社會安全制度，以社會保險及公共救助為主體，兩者之中尤以社會保險為骨幹，社會保險通常扮演著重要的角色。當中一項重要的功能即為所得（財富）重分配功能，亦即政府借助社會保險之力，達成安定經濟社會與改善國民所得分配不均，以達公平之目標。 本文在實證方法上採用「吉尼係數法」與「變異係數法」來計算社會保險的所得重分配效果。利用民國八十五年至民國九十一年行政院主計處「中華民國臺灣地區家庭收支調查報告」之調查資料，探討臺灣地區所得分配不均度上升的原因是否來自於城鄉差異，其次是社會保險政策對於平衡城鄉差距是否有助益。 為了衡量社會保險的所得重分配效果是否會因城鄉發展程度之不同而有所差異，將臺灣地區內之城市分為都市、城鎮及鄉村三級，其分層標準係依照行政院主計處「中華民國臺灣地區家庭收支調查報告」之標準分類。本研究以城鄉別與社會保險為研究主軸，探討臺灣社會保險的所得重分配效果是否在不同城鄉間會有所影響。 綜合研究結果及分析，對於民國八十五至九十一年社會保險實施的所得重分配效果所得到的結論為：1.臺灣地區自民國八十五年後無論是區分層級或整體所得分配效果上的吉尼係數均有逐漸縮小的趨勢，代表政府對於平均所得分配之努力是有所成效的。2.在吉尼係數法下，除了「都市層」外，社會保險實施後「城鎮層」、「鄉村層」與整體所得分配效果的吉尼係數值均高於較社會保險實施前，顯示社會保險政策在平衡城鄉所得差異上的力量似乎薄弱了些。3.在變異係數法下，無論是分層效果或是整體效果實施社會保險後整體的所得分配平均化力量均減弱，故社會保險政策在平均所得分配的效果上似乎沒有達到預期的成效。4.綜合上述兩種方法，除了吉尼係數法下的「都市層」有達成社會保險的所得重分配效果外，吉尼係數法與變異係數法的其他層級和整體效果分析均顯示出實施社會保險未達成所得重分配的效果。 / Social insurance and public rescue are two main components of social security system. Especially, social insurance is also the skeleton of social security system, which has many important functions, one of which is improving the inequity of people’s income assignment. It means that the government redistributes people’s income through social insurance to achieve the goal of equity and further to stabilize economic society. This article uses the data of "Republic of China Taiwan area family budget survey reported", which comes from 1996 to 2002 Directorate－General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics, Executive Yuan, R.O.C.(Taiwan), as investigation material. We calculate the income redistribution effect of social insurance by means of "Gini Coefficient method" and "Coefficient of Variation method". This article has two issues, one of which discusses whether the income inequality in Taiwan does come from the difference between city and countryside. The other one is the benefit of social security policy to balance of disparity of city and countryside. In order to assess whether the income redistribution effects of social security has the difference between cities, we divide the cities in Taiwan into three groups: metropolis, countries and villages, according to standard classification of the investigation material. We use difference between cities and social insurance as two axes of our study to evaluate the effect of income redistribution between different cities. To the effect of social insurance on income redistribution from 1996 to 2002, our study has following findings. First, regardless of classification or summation analysis, the Gini coefficient of income redistribution was gradually reducing from 1996 to 2002. This means that income redistribution policy of government is effective. Second, in Gini Coefficient method, country group and village group had higher Gini Coefficient than before executing social insurance policy. The conclusion shows the influence of social insurance was still not efficient. Third, in Coefficient of Variation method, classification and summation analysis both revealed income redistribution was weaker than before executing social insurance policy, so the policy did not achieve the expected effect. From the above findings, although the metropolis group in Coefficient method did improve income redistribution, other analysis did not achieve the goal of income redistribution.

<p>This study seeks to assess the level of women&rsquo / s participation and involvement in the promotion of effective governance during the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) implementation exercise in 2007, which was endorsed by the APRM Western Cape Province. The interest of the study arises from the concept of &lsquo / good governance&rsquo / and how the implementation of such a concept is carried out in the rendering of public services, specifically the role of women in rendering public service in the Western Cape Province, South Africa.</p>

This thesis studies the effects of specific community- driven developer programmes run in Evaton West over the past three years (200011 to 200314) on poverty in the area. These programmes were targeted at poverty reduction and community development in Evaton West, driven by the Eindhoven municipality and COL~AP~A'@. The relationship between the Eindhoven Municipality and the Ernfuleni Municipality started as a result of the twinning of Tilburg and Eindhoven cities in the Netherlands with the erstwhile LekoaNaal Local Metropolitan Council. Evaton West was chosen as a pilot site for Eindhoven to run practical IDP programmes at, as an example of what can be achieved from properly run community-based programmes. COL~AP~Aw' as introduced to Evaton West by the Vaal University of Technology's Community Service department. Its programmes were aimed at poverty alleviation through small-scale business initiatives coupled with leadership training in the area. The approach in the thesis is to define poverty, measure it and determine the profile of the poor. This is done firstly employing household-level indicators and secondly employing community-level indicators. At household level, some of the following tools are used: the poverty line (HSL), headcount index, the poverty gap, dependency ratio, the Lorenz curve and the Gini coefficient. Unemployment is also used to determine poverty levels. At community level, the thesis employs tools such as community characteristics, community assets, principal services, education, health and environmental issues. The thesis ends with specific recommendations. In particular, formation of co-operatives and the introduction of the basic income grant (BIG) are proposed. The thesis shows that compared to Bophelong, which is approximately similar to Evaton West in terms of age and composition of residents (especially based on age analysis), Evaton West is worse-off judging by poverty and welfare at household level. It proposes that one of the problems is Evaton West's geographical displacement. The thesis also shows that compared to three years ago, Evaton west is marginally better-off judging from the community indicators applied. It ascribed such improvement to the application of the above-stated community-driven development projects in Evaton West. Finally, the thesis suggests that one of the major solutions in dealing with poverty is to consider small-scale, home-based industries that allow for easy entry. Such projects can only succeed if they are approached in an integrated manner in which local authorities are fully involved. Labour absorption capacity of large industries is declining. This forces policy-making to be redirected to alternative sources of employment. The thesis contributes ways in which community-driven development programmes may be assessed at household and community levels. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Economics))--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2004.

This thesis studies the effects of specific community- driven developer programmes run in Evaton West over the past three years (200011 to 200314) on poverty in the area. These programmes were targeted at poverty reduction and community development in Evaton West, driven by the Eindhoven municipality and COL~AP~A'@. The relationship between the Eindhoven Municipality and the Ernfuleni Municipality started as a result of the twinning of Tilburg and Eindhoven cities in the Netherlands with the erstwhile LekoaNaal Local Metropolitan Council. Evaton West was chosen as a pilot site for Eindhoven to run practical IDP programmes at, as an example of what can be achieved from properly run community-based programmes. COL~AP~Aw' as introduced to Evaton West by the Vaal University of Technology's Community Service department. Its programmes were aimed at poverty alleviation through small-scale business initiatives coupled with leadership training in the area. The approach in the thesis is to define poverty, measure it and determine the profile of the poor. This is done firstly employing household-level indicators and secondly employing community-level indicators. At household level, some of the following tools are used: the poverty line (HSL), headcount index, the poverty gap, dependency ratio, the Lorenz curve and the Gini coefficient. Unemployment is also used to determine poverty levels. At community level, the thesis employs tools such as community characteristics, community assets, principal services, education, health and environmental issues. The thesis ends with specific recommendations. In particular, formation of co-operatives and the introduction of the basic income grant (BIG) are proposed. The thesis shows that compared to Bophelong, which is approximately similar to Evaton West in terms of age and composition of residents (especially based on age analysis), Evaton West is worse-off judging by poverty and welfare at household level. It proposes that one of the problems is Evaton West's geographical displacement. The thesis also shows that compared to three years ago, Evaton west is marginally better-off judging from the community indicators applied. It ascribed such improvement to the application of the above-stated community-driven development projects in Evaton West. Finally, the thesis suggests that one of the major solutions in dealing with poverty is to consider small-scale, home-based industries that allow for easy entry. Such projects can only succeed if they are approached in an integrated manner in which local authorities are fully involved. Labour absorption capacity of large industries is declining. This forces policy-making to be redirected to alternative sources of employment. The thesis contributes ways in which community-driven development programmes may be assessed at household and community levels. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Economics))--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2004.

O dilema do prisioneiro (DP) é um dos principais jogos da teoria dos jogos. No dilema do prisioneiro discreto (DPD), dois prisioneiros têm as opções de cooperar ou desertar. Um jogador cooperador não delata seu comparsa, já um desertor delata. Se um cooperar e o outro desertar, o cooperador fica preso por cinco anos e o desertor fica livre. Se ambos cooperarem, ficam presos por um ano e, se ambos desertarem, ficam presos por três anos. Quando o DP é repetido, a cooperação pode emergir entre agentes egoístas. Realizamos um estudo analítico para o DPD, que produziu uma formulação da evolução do nível médio de cooperação e da tentação crítica (valor de tentação que causa mudança abrupta do nível de cooperação). No dilema do prisioneiro contínuo (DPC), cada jogador apresenta um nível de cooperação que define o grau de cooperação. Utilizamos o DPC para estudar o efeito da personalidade dos jogadores sobre a emergência da cooperação. Para isso, propusemos novas estratégias: uma baseada na personalidade dos jogadores e outras duas baseadas na comparação entre o ganho obtido e a aspiração do jogador. Todas as estratégias apresentavam algum mecanismo de cópia do estado do vizinho com maior ganho na vizinhança, mecanismo este, herdado da estratégia darwiniana. Os resultados mostraram que o DPC aumenta o nível médio de cooperação do sistema, quando comparado ao DPD. No entanto, as diferentes estratégias não aumentaram a cooperação comparado à cooperação obtida com a estratégia darwiniana. Então propusemos o uso do coeficiente de agrupamentos, coeficiente de Gini e entropias de Shannon, Tsallis e Kullback-Leibler para classificar os sistemas, em que os agentes jogam o DPD com a estratégia darwiniana, quanto ao nível de cooperação. Como analisamos valores de médias configuracionais, tais classificadores não foram eficientes ao classificar os sistemas. Isso é consequência da existência de distribuições de extremos nos resultados que compõem as médias. As distribuições de extremos suscitaram uma discussão acerca da definição do regime de cooperação no dilema do prisioneiro. Discutimos também as consequências de utilizar apenas valores médios nos resultados ignorando seus desvios e as distribuições. / Prisoner\'s dilemma (PD) is one of the main games of game theory. In discrete prisoner\'s dilemma (DPD), two prisoners have the options to cooperate or to defect. A cooperator player does not defect his accomplice, while a defector does. If one player cooperates and the other defects, the cooperator gets jailed for five years and the defector goes free. If both cooperate, they get jailed during one year and if both defect, they get jailed during three years. When this game is repeated, cooperation may emerge among selfish individuals. We perform an analytical study for the DPD, that produced a formulation for the evolution of the mean cooperation level and for the critical temptation values (temptation values that promote abrupt modifications in the cooperation level). In continuous prisoner\'s dilemma (CPD), each player has a level of cooperation that defines his/her degree of cooperation. We used the CPD to study the effect of the players\' personality on the emergence of cooperation. For this, we propose new strategies: one based on the players\' personality and two others based on the comparison between the player\'s obtained payoff and the desire one. All strategies present some mechanism that copies the state of the neighbor with the highest payoff in the neighborhood, mechanism inherited from the Darwinian strategy. The results showed that the CPD increases the average cooperation level of the system when compared to DPD. However, different strategies do not increased the cooperation compared to cooperation obtained with the Darwinian strategy. So, we propose the use of cluster coefficient, Gini coefficient and entropy of Shannon, Tsallis and Kullback-Leibler as classifiers to classify systems, in which the individuals play DPD with Darwinian strategy, by the cooperation level. As configurational averages were analyzed, such classifiers were not efficient in classifying the systems. This is due to the existence of distributions with extreme values of the results that compose the means. Distributions with extremes values emerged a discussion about the definition of the cooperation state in the prisoner\'s dilemma. We also discussed the consequences of using only average results in the analysis ignoring their deviations and distributions.

O objetivo primordial deste trabalho é analisar se a democracia é uma instituição política que produz resultados econômicos menos desiguais do que os regimes autoritários. A importância deste tema reside no fato que a própria promoção da democracia na agenda da política internacional tornou-se fundamental por inúmeras razões entre as quais sua suposta propensão em reduzir estas disparidades econômicas. Em primeiro lugar apresentamos no Capítulo 1 um balanço da discussão teórica e empírica a partir da qual constatamos que, a despeito do senso comum de que a democracia está relacionada a uma cidadania mais igualitária, os seus efeitos sobre a desigualdade ainda são discutíveis. Mesmo existindo um razoável consenso teórico de que os regimes democráticos devem, de alguma forma, produzir uma melhor distribuição de bens, os resultados empíricos são inconclusivos e contraditórios. Em seguida, diante de tal impasse empírico, propomos no Capítulo 2 uma reformulação da argumentação na qual entendemos que os efeitos da democracia sobre a desigualdade devem ser reinterpretados. A principal contribuição da tese reside na constatação, tanto teórica quanto empírica, de que estes efeitos são heterogêneos e interagem com o próprio nível de desigualdade, e, por conseguinte, é equivocado o suposto de que esses efeitos são homogêneos e independentes do contexto sócio-econômico da desigualdade. No Capítulo 3 apresentamos os dados e os conceitos de democracia e desigualdade. Assumimos que democracia se caracteriza como o regime político no qual os líderes competem entre si por meio de eleições e verificamos se os seus efeitos variam ao longo da própria distribuição de desigualdade econômica mensurada pelo coeficiente de GINI. Para tal análise, realizamos uma série de modelos de regressão quantílica, a metodologia adequada para avaliar o debate sobre a heterogeneidade versus homogeneidade dos efeitos. O argumento teórico, a partir do qual elabora-se a hipótese dos efeitos heterogêneos, refere-se à necessidade de uma convergência entre os interesses eleitorais dos partidos o lado da oferta e as clivagens sobre as quais uma potencial maioria dos eleitores tem interesse em ser atendido o lado da demanda por políticas públicas e plataformas. Isto posto, é 9 necessário discutir as condições que estimulam as lideranças políticas a utilizarem o problema da desigualdade econômica como argumento eleitoral e as condições nas quais surge uma demanda dos cidadãos por redistribuição via ação estatal. Somente nas sociedades mais desiguais tanto os partidos políticos têm interesse em ofertar políticas redistributivas, quanto tende a surgir no seio da cidadania uma demanda por redistribuição por parte de uma maioria de eleitores. No Capítulo 4 comprovamos empiricamente que os efeitos da competição democrática em sociedades mais desiguais são diferentes seus efeitos em sociedades mais iguais; e estes efeitos estão em direção à maior redução da desigualdade apenas nas sociedades mais desiguais. Os resultados são robustos às mais diferentes especificações dos modelos estatísticos, dados e formas de mensuração, tanto de democracia quanto de desigualdade, em diferentes cortes temporais e horizontes históricos de análise. Inclusive quando estendemos o recorte temporal para antes do pós-2ª Guerra Mundial utilizando dados que abrangem o período de surgimento dos primeiros regimes representativos democráticos no século XIX, a veracidade das hipóteses dos efeitos heterogêneos e de que há maior contundência da democracia em direção à redução da desigualdade nas sociedades mais desiguais permanece. Por fim, além deste problema teórico e empírico de crucial importância, também controlamos a análise para a potencial relação recíproca entre democracia e desigualdade. Enquanto parte da literatura discute os potenciais efeitos igualitários da democracia, outra importante literatura debate se o aumento da desigualdade aumenta ou reduz a probabilidade de um país tornar-se ou manter-se democrático. Posto isto, apresentamos uma lista de variáveis instrumentais para estimar validamente os efeitos da democracia sobre a desigualdade independente da relação entre desigualdade e democracia / The primary aim of this study is to analyze whether democracy is a political institution that produces less unequal economic outcomes than authoritarian regimes. The importance of this issue lies in the fact that the very promotion of democracy in the international political agenda has become essential for many reasons, including its supposed propensity to reduce economic disparities. First, at Chapter 1 we overview the theoretical and empirical discussion from which we find that despite the common sense that democracy must be related to a more egalitarian citizenship, its effects on inequality is still debatable. Even with a reasonable theoretical consensus that democracies must somehow produce a better distribution of goods; the empirical results are inconclusive and contradictory. After that, facing such empirical impasse, we propose at Chapter 2 a reformulation about the rationale to explain and analyze the effects of democracy on inequality. The main contribution of this thesis lies in both the theoretical and the empirical claim that these effects are heterogeneous and should interact with the level of inequality and, therefore, the assumption that these effects are homogeneous and independent of the socio-economic context of inequality is wrong. In Chapter 3, we present the data and concepts of democracy and inequality. We assume that democracy is characterized as a political regime in which leaders compete through elections and we test whether the effects vary along the distribution of economic inequality measured by the Gini coefficient. To do that, we conducted a series of quantile regression models, appropriate to evaluate the alternative hypothesis whether the effects are heterogeneous or homogenous. The theoretical argument, from which we elaborate the hypothesis of heterogeneous effects, refers to the need for a convergence between the electoral interests of the parties - the supply side - and the political cleavages on which a majority of voters have potential interest being played - the demand side for other public policies and platforms. Hence, it is necessary to discuss the conditions that lead the political leadership to use the problem of economic 11 inequality as an electoral argument and the conditions under which a demand by citizens for redistribution via state action rises. Only at the most unequal societies the political parties have an interest in offering redistributive policies, as well as there is a higher propensity for a redistribution demand by a majority of voters. In Chapter 4, we proved empirically that the effects of democratic competition at more unequal societies are different from the effects of democracy in more equal societies; and these effects tend to be greater toward inequality reduction only at more unequal societies. These results are robust to different statistical model specifications, data and measurement methods, about both democracy and inequality, and to the use of different time horizons. Even when we extend the time frame of the analysis to the period before World War II - using new data that covers XIX century, the veracity of the hypotheses about the heterogeneous effects and that these effects of democracy toward the reduction of inequality are larger at the most unequal societies remains intact. Finally, beyond this theoretical and empirical issue of crucial importance, we also control the analysis for potential reciprocal relationship between democracy and inequality. This is because while much of the literature discusses the potential effects of egalitarian democracy, another important literature debate discusses whether greater inequality increases or reduces the probability of a country become or remain democratic. Hence, we present a list of valid instrumental variables to estimate the effects of democracy on inequality independent of the relationship between inequality and democracy

本文以美國境內航空市場為例，探討多重市場接觸與價格離散的關聯，並研究大型航空公司併購案前後多重市場接觸對航空公司競爭策略的影響。本研究發現：(一) 相互容忍說於併購案發生前後皆成立。(二) 相較於考量擴大市場的市佔率，航空公司更應該關注與競爭者間的競爭關係。(三) 併購案發生前後，航空公司的訂價行為都深受競爭對手的競爭策略影響。(四) 併購案發生前，因競爭者多，市場上航空公司平均市佔率的大小是航空公司可採取競爭手段重要因素之一。在最大的1000 個市場中，雖然每家航空公司的市場力量不大，航空公司仍可採取價格競爭，然若是對手間聯合懲罰，則航空公司不敢採取激進手段，且多重市場接觸越多，價格離散程度越大。而在次要競爭的市場中，則因航空公司的平均市占率是最大的1000 個市場的兩倍，因此航空公司並未有明顯競爭行為。但若考量競爭對手間的碰面次數，則多重市場接觸與不同分位價格關係為正，且多重市場接觸越多，價格離散程度越低。併購案發生後，因航空公司間彼此箝制力量大，與競爭對手間的碰面次數越多，越傾向隱性勾結，且高價位的價格上升較低價位價格多，使價格離散程度越大。 / In this paper, we discuss whether multimarket contact matters for price dispersion in the U.S. airline industry, and compare the influence of multimarket contact on airlines’ competition strategies before and after airline mergers and acquisitions. We find that: (a) Before and after the mergers, mutual forbearance exists. (b) In contrast to an airline‘s market share, the relationship between airlines and itself plays a more important role in its pricing strategy.(c) Before and after the mergers, airline companies’pricing strategies are significantly affected by their competitors’strategies. (d) Before the mergers, because of the intense competition, it is the size of the competitors‘ market share that the company decide whether to take aggressive strategies. In the top 1000 competitive markets,airline companies will take aggressive actions to get more passengers for the punishment from its competitor is an incredible threat, however, if competitors collude together, airline companies will hardly dare to cut price. And the effect of an increase in multimarket contact on price dispersion is positive and significant. In the second competitive markets, since the average market share is twice bigger than in the top 1000 markets, airlines prefer not to participate in cut-throat competition. However, if competitors collude, then airline companies will cooperate together, and the effect of an increase in multimarket contact on price dispersion is negative and significant. After the mergers, increase in contacts with competitors would facilitate mutual forbearance and increase price dispersion and higher-percentile prices will increase more than lower-percentile prices.

The thesis analyzes and compares tax burden on employees in the Czech Republic and Belgium. The first part summarizes the tax systems of the two countries, and describes how to proceed in the calculation of their tax burden. The second part deals with the comparison of effective tax rates for different types of taxpayers. The third part discusses the tax progressivity in terms of local progressivity, which is measured by using provided intervals and determines for which income categories is the progressivity most important. Lorenz curve in the last part shows graphically global tax progressivity and redistribution of income in society. The Gini coefficient measures it. Final evaluation highlights the important ties between the two countries, compares with other countries of the European Union and its future development especially in the area of taxation of wages.

The purpose of the master thesis is to compare the tax burden of employees in the Czech Republic and in the United States of America according to the legislation in 2016. The theoretical part is devoted to the description of tax systems, focusing on the taxation of income from employment. In the part United States I briefly mention the development of the tax system. The practical part consists of two chapters. The first one is focused on the calculation of the effective tax rate for taxpayers from selected types of households. The second one deals with global progressivity of the income tax. Equal income distribution in society is analyzed using the Lorenz curve and the Gini coefficient. The calculations indicate progressive tax effects both in the Czech Republic and in the United States with higher rate of tax progression and also higher inequality of income distribution in the United States. In the issue of effective rates of income tax is evident higher tax burden in the United States. Differences of total effective rates are decreasing between both countries.

The thesis is focused on the exploration of income inequality among citizens of the Czech Republic and Great Britain. It is a comparison that evaluates the state income redistribution through state social support benefits. It provides information, in which country exists greater income inequality in income distribution among households and whether the income inequality among the citizens decreased due to the payment of these benefits or not. The theoretical parts of the work are devoted to explanation of basic terms (such as income redistribution, instruments of redistribution, relationship between social policy and redistribution) and tools for measuring income inequality (Lorenz curve, Gini coefficient, Robin Hood index, Interquintile share ratio S80/S20). The text also describes the various state social support benefits of both countries. The main research section contains calculations and graphical representations of all the above mentioned indicators. The final values are compared and the results are summarized.