provide a monthly cash aid worth 5,000 to 8,000 Philippine pesos (US$ 99.08 to 158.53 at the exchange rate of US$ 1 = 50.46 pesos) to...