Thesis. 1976. Ph.D.--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Economics. / Microfiche copy available in Archives and Dewey. / Bibliography: leaves 92-95, 182-185. / A dynamic theory of racial income differences.--Intergenerational transfers and the equilibrium distribution of earnings. / Ph.D.

Thesis. 1978. Ph.D.--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Economics. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND DEWEY. / Bibliography: leaves 191-192. / Ph.D.

The existing inequality indexes in the economics literature (including the more sophisticated indexes of Muellbauer (1974) and Jorgenson-Slesnick (1984)), are found to be insensitive to relative price changes or are unjustifiable in terms of social evaluation ethics or both. The present research fills this gap in the literature by proposing a new index, named the Individual Equivalent Income (IEI) index. A household indirect utility function is hypothesized which incorporates certain attribute parameters in the form of equivalence scales. These attributes are demographic and environmental characteristics specific to a given household. This indirect utility function gives a number which represents the utility of each member of the household. A particular level of interpersonal comparison of utilities is assumed which gives rise to an exact individual utility indicator named equivalent income. A distribution of these equivalent incomes forms the basis of a price-sensitive relative inequality index. This index can be implemented in the Canadian context. Preferences are assumed to be nonhomothetic translog and demand data are derived from cross-section surveys and time-series aggregates. Based on demand data, the translog equivalent income function can be estimated and equivalent incomes imputed to all individuals in society. An Atkinson index of equivalent incomes is then computed to indicate the actual degree of inequality in Canada. The new IEI index is compared with other indexes based on a common data set. The main findings are: conventional indexes give bad estimates of the true extent of inequality and the IEI index, while providing a more accurate estimate, indicates distributive price impact in a predictable manner, i.e., food price inflation aggravates while transportation price inflation ameliorates the inequality problem. / Arts, Faculty of / Vancouver School of Economics / Graduate

At the core of the theoretical part of this thesis is a review of recent attempts at incorporating income distribution in economy-wide models. Most existing models are very detailed and complex but the mechanisms which dominate the results are simple and determined by conveniently extreme assumptions about prices and wages. Typically, prices are either all rigid or all flexible; the treatment of agriculture is unsatisfactory; and dualism in the labour market is ignored. A convincing case for the alleged insensitivity of the distribution of income to policy interventions can not be based on these models. The major part of the thesis describes two models, for Tanzania and Kenya, and their results. In the first model the emphasis is on the effects of migration and economic growth on the urban income distribution. It describes an economy in which neither prices nor wages respond to changes in market conditions. Distinctive features of the Kenya model include its submodel for smallholder agriculture, educational 'bumping' in the labour market and its emphasis on trade and pricing policies. The models are used to estimate the effects of policies (wages, trade, pricing, investment allocation, land redistribution) on growth and income distribution. The results contradict some of the conventional wisdom about the two countries. The models explicitly recognise a number of market imperfections, especially in the labour market, which are crucial in determining distributional changes but which are usually ignored in modelling. The results reveal a greater sensitivity of the distribution of income to changes in policies than has been found with some other models.

published_or_final_version / Statistics / Master / Master of Social Sciences

Typescript (photocopy). / Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries

Li, Nan. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 88-90). / Abstract also in Chinese. / Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1 --- Overview --- p.1 / Chapter 1.2 --- Literature on Illegal Immigration --- p.2 / Chapter 1.3 --- Literature on Income Distribution --- p.4 / Chapter 1.4 --- Outline and Contribution --- p.5 / Chapter 2 --- The Solow Model of Illegal Immigration --- p.7 / Chapter 2.1 --- The Basic Model --- p.7 / Chapter 2.2 --- Equilibrium and Transitional Dynamics --- p.10 / Chapter 2.2.1 --- Aggregate level --- p.10 / Chapter 2.2.2 --- Individual level --- p.12 / Chapter 3 --- Sensitivity Analysis in the Solow Model --- p.16 / Chapter 3.1 --- Benchmark Example --- p.16 / Chapter 3.2 --- Input Shares --- p.18 / Chapter 3.3 --- Share of Unskilled Labor 0 --- p.20 / Chapter 3.4 --- Different Initial Value of Capital --- p.21 / Chapter 4 --- The Ramsey Model of Illegal Immigration --- p.23 / Chapter 4.1 --- The Basic Model --- p.24 / Chapter 4.2 --- Transitional Dynamics and Equilibrium --- p.26 / Chapter 4.2.1 --- Transitional Dynamics --- p.26 / Chapter 4.2.2 --- Steady State --- p.27 / Chapter 5 --- Sensitivity Analysis in the Ramsey Model --- p.28 / Chapter 5.1 --- Benchmark Example --- p.29 / Chapter 5.2 --- Input Share --- p.30 / Chapter 5.3 --- Elasticity of Substitution 0 --- p.31 / Chapter 5.4 --- Penalty Ratio r --- p.32 / Chapter 5.5 --- Different Initial Value of Capital --- p.33 / Chapter 5.5.1 --- Case 1 k10 < k20 --- p.34 / Chapter 5.5.2 --- Case 2 k10 > k20 --- p.35 / Chapter 6 --- Comparison and Conclusion --- p.36

This thesis contributes to two completely unrelated debates in the economic literature, similar only in the relatively high degree of controversy characterizing each one. <p>The first part is methodological and macroeconomic in nature, addressing the question of whether the distribution of income across countries is converging (i.e. are the poor catching up to the rich?) or diverging (i.e. are we witnessing the formation of two exclusive clubs, one for poor countries and another one for rich countries?). Applications of the simple Markov model to this question have generated evidence in favor of the divergence hypothesis. In the first chapter, I critically review these results. I use statistical inference to show that the divergence results are not statistically robust, and I explain that this instability of the results comes from the application of a model for discrete data to data that is actually continuous. In the second chapter, I reposition the whole convergence-divergence debate by placing it in the context of Silverman’s classic survey of non-parametric density estimation techniques. This allows me to use the basic notions of fuzzy logic to adapt the simple Markov chain model to continuous data. When I apply the newly adapted Markov chain model to the cross-country distribution question, I find evidence against the divergence hypothesis, and this evidence is statistically robust. <p>The second part of the thesis is empirical and microeconomic in nature. I question whether observed differences between husbands’ and wives’ participation in labor markets are due to different preferences or to different constraints. My identification strategy is based on the idea that the more power an individual has relative to his/her partner, the more his/her actions will reflect his/her preferences. I use 2001 PSID data on cohabiting couples to estimate a simultaneous equations model of the spousal time allocation decision. My results confirm the stylized fact that specialization and trade does not explain time allocation for couples in which the wife is the primary breadwinner, and suggest that power could provide a more general explanation of the observations. My results show that wives with relatively more power choose to work more on the labor market and less at home, whereas husbands with more power choose to do the opposite. Since women start out from a lower level of labor market participation than men do, it would seem that spouses’ agree that the ideal mix of market work and housework lies somewhere between the husbands’ and the wives’ current positions. / Doctorat en sciences économiques, Orientation économie / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished