M.Comm. / The central question addressed by this study is how a Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) for South Africa can be use to measure the impact of fiscal policy on the well being of South Africa's society and therefore assist fiscal policy makers in the making of Fiscal Policy in South Africa. As a starting point, this study will define the concept of poverty and look at income distribution as a measure of welfare. The questions to be raised in this section are: What is the importance of income distribution? How does South Africa compare in an international perspective and how does the different sources of data in South Africa compare with one another? How can inequality be measured? What does a profile of South Africa's poor looks like and what is the burden of poverty that they have to deal with? The second section of this study describes South Africa's Fiscal Policy in order to understand its impact on societies well being. More specifically, it examines: The failures of recent fiscal policy and its lessons for the future; and The government's GEAR (Growth, Employment and Redistribution) policy. Section three investigates possible fiscal policy interventions for attacking poverty. The following questions are addressed: Which programmes can the government implement in order to address poverty? What is the priorities for action? The fourth and final section of the study looks at the Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) as a method for measuring the impact of fiscal policy on the well being of a society. It is discussed from various perspectives in order to arrive at a thorough understanding of its scope and nature, including: o What is a Social Accounting Matrix and does it exists in South Africa? o How can a Social Accounting Matrix assist fiscal policy makers?

The role of monetary policy on the cyclical behavior of the labor share and capacity utilization in the US economy is studied empirically. Previous estimation results remain robust; the inclusion of the rate of interest does not alter the underlying specification of the distributive demand regime. Next, the role of monetary policy on net borrowing flows for four institutional sectors are analyzed. Interest rate effects appear most important for households. Based on this finding, implications for countercyclical stabilization policy are spelled out. (author's abstract)

This dissertation introduced a method to construct a new measure for trade flows within a region using nighttime lights. After analyzing the relation between lights data and other proxies of economic human activity, I employed light data and econometric techniques to estimate the bilateral trade between any two regions around the world. Using these estimations, I estimated the overall internal trade volume for all countries. Moreover, I estimated the effect of internal trade within a state of the United States on the state’s income. The first essay proposed nighttime lights as an alternative proxy for economic activity to be used in gravity regressions. Due to the well-known problems in the measurement of gross domestic or regional products, gravity regressions based on both international and intranational trade data suffer from potential biases. At both international and intranational levels, log nighttime lights positively and significantly enter the gravity regressions (with a coefficient of roughly one) that explain at least about half of the variance in exports. The results were shown to be robust to the inclusion of several control variables and the consideration of predicted trade flows. Trade within a nation and internal distance are variables known to play key roles in explaining home bias and the distance puzzle in international trade literature, but data on these measures are limited to only a few countries. To address this problem, in the second essay, I constructed micro-founded measures of internal trade and internal distances from satellite data on nighttime lights. By estimating the gravity equation coefficients using the simulated method of distance estimation, I constructed the bilateral trade flow at subnational scale and aggregated it to overall internal trade. I found my internal trade measure is highly correlated with its benchmark, the difference between GDP and total exports; however, I showed it has more information and is a more precise measure for developed countries, which have a large amount of non-tradable services included in their national income account data. The internal distance measure is generated as the lights-weighted average distances between the states within a country. While my internal distance measure is largely correlated with its alternative, which is constructed based on city-level population data, it does not suffer from the uncertainty surrounding population data. Correlation between trade and income cannot identify the effect of trade because of the endogeneity problem. The third essay examined this relationship at subnational level and by focusing on instrumenting trade via time varying geographic factors. Proximity and economic size are determinants of trade that are uncorrelated with other income determinants. This experiment not only confirmed the effect of interregional trade, but also provided evidence that intraregional trade has a large and statistically significant impact on income. I found, however, that the effect of both trade measures is statistically similar; a one percentage point increase in the interregional and intraregional trade ratio increases income per person by 2 to 4 percent.

This dissertation analyzes both the economics of the defense contracting process and the impact of total dollar obligations on the economies of U.S. states. Using various econometric techniques, I will estimate relationships across individual contracts, state level output, and income inequality. I will achieve this primarily through the use of a dataset on individual contract obligations. The first essay will catalog the distribution of contracts and isolate aspects of the process that contribute to contract dollar obligations. Accordingly, this study describes several characteristics about individual defense contracts, from 1966-2006: (i) the distribution of contract dollar obligations is extremely rightward skewed, (ii) contracts are unevenly distributed in a geographic sense across the United States, (iii) increased duration of a contract by 10 percent is associated with an increase in costs by 4 percent, (iv) competition does not seem to affect dollar obligations in a substantial way, (v) contract pre-payment financing increases the obligation of contracts from anywhere from 62 to 380 percent over non-financed contracts. The second essay will turn to an aggregate focus, and look the impact of defense spending on state economic output. The analysis in chapter two attempts to estimate the state level fiscal multiplier, deploying Difference-in-Differences estimation as an attempt to filter out potential endogeneity bias. Interstate variation in procurement spending facilitates utilization of a natural experiment scenario, focusing on the spike in relative spending in 1982. The state level relative multiplier estimate here is 1.19, and captures the short run, impact effect of the 1982 spending spike. Finally I will look at the relationship between defense contracting and income inequality. Military spending has typically been observed to have a negative relationship with income inequality. The third chapter examines the existence of this relationship, combining data on defense procurement with data on income inequality at the state level, in a longitudinal analysis across the United States. While the estimates do not suggest a significant relationship exists for the income share of the top ten percent of households, there is a significant positive relationship for the income share of top one percent households for an increase in defense procurement.

In this thesis, I analyze whether nutritional intake at the time of adolescence can impact academic attainment and earnings later on in life. Millions of children in the United States are living in food insecure households and do not have access to an adequate nutritious diet. Since adolescence is a time period of intense growth and development, it is essential to meet nutritional needs at this time. Using data from the Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health), I measure the nutrition of a nationally representative sample of youth in the United States through their daily food intake, and test the effects nutrition during adolescence has on future outcomes. I find a positive relationship between healthy eating and educational achievement, as well as a negative relationship between unhealthy eating and educational attainment. Nutrition has a smaller effect on earnings, but the results show that there is a minor negative relationship between healthy eating and earnings.

This thesis first presents a general procedure for decomposing income inequality measures by income source. The first method draws on the literature of ethical social index numbers to construct a decomposition based on a weighted sum of the inequality indices for the respective component distributions. The second method is based on the Shap- ley value of transferable utility cooperative games. The ethical and technical properties of the decompositions are examined, showing that the interactive technique has some previously known decompositions as special cases. In the third chapter I examine the contribution of differences in educational attain- ment to earnings inequality using the interactive decomposition by factor sources, intro- duced in chapter two, of the Atkinson-Kolm-Sen inequality index. I first use an estimated sample-selection model to decompose predicted labour earnings of a random sample of Canadians into a base level and a part due to returns to education. I do this decomposi- tion once ignoring the effect education has on the probability of being employed and once accounting for this fact. I then calculate the contribution of these two sources of earnings to inequality measured by a S-Gini index of relative inequality for the full sample as well as two separate age cohorts. The results indicate that approximately one half to two thirds of measured inequality can be directly attributed to returns to education while the interaction between the two sources post-secondary. The fourth chapter uses the earnings model from the third chapter to conduct policy simulations for broadly based policies, low targeted policies, and high targeted policies. I demonstrate that the policies targeting low education individuals produce a larger increase in social welfare than do the other two types of policy. / Arts, Faculty of / Vancouver School of Economics / Graduate

Household savings performance has been of great interest to researchers as a result of its close association with supporting an environment conducive to investment and economic growth. South African savings rates have been declining with household savings showing a significant deterioration over the past two decades. Policymakers are primarily occupied with investigating methods to encourage savings and control consumption levels. However there remains some ambiguity regarding the variables that impact household savings behaviour. Higher domestic savings can assist with improving South Africa’s GDP growth rate, which has not realised the expected targets in recent years. The Vector Error Correction Model approach was applied to determine the long-run impact of certain variables on the household savings rate and household debt ratio. The study employed annual time series data over the 20-year period 1994 to 2013. Variables that were studied in relation to the household savings rate included youth dependency, elderly dependency, financial liberalisation and financial deepening. The impacts of financial liberalisation and financial deepening were also examined against the household debt ratio. Findings revealed that household savings are negatively impacted by youth dependency. Results for elderly dependency and financial deepening had weak explanatory power on household savings. Financial deepening was found to significantly increase household debt levels whilst the results concerning financial liberalisation were inconclusive for both the household debt and household savings variables. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2014. / lmgibs2015 / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / Unrestricted

Orientador: Denis Maracci Gimenez / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Economia / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-27T14:53:27Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 LopezRiveros_Anna_M.pdf: 2524883 bytes, checksum: 3c0c8ee898d122734c361b27b6af40eb (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015 / Resumo: Este trabalho tem como objetivo analisar os determinantes da desigualdade e da regressão do mercado de trabalho na Espanha no contexto da crise contemporânea. Para fazer isso, analisamos as condições macroeconómicas em Espanha após a entrada na União Económica e Monetária (UEM) e as condições relativas à desigualdade e ao mercado de trabalho espanhol para mostrar como essas variáveis evoluíram na Espanha a longo prazo. O análise dos determinantes da desigualdade envolve a análise de diferentes áreas mas neste estudo analisou apenas aqueles relacionados ao mercado de trabalho. Integração UEM foi um ponto de viragem no desenvolvimento econômico e social da Espanha, no entanto não resultou em uma redução dos níveis de desigualdade. As divergências da economia espanhola ao dos seus parceiros da EU e a inadequação do modelo produtivo nas perturbações econômicas, têm condicionado um modelo de desenvolvimento de pouca permeabilidade com efeitos adversos sobre o mercado de trabalho, questionando a homogeneização econômica num contexto comunitário marcado diferenciação entre centro e periferia. Não houve grandes mudanças nos indicadores de desigualdade desde a adesão da Espanha na UEM, apesar de um ciclo econômico expansivo com elevada capacidade de geração de emprego e que a Espanha não conseguiu superar um modelo de desenvolvimento de baixa produtividade e diversificação econômica limitada favorecendo os desequilíbrios que, no clima econômico atual, foram consolidadas como estruturais e têm impactado diretamente na distribuição da renda das famílias. Os efeitos da crise econômica, as suas determinantes e as medidas adotadas para enfrentá-los neste contexto europeu ampliou a diferença de renda da cidadania afetando diretamente os níveis de desigualdade e pobreza em Espanha. Poderiam, portanto, definir três determinantes do aumento da desigualdade na Espanha: a constrição dos salários, a desestruturação do emprego e o desemprego / Abstract: This thesis aims to make an approach of the determinants of inequality and regression of the labor market in Spain in the context of the contemporary crisis. To do this, we have analyzed the macroeconomic conditions in Spain after the integration into the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) and the conditions regarding inequality and the Spanish labor market, to show how these variables have evolved in Spain in the long run. While the analysis of the determinants of inequality involves the analysis of different areas, this study analyzed only those related to the labor market. EMU integration was a turning point in the economic and social development of Spain. However, the economic growth experienced by the country following accession did not result in a reduction in the levels of inequality which have been increased in the current economic context redefining the distribution pattern of the country. The divergences of the Spanish economy versus of its EU partners and the unsuitability of the productive model towards economic avatars, have conditioned a model of development with low permeability and with adverse effects on the labor market, questioning the idea of the economic homogenization in a Community context with marked differentiation between center and periphery. It notes that there have been no major changes in indicators of inequality since the accession of Spain in the EMU, despite an expansive economic cycle with high capacity to generate employment, and that Spain has failed to overcome a development model of low productivity and limited economic diversification favoring the imbalances in the current economic context which have been consolidated as structural and which have impacted directly in the distribution of household income. The effects of the economic crisis, its determinants and the measures adopted to face them in this community context have expanded the income gap among the citizenship, affecting directly the levels of inequality and poverty in Spain. We could, therefore, define three determinants of rising inequality in Spain: the constriction of wages, the failure of employment and unemployment / Mestrado / Economia Social e do Trabalho / Mestra em Desenvolvimento Econômico

This doctoral thesis analyses the changes in income inequality in post-apartheid South Africa. The thesis adds to the existing literature by explaining the underlying causes of the changes in observed income inequality. As such, this thesis applies different decomposition methods to the Gini coefficient. In the analysis of household income sources, traditional static decompositions are supplemented by applying micro-simulations that allow for a dynamic decomposition of changes in income sources reported in household surveys. The results corroborate previous findings of the significant contribution of labour market incomes and governmen grants. However, the application of advanced dynamic methods highlights the effects of changes in other factors, such as investment income and the role of employed household members, which have previously received less attention. Further study of household survey data and a unique set of tax administration data enabled a decomposition of the Gini coefficient of taxable income to investigate the effect of high earners on income inequality and the accuracy of capturing them in household surveys. This analysis highlights a significant weighting issues of high earners in the latest wave of the household survey data. Therefore, when combining the two types of data sets, a significant decrease in overall inequality of taxable income can be found between 2011 and 2014. The results ascertain the vast differences between the top and the bottom of the income distribution and concrete policies addressing both sides of the issue need to be implemented in order to overcome persisting income inequality. Finally, the strong effects of labour market incomes on overall income inequality warrant further investigation. Therefore, changes in earnings inequality are decomposed to assess the effect of changes in the labour market. The application of micro-simulations thereby allows to decompose the changes in earnings inequality into ‘price effect' and ‘endowment effect' but also to assess the effect of changes in labour market participation, employment, occupational structure and unobserved characteristics. The results show that key drivers of an increase in earnings inequality between 1993 and 2012 were changes in the endowments of working age individuals. This effect was partially counteracted by the price effect. The findings show persisting discrepancies between male and female employment in the labour market and the ongoing marginalization particularly of African women which highlights the need for a revision of existing affirmative action laws and their implementation. The National Development Plan offers several strategies for more inclusive growth for South Africa, however, government is already falling behind with its implementation. Therefore, policy makers need to re-examine the efficiency of current social spending and labour laws in order to set the right growth path for the South African economy. The methods utilized throughout this thesis harmonise different sources of information and enable an integrated analysis of the dynamics of the South African income distribution. The static and dynamic decompositions make use of the 1993 household survey of the Project for Statistics on Living Standards and Development (PSLSD) and the 2008 and 2014 National Income Dynamics Study (NIDS). The assessment of high earners is performed by comparing tax administration data provided by the South African Revenue Service (SARS) for the 2010 and 2014 tax years with household survey data from NIDS in 2011 and 2014. Finally, the decomposition of earnings inequality is carried out using data sets from the Post-Apartheid Labour Market Series (PALMS) between 1993 and 2012.

In a time of decreasing participation in party politics across Europe, both protests and deliberation can be studied as means of expressing political opinion that have not seen the same decline. Traditionally, protests and deliberation have been considered mutually exclusive. This notion has later been challenged, indicating that these factors coexist in democratic societies.The aim of this thesis is to get a better understanding of the complex causal relationship between protests and deliberative democracy in 30 European countries. This is investigated through the following research question: Do countries with high levels of protest activity also have high levels of deliberative democracy? Two contradicting hypotheses are established, where one considers protests and deliberation to be mutually exclusive while the second hypothesisconsiders them to be coexisting factors in democratic countries. To test the hypotheses, correlation matrices and regression analysis are used, adding relevant control variables (GDP per capita, population and income distribution) to the model. The results imply that protests and deliberation are not mutually exclusive, instead countries with higher levels of protest activity also have higher deliberation. However, this does not appear to be because protests itself drive deliberation, but rather that a confounding variable, measuring the percentage of national income that the bottom 40% holds, drives both protests and deliberation positively. The implications underline the importance of a more even income distribution to foster both more protests and higher deliberation. Further research to continue investigating these findings is encouraged.