The aim of this study was to analyze whether income inequality is a determinant of national growth and whether this influence is different when income inequality in the upper and the lower decile of income distribution are separately examined. According to the statistical analysis that was held, income inequality was found to have some statistically significant connection with the national economic growth of selected OECD countries, but only in the long run. Moreover, the research findings indicate that when a distinction is made between top-end and bottom-end income inequality, top-end inequality has a positive effect on growth, while bottom-end inequality has a negative effect. Investment and fertility rate were not found to have a statistically significant effect on growth. The above findings were evident in all four periods that were studied. The results imply that states in OECD countries, as well as countries not belonging to this group, need to pay heavy attention to bottom-end income inequality, as a means of controlling and fostering their growth potential, while at the same time leaving top-end inequalities, which not only do not undermine growth, but also drive it. Future researchers are encouraged to conduct the same research with other countries as well, especially developing ones, while also including in the research other factors moderating the effects of income inequality in growth.

In this thesis I conduct a comparative analysis of the influence of socioeconomic actors, business and labor, on public policy in Germany and the United States, specifically public policy that has an impact on economic inequality. The objective of this study is to gain a better understanding of how institutional constructs may determine the level of influence by different socioeconomic actors on public policy. In particular, I examine the link between institutional design and economic inequality, specifically the relative influence of business interests in varying types of capitalist economies and democratic systems, and assess those facets of institutional design that may facilitate the channeling of business influence in policy making. I explore institutional changes in the German political and economic system beginning in the late 1980s to determine whether these changes have altered the policy making process over time, and analyze similarities with institutional changes that have taken place in the United States beginning in the late 1970s to present. Further, I examine whether shifts in institutional design indicate that the German system is transitioning towards a more liberal model similar to that of the United States, and consider what effects this may have on the level of economic inequality in Germany. To conduct my analysis I use the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework; based on the IAD framework I create a conceptual map of the channels by which socioeconomic actors are involved in the policy making process. I evaluate the policy-making process in both formal and informal policy arenas. The policy areas analyzed include corporate governance, industrial relations, and tax, welfare and minimum wage policy during the selected time periods. The analysis shows that the institutional designs that produced the selected policies benefit business interests and may contribute towards economic inequality. The larger goal is to develop research that will build a theoretical foundation to help us identify how these systems may be improved to produce a more equitable allocation of economic resources.

Within the contemporary international order, deep structural inequalities coexist alongside a nominally pluralistic society of states that grants international personality to politically organised communities. Asymmetric interactions between distinct political communities have shaped the development of the international system from the colonial era to the present phase of global economic integration. Rising interdependence, problems of unequal development and the democratic mobilisation of peoples around the world have generated moral claims regarding the injustice of global inequality. In this context the international politics of inequality have taken the format of challenges by the political representatives of the global South to the dominance of the advanced industrialised North. The normative dimensions of this process can be understood through a focus on this process of political argument between unequals. Political argument is contestation over the principles appropriate to govern a sphere of social interaction. The thesis seeks to vindicate the notion that the challenges by the global South have given rise to a dynamic of political argument within a norm-governed international society. Changes in patterns of normative belief, material power and forms of political organisation have historically shaped North-South relations. Therefore, through the analysis of particular episodes of North-South argument, the thesis attempts to provide insights into the moral limits and possibilities of an evolving international society. Analysing the organised attempts to challenge inequality on the part of the representatives of the global South, the thesis seeks to advance the position the tensions generated by claims over inequality might provide the nucleus for the incorporation of egalitarian concerns into the operation of international society. Through participation in common practices of statehood, the peoples of the global South possess at least some ability to challenge structural inequalities and thus the potential to expand the moral limits of international society.

This thesis consists of four separate chapters which address different aspects of inequality and income determination. The first three chapters are country-level studies which examine (1) how incomes are shaped by spatial price differences, (2) the factor income composition, and (3) enterprise size. The final chapter analyses how income inequality changed at the global level. The first chapter investigates the implications of regional price differences for earnings differentials and inequality in Germany. I combine a district-level price index with administrative earnings data from social security records. Prices have a strong equalising effect on district average wages in West Germany, but a weaker effect in East Germany and at the national level. The change in overall inequality as a result of regional price differences is small (although significant in many cases), because inequality is mostly explained by differences within rather than between districts. The second chapter is motivated by the rapid increase in top income shares in the United States since the 1980s. Using data derived from tax filings, I show that this pattern is very similar after controlling for changes in tax unit size. Over the same period as top income shares increased, the composition of these incomes changed dramatically, with the labour share rising. Using a non-parametric copula framework, I show that incomes from labour and capital have become more closely associated at the top. This association is asymmetric such that top wage earners are more likely to also receive high capital incomes, compared with top capital income recipients receiving high wages. In the third chapter, I investigate the positive cross-sectional relationship between enterprise size and earnings using panel data from Ghana. I find evidence for a significant firm size effect in matched firm-worker data and a labour force panel, even after controlling for individual fixed effects. The size effect in self-employment is stronger in the cross-section, but it is driven by individual time-invariant characteristics. The final chapter studies the global interpersonal income distribution using a newly constructed and improved database of national household surveys between 1988 and 2008. The chapter finds that the global Gini remains high and approximately unchanged at around 0.7. However, this hides a substantial change in the global distribution from a twin-peaked distribution in 1988 into a single-peaked one now. Furthermore, the regional composition of the global distribution changed, as China graduated from the bottom ranks. As a result of the growth in Asia, the poorest quantiles of the global distribution are now largely from Sub-Saharan Africa. By exploiting the panel dimension of the dataset, the analysis shows which decile-groups within countries have benefitted most over this 20-year period. In addition, the chapter presents a preliminary assessment of how estimates of global inequality are affected by the likely underreporting of top incomes in surveys.

This thesis presents a sub-national comparative analysis of the nexus between migration and development using the case of two disparate migrant communities (from the Upper East and Eastern regions of Ghana) in the UK. The aim is to examine how inherent socio-economic inequalities prior to emigration impact on emigrants’ migration patterns, experiences, transnational activities and, ultimately, development outcomes at the micro and meso levels in the sending country. I argue, in this thesis, that the focus by development economists and most migration researchers on national-level macro analysis, as well as ‘location specific’ or single-site sub-national analysis, of the centrality of remittances to the enhancement of development at ‘home’ masks important nuances that are revealed by a comparative sub-national analysis. This study uses a case study approach, whereby two migrant communities are investigated in detail within their pre-migration contexts. This allows for a deeper understanding of how transnational migration practices and/or processes are influenced by, and influence their context. It examines regional socio-economic inequalities and the interconnections between migration stage, spatial scales and local development. This is achieved through a fifteen-month fieldwork using multiple research methods (key-informant interviews, in-depth structured and semi-structured interviews, surveys, participant observation and library research) in order to corroborate and triangulate findings from different sources. The thesis takes a spatiotemporal perspective in the migration-development nexus debate. Respondents for this research include economic migrants and refugees/forced migrants. Among others, I conclude that globalisation and access to effective, yet relatively cheap, technological and communications facilities have bolstered individualistic migratory decision making thus reducing the centrality of the family or household as the unit of analysis in the causes and consequences of migration discourses. Overall, the thesis aims to contribute a new, broader, and more inclusive perspective to migration research by arguing that migration-development phenomena are better appreciated through a comprehensive approach that encompasses migrants and sending communities and underlines the relationship between the two within a sub-national context.

Les inégalités de revenus et la polarisation de l'emploi ont augmenté dans plusieurs pays au cours des dernières décennies, suscitant des préoccupations d'équité ainsi que des interrogations concernant les politiques de redistribution. Cette thèse répond à deux questions primordiales. La première concerne le rôle des heures travaillées et de leur dispersion pour expliquer les inégalités de revenu; la seconde porte sur le rôle de l'offre de travail des femmes dans l'explication de la polarisation de l'emploi. Le premier chapitre utilise des données pour les États-Unis, le Royaume-Uni, l'Allemagne et la France et examine comment les inégalités de revenu sont affectées par la dispersion des heures de travail. Le principal enseignement de cette approche est que la dispersion des heures de travail peut expliquer plus d'un tiers des inégalités de revenu dans certains pays et que la corrélation entre le salaire horaire et les heures travaillées s'est accrue au fil du temps. Le second chapitre s'appuie sur les résultats du précédent et explore les mécanismes qui expliquent la tendance à la hausse de la corrélation entre salaires et heures travaillées. Nous constatons qu'une plus grande volatilité de la production agrégée et une réglementation plus stricte du marché du travail ont tendance à réduire l'élasticité, alors qu'une augmentation du commerce dans un secteur les augmente. Enfin, le troisième chapitre met l'accent sur le rôle des femmes hautement qualifiées dans l'évolution du marché des substituts de la production domestique et montre que, lorsque les femmes hautement qualifiées travaillent plus d'heures, les femmes moins qualifiées sont plus susceptibles d'être employées. / Earnings inequality and job polarization have increased in a number of countries during the last decades, raising concerns of fairness and fostering debates on the implications for redistributive policies. This thesis asks two main questions. The first concerns the relevance of hours worked and their dispersion for earnings inequality, while the second question investigates the role of female labour supply in explaining the increase in job polarization. The first chapter uses data for the USA, the UK, Germany, and France and examines how earnings inequality is affected by the dispersion of working hours. The main result of this exercise is that hours dispersion can account for over a third of earnings inequality in some countries and that the relevance of the correlation between wages and working hours has been growing over time. The second chapter builds on the results of the previous one and explores the forces behind the upward trend of the correlation between wages and working hours. We find that greater aggregate output volatility and stricter labour market regulation tend to reduce the elasticity, while a greater trade share in an industry raises it. Finally, the third chapter investigates the relevance of female employment for job polarization in Germany. The analysis focuses on the role of high-skilled females in the evolution of a market for home production substitutes and finds that when top-employed females work more hours, low-skilled women are more likely to be employed.

Diese Arbeit befasst sich mit Untersuchung der Hölder Calmness, eines Stabilitätskonzeptes das man als Verallgemeinerung des Begriffs der Calmness erhält. Ausgehend von Charakterisierungen dieser Eigenschaft für Niveaumengen von Funktionen, werden, unter der Voraussetzung der Hölder Calmness, Prozeduren zur Bestimmung von Elementen dieser Mengen analysiert. Ebenso werden hinreichende Bedingungen für Hölder Calmness studiert. Da Hölder Calmness (nichtleerer) Lösungsmengen endlicher Ungleichungssysteme mittels (lokaler) Fehlerabschätzungen beschrieben werden kann, werden auch Erweiterungen der lokalen zu globalen Ergebnissen diskutiert. Als Anwendung betrachten wir speziell den Fall von Niveaumengen von Polynomen bzw. allgemeine Lösungsmengen polynomialer Gleichungen und Ungleichungen. Eine konkrete Frage, die wir beantworten wollen, ist die nach dem Zusammenhang zwischen dem größten Grad der beteiligten Polynome sowie dem Typ, d.h. dem auftretenden Exponenten, der Hölder Calmness des entsprechenden Systems. / This thesis is concerned with an analysis of Hölder calmness, a stability property derived from the concept of calmness. On the basis of its characterization for (sub)level sets, we will cogitate about procedures to determine points in such sets under a Hölder calmness assumption. Also sufficient conditions for Hölder calmness of (sub)level sets and of inequality systems will be given and examined. Further, since Hölder calmness of (nonempty) solution sets of finite inequality systems may be described in terms of (local) error bounds, we will as well amplify the local propositions to global ones. As an application we investigate the case of (sub)level sets of polynomials and of general solution sets of polynomial equations and inequalities. A concrete question we want to answer here is, in which way the maximal degree of the involved polynomials is connected to the exponent of Hölder calmness or of the error bound for the system in question.

Introdução - A qualidade da dieta é alvo de influência das desigualdades socioeconômicas. Entretanto, há ausência de evidências quanto ao nível de desigualdade na qualidade da dieta e, embora existam esforços abrangentes para promover dietas mais saudáveis, questões relacionadas à dimensão da equidade em saúde são negligenciadas. Assim, é essencial compreender essas questões para desenvolvimento e implementação apropriada de intervenções específicas em saúde pública. Objetivo - Avaliar a qualidade da dieta da população do município de São Paulo nos anos de 2003, 2008 e 2015 e sua associação com DSS. Métodos - Foram utilizados dados do estudo transversal de base populacional ISA-Nutrição de 2003, 2008 e 2015, com amostra probabilística de adolescentes, adultos e idosos residentes no município de São Paulo. Os dados socioeconômicos e de estilo de vida foram coletados por meio de questionário semiestruturado e o consumo alimentar, por recordatórios alimentares de 24 horas. A qualidade da dieta foi avaliada com base no Índice de Qualidade da Dieta Revisado (IQD-R). Variáveis descritivas foram comparadas utilizando intervalo de confiança de 95%. Diferenças entre as médias dos escores total e dos componentes do IQD-R foram comparados em cada faixa etária, ano de estudo e DSS estruturais. A associação das desigualdades e DSS com a qualidade da dieta baseou-se em modelos de regressão linear múltipla e na estimativa do índice de concentração (IC), que permite identificar a desigualdade relacionada à renda na qualidade da dieta entre indivíduos com diferentes níveis socioeconômicos. Resultados - Observou-se melhora gradual da qualidade da dieta no período de 12 anos, sendo que os idosos foram o grupo etário com melhor pontuação global. O aumento na pontuação para população geral foi observado para frutas totais, frutas integrais, cereais integrais, óleos e sódio. O principal contribuinte para desigualdade socioeconômica na qualidade da dieta em 2003 foi grupo étnico e, em 2008 e 2015, foi renda domiciliar per capita; a idade mostrou-se como fator persistente de desigualdade na qualidade da alimentação ao longo do período estudado. Os IC indicaram que indivíduos de menor renda apresentaram maiores pontuações no IQD-R em 2003; no entanto, houve mudança em favor dos indivíduos de maior renda em 2008 e 2015. Em 2015, observou-se diferenças entre os componentes do IQD-R para escolaridade, renda, ocupação, sexo e etnia, sendo que os componentes cereais integrais, sódio e calorias provenientes de gordura sólida, bebida alcoólica e açúcar de adição estão entre os mais distantes dos valores ideais do índice. Os fatores associados positivamente à qualidade da dieta em 2015 foram número de doenças, renda e categoria \"outros\" de ocupação. Os associados negativamente foram consumo de energia, consumo de álcool, escolaridade, possuir etnia não branca e estar desempregado. Esses fatores explicam a qualidade da dieta em 54%. Conclusões - Os achados referentes às desigualdades observadas são úteis para subsidiar políticas públicas e ações específicas para diferentes níveis de escolaridade, renda, ocupação, sexo, grupo étnico e faixas etárias, além de incentivar ações voltadas ao estilo de vida saudável. / Introduction - Diet quality is influenced by socioeconomic inequalities. However, there is lack of evidence regarding the level of inequalities in diet quality, and whilst there are wide-ranging efforts to promote healthier diets, issues regarding the dimensions of equity in health are neglected. Therefore, it is essential to understand these issues for development and appropriate implementation of specific interventions in public health. Objective - To evaluate diet quality of residents in São Paulo city of 2003, 2008 and 2015 and its association with SDH. Methods - Data from the ISA-Nutrition cross-sectional study of 2003, 2008 and 2015 were used, with a probabilistic sample of adolescents, adults and older adults residents in São Paulo city. Socioeconomic and lifestyle data were collected through a semi-structured questionnaire and food consumption, through 24-hour dietary recalls. The diet quality was assessed based on the Revised Brazilian Healthy Eating Index (BHEI-R). The descriptive variables were compared using a 95% confidence interval. Differences between BHEI-R means, and its components were compared across age group, year of study and structural SDH. The association of inequalities and SDH with diet quality was based on multiple linear regression models and on the concentration index (CI), which allowed the identification of income-related inequality in diet quality among individuals with different socioeconomic levels. Results - We observed that the BHEI-R scores gradually improved over 12-years, with older adults showing the greatest improvement. The increase in overall population score was observed for total fruits, whole fruits, whole grains, oils and sodium. The main contributor to socioeconomic inequality in diet quality in 2003 was ethnic group, and in 2008 and 2015, it was per capita household income; age was a persistent factor of inequality in diet quality over the years. Concentration indices indicated that individuals with lower income had higher scores on BHEI-R in 2003; however, there was a shift in favor of higher income individuals in 2008 and 2015. In 2015, there were differences among BHEI-R components for education, income, occupation, sex and ethnic group, and the components whole grains, sodium and calories from solid fat, alcoholic beverage and added sugar are among the furthest from the index reference values. Factors positively associated with diet quality of residents in São Paulo city in 2015 were number of diseases, income and \"other\" category of occupation. Factors negatively associated were energy, alcohol consumption, education, ethnicity nonwhite and being unemployed. These factors explain the diet quality in 54%. Conclusions - The observed inequalities are useful to subsidize public policies and specific actions for different levels of education, income, occupation, sex, ethnic group and age groups, as well as to encourage actions aimed at a healthy lifestyle.

In the modern era of high and infinite dimensional data, classical statistical methodology is often rendered inefficient and ineffective when confronted with such big data problems as arise in genomics, medical imaging, speech analysis, and many other areas of research. Many problems manifest when the practitioner is required to take into account the covariance structure of the data during his or her analysis, which takes on the form of either a high dimensional low rank matrix or a finite dimensional representation of an infinite dimensional operator acting on some underlying function space. Thus, novel methodology is required to estimate, analyze, and make inferences concerning such covariances. In this manuscript, we propose using tools from the concentration of measure literature–a theory that arose in the latter half of the 20th century from connections between geometry, probability, and functional analysis–to construct rigorous descriptive and inferential statistical methodology for covariance matrices and operators. A variety of concentration inequalities are considered, which allow for the construction of nonasymptotic dimension-free confidence sets for the unknown matrices and operators. Given such confidence sets a wide range of estimation and inferential procedures can be and are subsequently developed. For high dimensional data, we propose a method to search a concentration in- equality based confidence set using a binary search algorithm for the estimation of large sparse covariance matrices. Both sub-Gaussian and sub-exponential concentration inequalities are considered and applied to both simulated data and to a set of gene expression data from a study of small round blue-cell tumours. For infinite dimensional data, which is also referred to as functional data, we use a celebrated result, Talagrand’s concentration inequality, in the Banach space setting to construct confidence sets for covariance operators. From these confidence sets, three different inferential techniques emerge: the first is a k-sample test for equality of covariance operator; the second is a functional data classifier, which makes its decisions based on the covariance structure of the data; the third is a functional data clustering algorithm, which incorporates the concentration inequality based confidence sets into the framework of an expectation-maximization algorithm. These techniques are applied to simulated data and to speech samples from a set of spoken phoneme data. Lastly, we take a closer look at a key tool used in the construction of concentration based confidence sets: Rademacher symmetrization. The symmetrization inequality, which arises in the probability in Banach spaces literature, is shown to be connected with optimal transport theory and specifically the Wasserstein distance. This insight is used to improve the symmetrization inequality resulting in tighter concentration bounds to be used in the construction of nonasymptotic confidence sets. A variety of other applications are considered including tests for data symmetry and tightening inequalities in Banach spaces. An R package for inference on covariance operators is briefly discussed in an appendix chapter.

This study seeks to understand how local and national newspaper articles and African American residents frame obstacles to returning to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. It explores how recovery planning processes and policy changes influenced the decision-making processes of African Americans displaced to Houston through a content analysis of the media and qualitative interviews with displaced and returned residents. The study shows the media and participants framed disaster recovery policies as creating opportunities and gaps in assistance that varied by location. Participants described how policy decisions that created gaps in assistance compounded the difficulty of returning for working- and middle-class African Americans. The findings suggest planners and policy makers need to consider how disaster recovery policy changes may intersect to create obstacles that impede residents' ability to return and rebuild after disasters. Contact Dr. Mosby at kmosby517@gmail.com.