Rising inequalities between and within income categories (especially labour and capital) haveemerged as an increasing concern particularly in the last two decades. One of the main reasons for this has been a sharp decline in the wage share in many countries. A declining wage share refers to a decrease in the size of the total wage bill relative to either national income or net value addition (NVA). India is an important example of this situation. Trends at the level of aggregate statistics show that the wage bill has not kept up with productivity increases. This has led to a sharp decline in the wage share, leaving researchers the task of explaining the causes (and consequences) of this decline. The research contributes towards this task by critically examining one of the main avenues ofresearch that has been used in order to explain the causes of a declining wage share in India. This refers to the hypothesis according to which this trend is the outcome of increased capital intensity of employment, or more generally labour-saving investments. The study examines the relevance of this hypothesis for dynamics taking place at a disaggregated level of analysis in Indian industrial manufacturing. In order to do this, three main questions are addressed. The first is whether a declining wage share is a necessary outcome of labour-saving investments in production, or whether other factors are also important in mediating this relationship. The second is the conditions affecting the degree to which a declining wage share also involves increased income inequalities within the labour income category, and in some cases, declining real incomes for workers. The third is the relevance of drawing upon a demand and supply framework for the treatment of the question of causality in the analysis. The study answers the questions by drawing on two very different case studies. The first is thePimpri Chinchwad Industrial Township (PCIT), located in the outskirts of Pune (State ofMaharashtra, western India). The production processes characterising many of the factoriesoperating in this area are capital intensive. The second is the art metalware industry in Moradabad (State of Uttar Pradesh, northern India). The production processes taking place in the majority of units in this area are labour-intensive. The findings suggest that the factors contributing to a declining wage share cannot be analysed without at the same time examining the distributional set-ups within which technological changes take place, and how these arrangements are changing. Firstly, many of the factors contributing towards a declining wage share are not directly caused by changes in technology, and hence skill requirements, in production. This includes the weakness (and further weakening) of the mechanisms linking wages to productivity at the firm and sectoral level. Secondly, a declining wage share also involves changing income inequalities within the labour income category. The sources of these inequalities are not only linked to differentials in skills. Thirdly, this is happening in the context of speedy changes in the economy, including changing needs. This makes the links between wages and productivity an important requirement for the labour income category to be able to benefit from increased productivity, not only as workers through the wage system, but also as consumers. Lastly, many of the variables that emerge as important in the analysis cannot be subsumed under a demand and supply framework. One of the implications for the treatment of the issue of causality is the need to move away from seeking causal links in the traditional ‘cause and effect’ framework, to questions about how certain trends come about. This also has consequences for the normative side of the debate.

The Great Recession has brought income inequality to the forefront of the American psyche. Parallels have been made between the Great Depression and the Great Recession, and as such, economic history can act as a powerful analytical tool in directing policy. The first essay in Income Inequality during the Great Depression is a qualitative analysis of income transitions from 1929 to 1933 using 33 representative cities as surveyed by the Civil Works Administration. The second essay investigates the welfare effects of income inequality on infant mortality during the Depression. And the third essay on noninfant mortality gives context to the analysis of infant mortality and stillbirths.

The goal of this work is to outline the problems of equal opportunities in the Czech republic and to judge sex discrimination in the labour market and its factors.

Thesis advisor: Hideo Konishi / Thesis advisor: Alberto Alesina / This dissertation studies the interaction of politicians’ and voters’ incentives and its effect on redistributive and immigration policies. The first chapter ``Redistribution, Polarization, and Ideology'' focuses on the effect of income inequality and party polarization on redistributive policy, both theoretically and empirically. I demonstrate that income inequality and party polarization on social issues push redistributive policy in opposite directions. In particular, when the importance of ideology for the voters rises with their income, polarization discourages redistribution. Using data from the American National Election Study and the Census, I verify that it is indeed the case that the importance attached to ideological issues is increasing in the voters' income. Effects of ``income elastic'' ideology can account for the observed stability of redistribution policy in the U.S. The second chapter, ``Foreign Born U.S. Citizens and Immigration Policy'', studies the impact of immigration on immigration reforms, and decomposes the effects of naturalized and non-naturalized immigrants. Using Census data and roll call votes for the House on 2005 and 2006 immigration bills, we find that immigration affects Democratic and Republican parties differently. While the effect of non-naturalized immigrants can be explained by congressional district's socio-economic characteristics, naturalized immigrants exert an additional effect linked to their ability to vote in congressional elections. Higher naturalized immigrant population increases the probability that Democrats vote in favor of immigration, and decreases it for Republicans, suggesting opposite electoral incentives for the two parties, that can be interpreted in a framework of rational office-motivated incumbents seeking reelection. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2016. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Economics.

The purpose of this essay is to study what impact immigration has on the Swedish income distribution for the period 1992-2005. This essay uses a two-folded approach to study the income distribution, first, an income inequality measure will be investigated in order to find if the inequality increases or decreases by the increased immigration. Secondly, we estimate a quantile regression for the 10th, 50th and 90th percentiles for the period 1992, 1995, 2000 and2005, together with an OLS regression in order to find the income gap between the immigrants and natives, which is analysed for males and females separately. The study found that the inflow of immigrants increased income inequality in the lower tail of the income distribution. Immigrants at the upper tail of the income distribution are doing relatively better than the immigrants in the lower tail of the income distribution. Conclusively, independently of gender, the income gap between immigrants and natives is almost three times as large in the lower tail of the income distribution relative to the upper tail of the income distribution.

Este trabalho estima o efeito da polarização de renda sobre os índices de criminalidade para avaliar se a polarização é mais relevante que as medidas de desigualdade tradicionais na explicação da criminalidade. Para o cálculo da polarização foi utilizada a medida proposta por Duclos et al. (2004). Foram estimados modelos com dados de corte transversal e em painel, utilizando dados dos municípios paulistas, empregando-se modelos de auto-correlação espacial e System GMM. A principal conclusão deste trabalho é que a medida de polarização de renda tem efeito positivo e significativo sobre a taxa de crimes contra o patrimônio, assim como esperado inicialmente. Este resultado é robusto a alterações no peso do sentimento de identificação entre os indivíduos, α, e aos diferentes métodos econométricos e variáveis de renda utilizadas para calcular as medidas de desigualdade. / This paper estimates the effect of polarization of income on crime rates to assessing whether the polarization is more relevant than traditional measures of inequality in the explanation of crime. To calculate the polarization was used to measure proposed by Duclos et al. (2004). Models were estimated with cross-sectional and panel datas using models of spatial autocorrelation and System GMM. The main conclusion of this study is that the measure of income polarization has positive and significant effect on the rate of property crimes, as originally hoped. This result is robust to weight changes the feeling of identification among individuals, α, and different econometric methods and income variables used for calculate measures of inequality.

Thesis advisor: Robert G. Murphy / Income inequality is an issue of moral, ethical, and economic concern. Disparity in levels of wealth and income in developing countries prevents poor individuals from enjoying the same opportunities as their wealthier counterparts, and hinders the prospects for future development. FDI is one among several possible culprits responsible for increasing income inequality. As a representative of foreign control and influence in developing economies, some countries are wary of FDI. On the other hand, FDI brings the promise of jobs, technology spillovers, foreign exchange, and economic growth. Previous studies have explored the effects of FDI on income inequality in developing countries, but they have all relied on FDI data that does not distinguish between direct investment destined for the primary, secondary, and tertiary sectors. This study uses sectorally disaggregated FDI data for a sample of developing countries over the years 1990-2005 in an attempt to discern whether sector-specific features play a role in affecting domestic income inequality. While this study fails to find the FDI variables significant, it does find much support for other possible causes of income inequality, such as population growth rate and levels of urbanization within a country. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2007. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: International Studies. / Discipline: College Honors Program.

Esta dissertação busca avaliar o comportamento da renda mediana e da desigualdade de rendimentos tratando o problema de seleção, através de uma abordagem ainda não utilizada em estudos semelhantes no Brasil. A metodologia empregada busca tratar o problema de seleção utilizando apenas hipóteses fracas e pautadas em argumentos econômicos, estimando os menores intervalos possíveis para a distribuição de renda da população. Os resultados obtidos mostram que as medianas dos rendimentos potenciais em 2002 e 2004 eram inferiores aos de 1996. Adicionalmente, a desigualdade de renda potencial recuou no Brasil entre 1996 e 2006. / This dissertation aims to evaluate the median income and income inequality behavior treating the selection problem with an approach not yet used in similar studies in Brazil. The present methodology tries to address the selection problem using only weak assumptions based on economic arguments, estimating the smallest possible intervals for the population income distribution. The results show that the mean potential income of 2002 and 2004 was smaller than the one of 1996. Additionally, the potential income inequality in Brazil fell from 1996 to 2006.

This paper studies data from a 25-year period in the history of Sweden and the US, ranging from 1993 to 2017. The aim of the thesis was to investigate the impact of immigration on the income inequality of the respective countries while also considering the impact of other specific variables. In order to estimate the impact of the variables, both static and dynamic models were used, with the Gini coefficient being the dependent variable. With the ordinary least square giving short-run estimates and the error correction model providing short- and long- run estimates simultaneously, the main variable for immigration, being the foreign-born population, showed a strong positive relationship with income inequality. For the estimation, the immigration variable was also split into high- and low-skilled immigrants as well as different age groups. In conclusion, we find that immigration in Sweden and the US has high levels of influence on the income inequality for both countries.

This thesis examines the effects income inequality has on economic growth, drawing on data from China. It focuses on two related questions: whether income inequality is harmful to economic growth and, if so, why. The first empirical chapter uses a newly-developed panel dataset at the province level to examine the long-run impact of income inequality on economic growth, addressing the problem of spurious regression that affects much of the existing literature. The empirical results indicate that the long-run effect of income inequality on economic growth is non-linear: while income inequality exerts a positive impact on economic growth for rich provinces, it is harmful to economic growth for poor regions. The second empirical chapter provides mathematical and empirical evidence that demonstrates the deficiencies in existing studies that solely rely on macroeconomic data. It examines three mainstream transmission mechanisms by using data at both the household and village level. At the village level, the empirical results show that income inequality leads to lower economic growth. However, at the household level, income inequality is positively linked to income growth for households with low levels of initial income. Such seemingly contradictory results agree with the predictions of my mathematical example and suggest that the political economy channel is responsible for the inequality-growth relationship in rural China. The last empirical chapter examines whether inequality and growth are linked across generations by evaluating the impact of the One Child Policy on fertility and education in China. Using a difference-in-differences approach, the empirical results suggest that the One Child Policy successfully lowered the probability of having a child for Han women and increased the probability of attending school for Han children. This empirical evidence indicates that the endogenous fertility channel operates in China.