Search

This paper investigates changes in the distribution of earnings across 87 metropolitan areas in Canada. It does so using micro data taken from the 20 per cent long-form sample of the census for the years 1996, 2001 and 2006. Results point to overall increases in urban inequality and to greater heterogeneity in inequality across the urban hierarchy, with larger cities growing particularly unequal over time. Cross-sectional and panel regression models suggest that city size, unemployment, deindustrialisation and the percentage of a city’s population composed of visible minorities contribute to increased inequality. In contrast, a city’s level of economic development has a mitigating effect on inequality, although this effect appears to fade away over time. The effects of changes in a city’s age, education and gender profiles on inequality are mixed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Sub-provincial regional income multipliers in the Ontario economy: an input-output approach. This paper considers the feasibility of reducing regional income disparities by selective expansion of particular industrial groups. An input-output model is developed, and data for forty-eight industries and ten economic regions of Ontario are employed as a case study to deduce regional income multipliers. The empirical results of the study indicate that regional income differentials can be reduced relative to the 'central core' if industries for expansion are carefully chosen. But, in general, growth in any outlying region relative to the 'central core' is difficult to achieve. The model and the derivations of regional total and wage income multipliers represent a potentially fruitful approach to the analysis of regional economic policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Public Policy is the property of University of Toronto Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The discourse on immigrants' economic integration often assumes that the human capital of immigrants determines the outcome of successful integration, measured as income parity with the native-born population. This paper decomposes the employment earnings of immigrants and native-born Canadians in Canada to see how much of income disparity may be attributed to human capital factors and how much to other factors. The findings indicate that immigrants have brought high levels of human capital to Canada, often surpassing those of the native-born, but immigrants under-perform in earnings because of other unexplained returns. The findings suggest that there are limits in using immigrant selection policy to increase the human capital content of immigrants as a means to achieve successful economic integration, and that other policies that influence how immigrants, especially those of minority origin, are treated in the labour market should be considered as a means to bridge income disparity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is based on confidential data from some Censuses and examines the factors of inequality of earnings and of poverty relative to Canadian immigrants during the period of 1990 to 2006. The results of our analysis show that immigrants from developing countries have been the most harmed by economic fluctuations. They have less income than either native-born Canadians or immigrants from other countries; in addition, the return on their human capital has diminished between 1991 and 2006. The importance of migratory flux from developing countries has increased the social heterogeneity of the immigrant population, and has aggravated the inequality of income within the group of immigrants from the South as well as between them and other immigrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports the results of an empirical analysis of the earnings mobility of Canadians from 1982 to 1992 using the recently developed Longitudinal Administrative Database, constructed from individuals' tax files. After presenting some cross-sectional trends in individuals' earnings levels and earnings inequality to set the stage, the mobility analysis is carried out principally in terms of transition matrices which capture individuals' relative positions in the overall earnings distribution in one year versus another. These are calculated over intervals of various lengths and over different periods of time, with much of the analysis broken down by not only age and sex, but also by individuals' starting places in the earnings distribution, all of which turn out to be very important to understanding the structure of earnings mobility. Various implications of the findings are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Public Policy is the property of University of Toronto Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In this article, we examine the link between innovation and earnings inequality across Canadian cities over the 1996-2006 period. We do so using a novel data set that combines information from the Canadian long-form census and the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The analysis reveals that there is a positive relationship between innovation and inequality: cities with higher levels of innovation have more unequal distributions of earnings. Other factors influencing differences in inequality include city size, manufacturing and government employment, the percentage of visible minority in an urban population, and educational inequality. These results are robust to the use of different measures of inequality, innovation, alternative specifications, and instrumental variables estimations. Questions are thus raised about how the benefits of innovation are distributed in society and the long-term sustainability of such trends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article documents the evolution of income inequality during Canada's major fiscal consolidation of the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, one of the most spectacular fiscal turnarounds in recent economic history. Our main objective is to understand why overall market income inequality rose between 1986 and 1996, while that of disposable income did not. To analyse this question, we use data from the Survey of Consumer Finances and two distinct decomposition methodologies. Our results show that both the automatic stabilisation effect of transfer programmes and the rise in personal income taxes explain the performance of the Canadian tax and transfer system in offsetting market income inequality growth during the fiscal consolidation decade. Canada's fiscal consolidation episode, which placed more weight on rising taxes than on cuts in transfer programmes, was thus an inequality reducing factor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]