This thesis investigates the effect of foreign aid on income inequality, and studies the impact in Latin America during the time period from 1960 to 2020. The method employed is a pooled ordinary least squares (OLS) model, using fixed effects. The results imply that foreign aid increases income inequality. The theoretical literature on this topic focus mostly on foreign aid’s effect on economic growth, and growth is thought to lessen income inequality. Aid is on the other hand considered to raise income inequality due to misappropriation of aid by the political and local elite in recipient countries. Negative impacts of aid are also viewed as the result of low accountability of both donors and recipients of aid. Empirical studies examining the impact of foreign aid on income inequality are furthermore scarce compared to aid’s impact on economic growth, and the results of existing studies are inconclusive, where most discover either weak positive or negative effects.

Abstracts Does post-industrialized countries face a second Kuznets curve with the IT revolution? By: Rickard Sandqvist, Supervisor: Ulf Jansson, Urban and regional planning, advanced level, Master thesis for master exam in Urban and regional planning, 30 ECTS credits, Language: English, Key words: recent income inequality trends, the creative class, kuznets hypothesis and theories of income inequality, income inequality with the IT revolution in post-industrialized countries, SURE estimation, OLS estimation, income inequality measures.  The aim of the thesis is to analyze the development of income inequality for countries that have longer time series available. I use theories and hypothesises of income inequality and do some development of Kuznets hypothesis. My research question is: does post-industrialized countries face a second Kuznets curve with the IT revolution? I use OLS (ordinary least square) and SURE (seemingly unrelated regression equation) estimations to answer my research question. I use data from the world bank and I analyze data from mainly countries in europe and north and south america. My results is that there is evidence that post industrialised countries face a second Kuznets curve and I do the conclusion that this is depending on the IT revolution.

This study uses data between 2011 and 2020 from the 290 municipalities of Sweden to investigate theeffect that covid-19 has had on income inequality. Excess mortality rate is used as the variablemeasuring the intensity of the pandemic and the Gini coefficient as well as percentile quotas representsincome inequality. Using a Difference in Difference approach, a positive effect on income inequalitywas found using percentile quotas. A unit increase in excess mortality corresponds to an increase inP90P10 with up to 1,1%. It was also found that mainly the low income group of people were the mostaffected.

Title: Inequality in Foreign Language Learning Author: Jitka Suchardová Nováková Department: Deparment of Education Supervisor: prof. PhDr. Karel Rýdl, CSc. Abstract: This dissertation draws on sociological assumptions that learning success is significantly influenced by social environment. In this respect the questions of inequality in foreign language education are raised. The external factors such as social class, and motivation and attitudes, as two major social psychology phenomena related to success at foreign language learning, are researched. Based on these concepts the process of foreign language learning is considered as strongly influenced by opportunities for learning and by the process of constructing foreign language learner's identity. The research follows the qualitative paradigm using the narrative approach, and an in-depth interview as the main research method. The research design of biography and case study is used and two individual case studies are presented, with the impact of showing diversity and complexity of foreign language learning. The research takes place in the university environment - the students of technical faculties were the object of the research. Keywords: inequality, motivation, attitudes, habitus, identity

This thesis studies the effects of local environments on perceptions. The last chapter examines older workers' responses to unemployment benefits cuts. In the first essay, I study the effects of neighborhoods on perceived inequality and preferences for redistribution in the context of Barcelona. I first construct a novel measure of inequality based on the geospatial distribution of housing. I then elicit inequality perceptions and preferences for redistribution from an original large-scale survey. I link these measures to respondents' specific local environments using exact addresses. I identify the causal effects of neighborhoods using two different approaches. The first is an outside-the-survey quasi-experiment that exploits within-neighborhood variation in respondents' recent exposure to new apartment buildings. The second is a within-survey experiment inducing variation in respondents' information set about inequality across neighborhoods. Local environments significantly influence inequality perceptions but only mildly affect demand for redistribution. In the second essay, I study the effects of neighborhoods on perceived immigration and preferences for redistribution. I construct flexible definitions of local neighborhoods by aggregating census tracts and measure immigration at this fine geographic level. I elicit immigration perceptions and preferences for redistribution from my original survey. Most respondents significantly overestimate the number of immigrants in the country, but those residing in neighborhoods with more immigrants are more likely to do so. Misperceptions negatively correlate with demand for redistribution and are partly explained by the local immigrant composition. They are exacerbated when more African or Asian immigrants reside in the local area. In the third essay, I causally estimate the effects of pro-cyclical unemployment-assistance (UA) reductions on job search behavior and re-employment outcomes using reform-induced changes in UA durations for older workers in Spain. Benefit reductions are effective in bringing workers back to work and reduce non-employment duration, but also induce displacements out of the labor force and strong substitution patterns towards less generous UA programs, highlighting the social insurance role of long-term benefits during economic downturns. Despite the sharp drop in non-employment duration, I also document a significant decrease in re-employment wages, consistent with a reduction in workers' reservation wages and limited duration dependence.

Esta tesis pertenece al campo de la macroeconomía, en concreto al estudio de la desigualdad económica, de renta y riqueza, y al análisis de los efectos macroeconómicos de las reformas fiscales. Para estudiar cuestiones concretas en este campo, la herramienta principal utilizada en esta tesis es el modelo Aiyagari-Huggett de agentes heterogéneos, mercados incompletos y riesgo idiosincrático, adaptado o extendido según el objetivo de cada capítulo. Usando esta metodología, cada capítulo realiza un análisis cuantitativo aplicado a la economía real de la cuestión de interés. El objetivo general de la tesis es examinar cómo distintas formas de heterogeneidad, tales como diferencias en evasión fiscal por ocupación o el nivel de desigualdad de riqueza, pueden afectar al efecto de reformas fiscales, y cómo mejorar la modelización de determinadas formas de heterogeneidad, en concreto, de la productividad individual de los trabajadores. El primer capítulo de la tesis incorpora la evidencia empírica para Estados Unidos sobre los altos niveles de evasión fiscal del sector empresarial para estudiar su efecto en el análisis de reformas fiscales. El capítulo desarrolla un modelo de agentes heterogéneos y riesgo idiosincrático con decisión de ocupación (entre iniciar o mantener una empresa, o trabajo asalariado), donde se incorpora además la decisión de evadir parte de los impuestos debidos. El equilibrio estacionario está calibrado para Estados Unidos, y es capaz de reflejar el nivel de evasión agregada, y las diferencias en evasión por ocupación. Usando este modelo, se analizan los efectos de largo plazo de una reforma fiscal consistente en reemplazar el impuesto progresivo de la renta por uno proporcional, y se comparan los resultados con los de un modelo similar sin posibilidad de evasión fiscal. Aunque los efectos agregados y distributivos están en la misma dirección cualitativamente, en términos cuantitativos hay grandes diferencias. Al incluir la evasión fiscal, los efectos positivos agregados son sustancialmente menores, y el aumento de desigualdad de riqueza es menos pronunciado que en el modelo sin evasión. El segundo capítulo, conjunto con Claudio Campanale, trata se centra en el tema de la modelización de la productividad individual. Distintos procesos estadísticos se usan en la literatura de modelos cuantitativos principalmente para replicar la distribución de salarios. La elección del proceso (algunos tienen mucho riesgo idiosincrático, otros menos) resulta ser determinante para algunos ejercicios de política fiscal, al afectar de distinta forma al comportamiento individual ante cambios en impuestos. En este capítulo, hacemos uso de reciente evidencia empírica para Estados Unidos con información muy detallada sobre la evolución salarial para los individuos en la parte alta de la distribución. En concreto, proponemos una modificación del proceso estándar AR(1) que añade crecimiento heterogéneo de la productividad, donde un pequeño porcentaje de los individuos experimenta un crecimiento extraordinario (un estado "superestrella") con persistencia decreciente durante la vida. Usando nuestro proceso en el marco de un modelo de ciclo vital, mostramos que la evolución salarial durante la carrera laboral es consistente con la evidencia empírica, y que además el modelo es capaz de reproducir estadísticos adicionales relacionados con la distribución de salarios, y el riesgo idiosincrático de los trabajadores con mayores salarios. Además mostramos que, en comparación con nuestro proceso, un modelo con un proceso de productividad estándar (con productividad superestrella permanente) obtiene resultados muy lejanos de la evidencia empírica. Por último, el tercer capítulo, coautorado con Claudio Campanale, estudia cómo el nivel de desigualdad de la riqueza, y distintos supuestos que afectan al comportamiento del consumidor respecto al ahorro afectan al estudio de reformas fiscales, en concreto, al cálculo de la curva de Laffer para la progresividad del impuesto de la renta. Consideramos un modelo base de ciclo vital, con heterogeneidad de productividad individual y riqueza, y añadimos redistribución de herencias, transmisión (imperfecta) de habilidad entre generaciones, y heterogeneidad en preferencias (factores de descuento). La versión final tiene una concentración de riqueza mucho más cercana a los datos de Estados Unidos que la versión básica. Encontramos que aumentar la concentración de riqueza apenas afecta a la localización del pico de la curva de Laffer, aunque sí afecta al nivel de recaudación extra. Además, analizamos en cada versión del modelo la "elasticity of taxable income" (ETI), y comprobamos que su magnitud en el top de la distribución puede ser sensible a los supuestos del modelo, o al nivel de concentración.

Thesis advisor: Juliet B. Schor / In this dissertation, I argue that questioning the relationship between technological change, specifically the new types of markets and practices enabled by the “sharing economy” and inequality has become an urgent need. While the sector promotes itself as the harbinger of egalitarian access to economic opportunity and consumption, independent studies of its operations and impacts point towards significant discriminatory dynamics favoring the already privileged. As the sector keeps growing, understanding its impact on inequality becomes ever more critical. I focus on one sharing economy platform, Airbnb, which facilitates the practice of “home-sharing,” or more accurately short-term rentals. I investigate the relationship between Airbnb and inequality in three papers that focus on how the deeply unequal urban settings where much of the economic activity on Airbnb takes place operate within the context of economic activity enabled by the platform. The analysis for all three papers is based on the data for more than 450,000 Airbnb listings and the demographic and economic characteristics of the neighborhoods they are located in. In the first paper, I look at how race determines the patterns of participation and outcomes for people who rent out their properties. I show that the economic opportunities generated by the platform are unequally distributed across the urban landscape. There are fewer listings in areas with higher concentrations of non-White residents, the listings that are located in these areas charge lower prices, and have lower earnings. The second paper investigates the relationship between the public reputation system on Airbnb and racial discrimination. I show that characterizing the reputation system as a racially neutral tool, which has the potential to reduce discriminatory outcomes, is highly problematic. Airbnb listings located in neighborhoods with higher percentages of non-White residents have a harder time generating reputation information when they first come on the platform and tend to have systematically lower ratings. The third paper focuses on how short-term rentals generates new dynamics of gentrification in cities, by providing evidence for a new type of “rent gap” between long-term and short-term rentals, and how property owners are exploiting it. I argue that short-term rentals, in the absence of further effective regulation from governments, are likely to drive increasing levels of gentrification as they remain highly profitable and occupy an increasing number of housing units. I believe that studying these aspects of the sharing economy contributes to a fuller understanding of technological change and its understudied interaction with inequality. Moving beyond the mostly theoretical and aggregated understanding of change inherent in the SBTC literature, my research promotes a more concrete and empirical engagement with change in line with some of the research on the “digital divide,” and the emergent literature on inequality on online platforms. Ultimately, I think such an engagement can serve as the basis for a broader theoretical reckoning with the increased pace of technological change as more and more of our social life is “disrupted” by technological interventions, with significant consequences. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2018. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Sociology.

This project was originally conceived of as an exploration and written presentation of various dimensions of the contemporary social movement called the Women’s Liberation Movement. The exploration was to be through personal experience in the movement and research in movement literature. From a research point of view, the specific objective was to identify the issues and elements of the Women's Liberation experience for those who are involved, in other words, to determine what are the salient dimensions of this experience for the individual in Women’s Liberation.

Income inequality is in a majority of earlier studies more or less affirmatively agreed to be negatively related to economic growth. The underlying complexity of the connection lacks well-tried backing in the modern time. The main purpose of this research is to identify the relationship between income inequality and economic growth, but also the effects of other factors, such as human capital and investment. This is conducted with a panel data approach on 34 OECD countries with data over the period 1990-2010. Aggregate income inequality, represented by the Gini coefficient is used in the empirical estimation, together with two other variables to control for the income inequality at the bottom and top end of the income distribution. The results indicate the aggregate inequality level to be significantly and positively related to growth, while bottom end and top end inequality is seen to have a significant and negative relationship with growth. The level of GDP per capita, education and population growth is also seen to have an impact on economic growth.

Abstract  The novel Tengo miedo torero (2010) by the Chilean Pedro Lemebel, is characterized by presenting certain patterns. The first one is the presence and complexities that non-binary people experience, and the second is the political economic social context, determined by a dictatorship. The purpose of this work is to make a qualitative analysis of the novel, applying two theories: The Queer theory and the Marxist literary criticism. The reason why these two theories were chosen is that they represent the fundamental patterns of this novel clearly and assertively. As for queer theory, feminist theorists such as Simone de Beauvoir, Monique Wittig, Judith Butler and Beatriz Preciado are the outstanding ones. They visualize the studies of gender, homosexual identity and the presence of the femininity in the novel. Regarding Marxist literary criticism, authors such as Terry Eagleton, Andrew Heywood introduce themes, such as class struggle, inequality, revolution and politic ideologies. All these terminologies and concepts result in an intertwining between the socioeconomic conditions and the non-binary sexuality, marked by oppression. / Sumario  La novela Tengo miedo torero (2010) del chileno Pedro Lemebel, se caracteriza por presentar ciertos patrones que son: primeramente, la presencia y complejidades que vivencian las personas no binarias, y la segunda es el contexto político económico social, determinados por una dictadura. El propósito de este trabajo, es hacer análisis cualitativo de la novela, aplicando dos teorías, la teoría Queer y la crítica literaria marxista. La razón por la que se eligieron estas dos teorías es, porque, representan de forma clara y asertiva, los patrones fundamentales de esta novela. De la teoría queer, teóricas feministas como Simone de Beauvoir, Monique wittig, Judith Butler y Beatriz Preciado son las sobresalientes, que visualizan los estudios de género, la identidad homosexual y la presencia de lo femenino en la novela. En cuanto, a la crítica literaria marxista, autores como Terry Eagleton, Andrew Heywood, introducen temáticas, como, la lucha de clases, la desigualdad, la revolución e ideologías políticas. Todas estas terminologías y conceptos, dan como resultado, el entrelazamiento de la condición socioeconómica con la sexualidad no binaria, marcada por la opresión.