Income Inequality Measures

Les inégalités de revenus sont en hausse dans la plupart des pays développés, un phénomène en partie causé par la croissance plus rapide des revenus des mieux nantis, plus particulièrement le 1 % le plus riche. Le Québec a la réputation d'être plus égalitaire que le reste du Canada. At -il connu une augmentation des écarts de revenus en faveur des mieux nantis? À partir des statistiques fiscales des particuliers, nous avons compilé l'évo-lution de la part des revenus captée par le 1 % le plus riche au Québec, de 1973 à 2008. Après avoir connu une baisse de 1973 à 1984, la tendance s'est inversée à la hausse de 1985 à 2008, favorisée par la croissance de la part des revenus non salariaux. Les revenus moyens de marché du 99 % restant ont connu une stagnation de 1980 à 1999, puis une légère hausse de 2000 à 2008. La situation a été beaucoup plus favorable pour le premier centile québécois, ayant connu une croissance quatre fois plus importante que le 99 % restant de 1985 à 2008. Les mécanismes en cause sont multiples et les institutions, en particulier la baisse du taux marginal d'imposition, pourraient avoir joué un rôle important.

In the current paper, we report the analysis of the relationship between meritocracy belief and subjective well-being using two large international databases, the European Social Survey Program (N = 44,387) and the European Values Study Program (N = 51,752), involving data gathered from 36 countries in total. We investigated whether low status individuals are more likely to psychologically benefit from endorsing meritocratic beliefs, and the same benefits are more pronounced in more unequal societies. Since meritocracy belief can function as a justification for income differences, we assumed that the harsher the objective reality is, the higher level of subjective well-being can be maintained by justifying this harsh reality. Therefore, we hypothesized that the palliative function of meritocracy belief is stronger for both low social status (low income) individuals, and for those living in an unequal social environment (in countries with larger income differences). Our multilevel models showed a positive relationship between meritocracy belief and subjective well-being, which relationship was moderated by both individual-level income status and country-level income differences in both studies. Based on these results, we concluded that the emotional payoff of justifying income inequalities is larger if one is more strongly affected by these inequalities.

This note introduces original technical results in the theoretical measurement of inequality by specifying the relationships between additive separability and homotheticity (of measures of welfare closely related to measures of inequality), and decomposability and homogeneity in measures of inequality. More specifically , an interrogation is made of the resonances and dissonances between the classic contributions of Atkinson and Shorrocks, which are key representatives, respectively, of the 'social welfare function' and the 'axiomatic' approaches to measuring inequality. In brief, in the presence of otherwise common assumptions , it is shown that additive separability and homotheticity of welfare are stronger combined conditions than decomposability and homogeneity (of degree zero) of income inequality. The gap between the two, however, can be closed by adding an extra term around total income to the measure of welfare, allowing for wider considerations of the relationship between social welfare, total income, and the distribution of individual incomes.

This study contributes to the literature on inflation dynamics by examining whether internal or external factors drive inflationary pressure in Nigeria. Using the annual time series data from 1981 to 2017 and applying Johansen cointegration analysis, the vector error correction mechanism and the impulse response function, the study reveals some compelling evidence to suggest that external forces are responsible for inflationary pressure in Nigeria. The results, amongst others, reveal that: external drivers – exchange rate, imported inflation and openness – induce a positive and direct relation to inflation. This is because a percentage change in these variables results in an increase in inflation of 0.49%, 0.47% and 4.28%, respectively, on average, ceteris paribus; the internal drivers – government expenditures, net food exports and lending interest rate – dampen inflation by 0.48%, 1.70% and 0.02%, respectively, on average, ceteris paribus; there is evidence of cointegration indicating that 57.48% of short-run errors will be corrected in the long run; imported inflation contributes to a deviation of about 33% deviation in the first five periods and accounts for cumulative average of over 100% deviation in inflation. Policy implications are discussed.

The success and failure of any democratic government is gauged in terms of how effectively it has fulfi lled its constitutional obligation of enhancing social and economic well-being, particularly the common man. While developed economies use a set of indices to measure well-being, a systematic and comprehensive empirical assessment of well-being is found wanting in the most developing countries, including India. This paper discusses the status of social and economic well-being of Indian families as measured by a primary survey-based composite index, the India Protection Index (IPI), which is an integration of the important dimensions of well-being. It fi nds that nearly 65 per cent of households and people in India have a reasonable degree of protection (i.e., the power of well-being) and that most of the less-and under-protected are daily wage earners, without any village-urban divide. The western states are better protected, as Maharashtra has the largest number of well-protected households (16 per cent), followed by Kartnataka and Kerala each accounting for 10 per cent. In terms of concentration, Kerala with 70,735 well-protected households per million is at the top, followed by Karnataka with 44,949 households—Uttar Pradesh and Bihar being at the bottom, with 14,621 and 26,908 households, respectively. The results show that the IPI can effectively be used to identify the status of households in terms of social and economic protection.

Recent literature on income distribution in Mexico has found evidence of underestimation in inequality. There is a growing consensus that household surveys in Mexico do not capture total household income, but there is no consensus on a methodological proposal to estimate a more-realistic distribution. This article offers a proposal for adjusting household income, crossing information from household surveys, national accounts, economic censuses, and tax incidence from the Tax Administration System. It shows evidence of a high, persistent income-distribution inequality, with emphasis on factorial and intracompany inequality. The usual adjustment implies that entire average income increases, but this article identifies the main cause of underestimation in distribution, focusing on noncaptured capital income in the wealthiest households surveyed. La literatura reciente sobre la distribuci on de ingresos en M exico ha hallado evidencia de una subestimaci on de la desigualdad. Hay un consenso creciente de que las encuestas a hogares en M exico no capturan el total de los ingresos del hogar, pero no existe un consenso respecto a una propuesta metodol ogica para estimar una distribuci on m as realista. Este art ıculo ofrece una propuesta para ajustar los ingresos del hogar, al cruzar la informaci on de las encuestas a hogares, las cuentas nacionales, los censos econ omicos y la incidencia fiscal del Sistema Tributario. Muestra que hay una alta desigualdad de ingresos, con enfasis en una desigualdad factorial e intra-empresarial. El ajuste com un implica que el promedio de ingreso total aumenta, pero este art ıculo identifica la principal causa de la subestimaci on en la distribuci on, y se enfoca en los ingresos capitales no capturados por los hogares m as adinerados en la encuesta.

Since the publication of the Malthusian population principle, the overall impact of population change on economic growth has provoked huge debates that have challenged pessimistic and optimistic postulations. Pessimists’ research posits that population growth puts a strain on government services. Conversely, optimists agree that population increase is a key component of economic growth through expanded specialisation and increased labour resources. Considering these conflicts in the literature, the Malthusian population principle and the partial least square structural equation model (PLS-SEM) are used by the author to assess the impact of population dynamics on economic growth in Kenya by incorporating the effects of education and health expenditures. The results show that population dynamics influence economic growth both directly and indirectly, with their indirect impact reinforcing the pessimistic argument that an increase in population dynamics growth has a negative effect on ...

Against the backdrop of recent global events which have highlighted the political salience of rising income inequality and corruption, this paper has sought to reexamine the relationship between income inequality and corruption by employing an objective measure for control of corruption, the recently developed Index of Public Integrity (IPI) that constitutes a marked departure from previous research which has used subjective measures for corruption. The crosscountry analysis indicates that a strong negative correlation exists between income inequality and control of corruption measured by Gini coefficient and IPI respectively, which means that increased income inequality is associated with increased level of corruption. The strength of the relationship remains strong with the inclusion of controls for level of democratisation and economic development.