The first essay constitutes a theory which lends truth to the Kuznets hypothesis. The attention is centered on the role of financial markets in defining the process of knowledge accumulation, and ultimately the distribution of income earning capabilities in a population of ex ante heterogeneous individuals. The provision of credit is hindered by one-sided lack of commitment embedded in the area of educational investment. Adaptation in the legislative system to accommodate a punishment scheme conditional on default is the critical requirement for the economy to be carried on a dynamic growth path, albeit one of higher and worsening inequality. Owing to the accumulation of human capital and the associated externality on future generations’ knowledge productivity, the economy ultimately makes its transition to a state of lower income differentials. The second essay is an enquiry on the role of monetary policy in determining the growth dynamics of a small open economy. We postulate that the possibility of intermediated credit does not exist, the intention of the assumption being to uncover the role of inflation as tax on private spending. The analysis brings a valid argument of the superneutrality of money. Inflation when operating as consumption tax has no impact on the growth rate of output. This is established irrespective of the labor supply be held fixed, or incorporated as endogenous decision. When imitating the role of capital taxation, inflationary policy has a negative effect on capital accumulation in a framework of fixed labor supply. However, the validity of the superneutrality result is once again reestablished in an environment accommodating the endogeneity of labor supply. The third essay is a theoretical investigation of the long-run effects of tax and expenditure policies in an open economy framework. The aim is to establish an analytic basis for the factual evidence associated with the non-monotonic response of the current account to fiscal shocks. To this endeavor we sought two sources of time non-separability in the preference structure, habit-forming consumption in consumer durable goods. Optimal private choices induce non-monotonic dynamics on consumption behavior that are exactly consistent with the evidence on the current account.

Tax estimation is a fundamental prerequisite for a sustainable fiscal policy. This paper uses the Georgian Household Survey and s simple microsimulation model in order to describe the household incomes in Georgia for the year 2005, their structure and regional distribution within eleven historical regions. Based on a thorough analysis of the existing taxable incomes and following the documentation of the applied model both a tax allowance and three percent raise of the income tax are estimated with respect to tax revenue and distributional effects. The paper comes to the conclusion that the poor income situation of most Georgian households can be mitigated by a tax allowance but is very difficult to be financed because of expected revenue losses. In spite of some progressive distributional effects of an increase of the tax burden, most households will find a very hard to cope with additional tax liabilities.

Poverty is currently wide spread in Georgia. This paper is dedicated to an analysis of the causes, the extent and the intensity of poverty in Georgia. With a strong focus on the period after Shevardnadze’s presidency, the paper shows how poverty has grown in the past 15 years. In spite of a rising per capita income, the variance within the distribution of income is also increasing. The widening gap between high and low incomes represents a danger for the Georgian society and is associated with high unemployment rates, a lack of education for entire societal strata and rising criminality. In addition, high inflation rates affect mainly low income groups. Apparently, the Rose Revolution of 2003 did not lead to an attenuation of poverty but rather intensified it.

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Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögskolan, 2005

This dissertation consists of three essays (and a short introductory chapter). Essay 1: Growth and Government - Is there a Difference between Developed and Developing Countries? In this essay we examine the role of government for growth in 64 industrialized and developing countries, considering both expenditure and financing aspects of government. Recognizing that there are differences between the two country groups leading to severe heteroskedasticity, we use weighted least squared estimations. The general conclusion is that the means of financing matters more for growth than do government spending. We find that seigniorage and budget surplus are important for growth in LDCs but not in industrialized countries, while capital revenue matters only in the latter group. Moreover, the level of indebtedness is a negative determinant of growth in LDCs. Essay 2: Economic Reforms and the Poor. This essay analyzes the effects of economic reform for different income groups. Our interest is spurred by the international debate on the social consequences of reforms and the potential adverse effects on poverty in particular. We find that the poor are in general positively affected by inflationary control, structural reforms and trade reforms, while reducing government consumption affect the poorest income quintile negatively. In contries having undertaken World Bank financed reforms actual income of the poor was higher than predicted. Moreover, as the impact of reforms was strongest on the poor, World Bank support appears to reduce income inequality. Essay 3: Structural Reforms, Uncertainty and Private Investment. Since almost two decades back a large number of LDCs have embarked on World Bank supported structural adjustment programs with the objective to promote economic growth and private investment. We consider how the design of reform programs can increase reform credibility and thus reduce uncertainty in the economy. Using a unique database on adjustment lending, we test the effects of reform on private investment behavior. We find that while political factors seem to have no effect on private investment response in reforming countries, magnitudes as well as scope of reform are important positive explanatory variables. / <p>Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögskolan, 1999</p>

Taiwan was famous for ¡§Taiwan Miracle¡¨, ¡§Four Dragon in Asia¡¨, ¡§The Role Model of the Developing Countries¡¨ with the rapid economic development. The most remarkable achievement of Taiwan was her continuous adjustment and transformation of the industrial structures. The development of the industrial structures in Taiwan usually follows the steps of the developed countries. With having a series of changing process, from the agricultural era to the industrial, service and high-tech industry, it produced a lot of impact effects, especially the unfairness of the income distribution. Hence, this thesis is going to combine the both and discusses that from the change of the industrial structures if it would be the main factors of influencing the source and level of income and then lead to the unfair distribution of wealth. From the dividing time period of 1987, the government opened our citizens to visit their relatives in Mainland China. We analyze the impact of income distribution from the change of Taiwan industrial structures by three phases of ¡§manpower investment¡¨, ¡§intensive degree of capital and technology¡¨ and ¡§export industry structure¡¨. First of all, in the phase of manpower, according to employee structure of three- level industry, service has got the first place, industry got the second place and agriculture got the last place. As a long trend view, the gap of the industrial structure is getting close and the manpower distribution is getting stable. However, the adjustment of the industrial structure has caused unemployment problem for the non-transferred low-tech labors. Especially from the 1997, the main reason of the unemployment in Taiwan is the change of the industrial structure. Moreover, Taiwan businessmen who invest a lot in Mainland China have caused magnetic effect to speed up the structural unemployment. In the phase of the intensive degree of the capital and technology, we utilize industry to observe and discover that most of the high labor-intensive industry move abroad in order to lower the labor cost. However, electric, electronic and communication commodities are toward the development of the capital intensive commodity and invest abroad to replace domestic manufacture. Moreover, according to the change of industry investment, we discover that the establishment of southern industrial park, Kaohsiung industrial park and the government incentive policy have not only speeded up the growth of high-tech industry but also promoted metal and chemical development of the mid and lower material. In the phase of the export industry structure, the Mainland China has already surpassed other countries to be the trade main area in Taiwan. In the part of the export commodity, owing to the investment of abroad, it leads to the export chain effect of domestic mechanical commodity and promotes the export of domestic material. Low-labor intensive, high-capital intensive and high-tech intensive commodities have the highest occupied rate. From the above three different phases, we discover that in the impact of change for the industry structure, it not only has significant effect for the macro economy but also deeply affects the gap of the high and low family income. According to the model of variation, if we continue to develop, the distribution of the family income is going to be an enlarged trend year by year.

Using 1991-2003 yearly statistical data from 66 counties in China’s Fujian province, we examine the relationship between GDP/capita levels and the rural-urban income gap, to see whether there exists any statistical relationship between these variables, and if such a relationship bears resemblance with the Kuznets’ “inverted U” hypothesis, predicting inequality to first rise, and then fall, as economic development proceeds. Our results point in the opposite direction; the income gap falls at the early stage of economic growth, but rises again as growth proceeds. This is the opposite of a Kuznets curve. In addition, the income gap is smaller in counties with access to coast, rivers, and highways and a higher proportion of illiterate. Moreover, the income gap is larger in counties with rugged terrain and a higher proportion of ethnic minorities.

From establishing government in 1949, Communist Party of China had pursuing a socialist system. However, over-emphasis on equal distribution lead to the individual income and the individual performance are not proportional, so that the mainland China was under the circumstances of "usually used in negative two half kilogram," and was near to the border of collapse. After Deng Xiaoping came back to power, threw away the past ideology of equal distribution, and he changed the economic system. China's economy began to advance by leaps and bounds. Nowadays, the mainland China¡¦s eco-nomic potentiality has surpassed Japan and it becomes the second economy which is only inferior to the U.S. economy. However, in so dazzling economic performance of mainland China's, the achievement of economic growth is not generally reflected in the labor standards on wages, The wages of workers in China still ranked among the last level of the world's wage classes. However, the average wage in the low social workers, the Gini coefficient is close to the bottom line of social tolerance. That is, how to set up wage growth mechanism, straighten out the relationship between income distribution has became a top priority of mainland authorities. This pay for performance system for the mainland legal system are based on the mainland of the State Council "pay for per-formance on the compulsory school system guidance," analysis to explore the subject, to be addressed. This paper is divided into seven chapters around: Chapter 1 Introduction, describes the study of this motivation, purpose, scope, methods, limits, and proposed research framework. Chapter 2 is to explore the mainland of the basic principles of pay for per-formance system, Chapter 3 of the mainland of the administrative organization of pay for performance system. Chapter 4 is to explore the mainland China of pay for perfor-mance system administrative privileges. Chapter 5and Chapter 6,are respectively to ex-plore the mainland China of performance pay system and monitoring of relief, and in Chapter 7 are conclusions and recommendations of pay for performance system

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Dept. of Economics, August 2001. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.