This paper will address the trends of employment in correlation with technological progress. It will consider generally accepted economic theory as well as classical analysis, mathematical modeling and recent data. It is demonstrated that short-run impacts of technological advancements can cause temporary unemployment due to increased aggregate productivity. Long-run adjustments however can result in job polarization, which in turn results in income inequality. The possible negative impacts on the US economy as a whole are addressed and short-term fixes that could mitigate the undesirable side effects that come from these changes.

The main objective of this paper is to investigate the relationship between intergenerational educational mobility and income inequality. Previous research suggests that this relationship is expected to be positive, i.e. high income inequality is associated with low intergenerational educational mobility. To estimate the association between the two specified variables data on educational mobility is taken from a previous study and data on the income inequality measure, the Gini coefficient is taken from the World Bank. A weighted least square regression shows that 0.10 increase in the Gini coefficient leads to a 0.135 increase in the measure of educational mobility. Moreover, one underlying mechanism for this certain linkage is inspected. Pearson correlation between public spending on education as a percent of GDP and educational mobility show a rather strong negative association suggesting that higher spending on education is related to higher educational mobility.

In the United States, nobody can survive without depending on the income of oneself or of those that support them. Thus, economic opportunity and its skewed availability is pertinent to everyone. With income inequality in the United States measured in the early 2010s reaching some of the highest estimates among nations around the globe, people seek to investigate the forces behind this phenomenon and reverse it. This paper focuses on some of the many cycles and structures that exist to reinforce the challenges of achieving economic equality. Specifically, I extrapolate data to measure the correlations between the Great Recession and measures of income disparity. I then measure the effects across suburban, urban, and rural areas to highlight their differences. The paper further explains the relationship among the three, their relevance to the economy, and general directions in which organizations can circumvent the negative trends observed from the data.

The main purpose of this thesis is to investigate the effect of corruption on income inequality (that could serve as indicator of the welfare of whole society). Since post-communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe had issues with providing effective policies for adapting to the market economy, we want to discover main drivers of this situation. We examined previous researches that suggest both positive and negative correlation between corruption level and income inequality. Main obstacle of the research is inherent heterogeneity present across countries. Our analysis was performed on two datasets: 11 post- communist countries CEE and additional 17 European Union countries. We implemented different estimation methods and discovered that panel Vector autoregressive model is the best choice. Within the panel structure we tackled individual heterogeneity by estimating fixed effects and clustering on the country level, implemented dynamic relationship in the dependent variable and solved endogeneity problem by using instrumental variable. We found that corruption has positive relationship with income inequality. Furthermore, other important drivers are: social spending, education level and unemployment. As a result, we suggested the ways to decrease corruption on the appropriate example of...

Thesis advisor: Robert G. Murphy / This paper seeks to further establish the effects of fiscal decentralization on income inequality. While many major world organizations, such as the United Nations, and politicians are promoting the use of decentralization policies, their effects on income inequality remain largely unstudied. I add to the literature on fiscal decentralization in order to determine if it should be used as a policy tool designed to decrease income inequality. I empirically study the effects of fiscal decentralization by using a model largely based off of Akai and Sakata (2005). I quantify fiscal decentralization with two measures in order to conclude what form of fiscal decentralization, if any, should be used in order to decrease income inequality. My hope is that this paper contributes to the literature on fiscal decentralization, specifically in providing caution to politicians who haphazardly institute policies calling for increased fiscal decentralization. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2007. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Economics. / Discipline: College Honors Program.

This thesis analyzes if there, given the size of the informal sector, is an effect of corruption on income inequality, here defined as the Palma ratio. Estimations are done with a fixed effects ordinary least squares regression using panel data for 19 federal states of Brazil over every other year between 2006-2014. The results provide evidence that corruption increases income inequality when the informal sector is smaller than 37.97%, but decreases inequality when the informal sector exceeds 55.34%. The findings are robust to several sensitivity checks. The gained insight of the relationship between corruption and income inequalityusing a microeconomic perspective is the main academic contribution of this thesis.

In recent decades, there have been an increasingly large number of developing countries that have embraced external economic liberalisation policies. Following trade theory, trade liberalisation has the potential to increase employment elasticity of economic growth and hence, have a greater poverty reduction impact, compared to import-substitution or closed economies. However, critics of globalisation often emphasise that the benefits from growth may not be evenly spread; hence, the distributional impacts may have an adverse effect on the poor. Vietnam has undertaken major market-based reforms to transform itself into an outward-oriented economy. The resulting effects show that not only has Vietnam achieved significant growth, but it has also managed to satisfy all the Millennium Development Goals. However, a significant element of Vietnam’s reforms involves integrating the Vietnamese economy with world markets through trade liberalisation policies, which may affect the welfare and distributional impacts on Vietnamese households. This dissertation examines the impact of trade liberalisation on growth, poverty and inequality for Vietnam. It develops a macro-micro analytical framework whereby a dynamic computable general equilibrium (CGE) model is linked to a representative household model in order to capture these effects. The findings indicate that trade liberalisation will cause a significant increase in economic growth. The smallest gains occur under Vietnam’s unilateral trade liberalisation against ASEAN while the largest gains take place when Vietnam extends its liberalisation with the rest of the world. There will be a shift away from primary sectors towards industry-based sectors such as low-tech, intermediate manufacturing and durables. There is also substantial up-skilling of unskilled labour. Combined with the large real returns to capital goods, this will result in significant increases in both capital investments as well as in the accumulation of human capital. In addition, economic growth will induce a fall in poverty rates in Vietnam. Nonetheless, there will also be large increases in the inequality of income, especially in the rural sector. Hence, although growth has lifted a large proportion of households out of poverty, the distributional impacts have been detrimental to the most vulnerable households.

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The theoretical part of Master’s paper defines the essence of differentiation of population’s income and the problem of its optimality. A system of indexes measuring the differentiation of income was created, the relation of inequality of income and economical growth was defined and social consequences of growing differentiation of income was evaluated. A comprehensive analysis of notion of poverty was carried out, the relation between inequality of income and poverty was evaluated and drawbacks of criteria for poverty assessment were revealed. A model system of income redistribution was created, essential means of reducing income inequality and poverty as well as the problem of their efficiency were distinguished and trends of improving the redistribution system were defined. In the practical part of Master’s paper a consistent analysis of the level, dynamics and structure of the average disposed income was carried out and differences of income between the social groups of residents were identified. Comparing city and village households assessed the scope of income differentiation. A prognostication of the size of average disposed income was performed and the relation of income and other economical indices was assessed. The formulated hypotheses of the scientific research were proven. First, the structure and dynamics of income has significant differences between the social groups of residents. Second, the scope of differentiation of income in city and village households is... [to full text]

In this research, I undertake an analysis of the relationship between aggregate voter turnout and income inequality within late-modern capitalist democracies to better understand the problem of declining voter turnout in these societies. I analyse this relationship at the sub-national level using provincial-level Canadian data and at the national level through a sample of twenty-one nations. At both levels, cross-sectional time-series regression analyses of pooled data are applied. Findings are interpreted through a citizenship lens; specifically the work of T.H. Marshall (1950) and Esping-Andersen (1990), as both social and political inclusion are fundamental and constitutive elements of citizenship. Initial findings include a statistically significant negative relationship between income inequality and voter turnout, for both provincial and federal general elections in Canada (1976-2011); this relationship is also found at the national level in a sample of older democracies (1980-2013). The relationship holds using various measures of income inequality including the Gini coefficient and a range of income ratios. However, once time is controlled for in the model this relationship seems to disappear. This suggests a lack of support for the theory that income inequality has a direct impact on participation in the exercise of political power. Rather, a more fundamental factor or factors seem to be causing these societal shifts. I discuss alternate ways of understanding this relationship, including how declining voter turnout and income inequality might be related to the broader socio-political and economic changes associated with economic globalisation and the global spread of neo-liberal fiscal policies. I conclude that to better understand the relationship between voter turnout and income inequality further research is required. / Graduate / 0630 / stewartl@uvic.ca