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This paper shows that the specification of behavioural relations at the individual level does not play a dominant role in determining the sort of relation among aggregates discussed. More important are certain invariant features of the distribution of household characteristics and attributes. These 'invariants' allow one to derive an aggregate consumption relation. It is shown that some of the coefficients of a first-order approximation of that relation (describing the effect of changing income dispersion, the effect of the growth of mean income and the effect of changes in the distribution of household attributes) can be estimated from cross-section data without any need to specify a model of micro-behaviour. Keywords: Aggregate consumption expenditure, aggregation; Structural stability, income distribution; Distribution of household attributes

A strategy was employed to create a measurement theory that is synonymous to income inequality. The approach revealed that generation of a Lorenz-like partial ordering can only happen when agents' opportunity sets were ordered based on their cardinalities. The creation of a partial opportunity inequality that is similar to the unidimensional Lorenz ordering can be achieved whenever the opportunity sets are rated based on their cardinality ordering.

New Zealand's universal basic income proposal should be founded in a reaffirmed conceptualization of citizenship to ensure social and economic equity. Used as a criterion for income, citizenship would address politics of redistribution and recognition, addressing availability of resources, multiculturalism, issues of identity and the usefulness of different forms of labor.

The coast-noncoast income gap may be resolved with the expansion of the volume of human capital, such as college-trained managers and personnel, in Chinese noncoastal provinces. The findings show that the average rates of return to infrastructure investments are smaller in noncoastal areas than in the coastal areas due to the counter-effect of lower total factor productivity (TFP). However, to encourage new graduates to stay in the noncoastal areas to boost TFP, transportation and other means of convenient living should be provided.

Pasinetti's Cambridge theory of income distribution is extended to a monetary economy and the implications of fiscal deficits that are money financed are explored. The Pasinetti Paradox is shown as a special case, applicable to non-monetary economies or monetary economies with constant prices. The introduction of steady-state inflation generates an inflation tax on money holdings, which in turn affects savings.

This paper presents an unconventional argument based on population growth to bolster marginal productivity theory. There is an economy with a single output produced from a number of different types of labor. Each type of labor is reproduced from that type itself and from the amount of the output devoted to it under some income distributional norm. Any norm which fails to induce convergence to maximal balanced growth is growth dominated, in that the population and income it induces can be overwhelmed eventually. On the maximal balanced growth path, the norm divides output according to marginal productivity.

An analytical framework can be used to assess the relationship that exists between cross-sectional and lifetime income distribution among countries. The model uses a simulated cohort of individuals in order to obtain an accurate cross-sectional age and income distribution data. Results did not support the assumption that cross-sectional comparisons are efficient indicators of lifetime inequality differences. It was also established that the value of cross-sectional inequality tends to be lower than lifetime inequality if evaluated in relation with income mobility.

Predicting the mean life of a cohort while its survival process is still ongoing requires that the mean residual life at the prediction date be estimated. Under reasonable assumptions about these estimates, it is shown that the mean prediction error over the whole process is intimately related to the Gini-index of lives in the cohort., The Gini-index is a measuring tool of the reliability of prediction. Analyzing the mean life of a cohort during its process of survival requires the estimation of its mean residual life at prediction date. The mean prediction error during the survival process in two cases is found to be closely linked to the Gini-index, which signifies another application for it other than an indicator of inequality.

Research shows that a higher level of aversion a social planner exhibits toward income inequality, the faster an economy converges to its steady state. Studies focused on aversion levels for cases in which inequality evolved deterministically and in which it resulted as a joint stochastic and deterministic process.

Robert Gibrat was the first one to present a model of the dynamics between firm size and industry structure. The model, together with a new law called the Law of Proportional Effect, was presented in his book 'Inegalites Economiques', published in Paris in 1931. Consistent results were gathered when Gibrat's theories were implemented in income distributions and to plant sizes. Though Gibrat's legacy has led to some progress in industry-specific determinants, such as firm turnover and the volatility of market shares, many important questions still remain.

Population and economic growth are traditionally linked with national saving and inequality through the life saving model of saving and inequality. However, data from household surveys conducted in Taiwan, Thailand, the UK and the US raise doubts on some aspects of the model. First, changes in economic and population growth may not exert large effects on saving. Second, the relationship between economic growth and saving cannot be linked to life cycle saving.

This article discusses the relationship between income inequality and school finance. Topics include state aid to education, income distribution, and regression analysis.

Traditionally, inequality measurements have been designed only for non-spatial applications, despite the argument that inequality is manifested in social space (and may be perceived spatially). Presented here is an approach to understanding urban inequality in terms of the spatial distribution of population and income. This is done with a general definition of spatial disparity (implying significant differences between neighbouring parcels); spatial disparity exists between contiguous parcels even when similar values are spatially clustered (as in the case of income). A family of spatial disparity measures is proposed: the basic measure of 'neighbourhood disparity' uses information on contiguity to arrive at individual disparity values for individual parcels, and an indexed value for an area. The process of neighbour identification is made simpler by using topologically structured spatial databases used in vector-based GIS. This methodology is used on 1990 census data to analyse disparities in the spatial distribution of income in Philadelphia to illustrate and compare the use, the basic measure and its weighted versions, and to identify and map general patterns of urban spatial income disparity. It is found that spatial income disparity is manifested in rings around the CBD, and that the distribution of black incomes is very heterogeneous (although the generalisability of both conclusions may be questioned)., A thematic map of average incomes for an urban area (say, by census tracts) usually reveals clusters - of high-income regions, low-income regions, etc. This follows a general property of [...]

Subsistence level farming in peasant communities in Thailand may produce economic inequalities over time. Researchers designed a computer simulation to analyze the patterns of inequality that can develop among 30 households in the Shan peasant community of Thongmakhsan, Thailand. Simulations of economic conditions over 200 years revealed a normal distribution of household earnings. Occasionally, a household could by chance attain high farming output and social prominence. Such an inequality could become permanent over time.

The traditional analyses of economic convergence which rely mainly on production-function accounting are criticized for not considering two major factors in economic growth: the growth and convergence mechanisms. To remedy this shortcoming, new approaches to convergence analysis are proposed. These include persistence and stratification, the creation of convergence clubs and the distribution polarizing into twin peaks of rich and poor.

Geographical inequalities in income can be traced to the bigger problem of income inequality in the UK. This was gleaned from the results of a model of local income distributions in the country, using a method that employs the national Family Expenditure Survey and forecasts of distributions until the local level. A strong north-south trend in average incomes was noted, with wealthy suburbs and growth areas in the South East having the highest incomes and the Northern standard region and central cities as well as the declining industrial areas in the northern third of the country having the lowest incomes., INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND Policy issues This paper describes and evaluates an approach to estimating household income distributions at local (district) level in England. The research has developed in a particular [...]

Shorrocks suggested a broad welfare dominance relationship using the properties of Pigou-Dalton and Pareto to provide a partial ranking of income distributions. This paper considers a family of alternative dominance relationships generalizing Shorrocks's approach. The Pareto property, which states that welfare will not diminish if the income of any individual increases, holding other incomes constant, is replaced by the property that welfare will not diminish if the growth in income is shared by all the poorer sectors of the society. Implications of these alternatives are explored. Using data from the People's Republic of China, we show how the family of dominance relationships proposed in this paper can be used to examine real-world welfare changes.

The Heckscher-Ohlin-Samuelson (HOS) general equilibrium model is used to explain the effect of foreign product markets to internal labor markets. This can be seen in the case involving US and European labor market wherein market speculations affected the demand for unskilled workers in both areas. In addition, the HOS model can also be used in studying education, technological change and immigration variables.

The effect of outsourcing on the demand for skilled workers in the US is examined by developing a model using import data from the National Bureau of Economic Research and input purchase data from the 'Census of Manufactures.' Regression estimates reveal that for the period 1972-1979, outsourcing has not significantly affected the demand for labor. On the other hand, results for the 1979-1990 period show a positive relationship between the two variables.

Differences between the wages of low and highly educated workers are steadily increasing since the 1970s. This can be attributed to a demand shift for workers as more products are being outsourced away from the US. This can be explained by using the Heckscher-Ohlin-Samuelson model on trade-wage linkages. Circumstantial evidence points to the occurrence of an increase in US trade with increasing wage differences in the same time frame.

This paper introduces two flexible form approaches to approximate Lorenz curves. The first approach expands the inverse function of an income distribution in an exponential polynomial series and derives the Lorenz curve from it. The required convexity condition can be imposed using a Bayesian method. The second approach approximates the Lorenz curve with a sequence of Berstein polynomial functions. The required convexity condition is automatically established in this approach. We compare these approaches with other well-known fixed functional form approaches. We evaluate the performance of these functional forms by comparing approximation errors, maximum error, and the estimates of the Gini coefficient produced by various approaches. Key words: Lorenz curve; Global approximation; Discrete Legendre polynomial functions; Bernstein polynomial functions. JEL classification: D31

A post-Keynesian model reveals that an increasing debt-capital ratio causes a rise in income inequality because interest payments on debt increase faster than after-tax income of workers. Income distribution may improve in the long run if increasing debt-capital ratio results due to the expansionary fiscal policies of the government. However, attempts to restore debt-capital ratio to its initial value may increase income inequality. The model assumes growth in terms of aggregate demand, and income distribution in terms of wages to the workers, and profit and interest income to the capitalists.

This paper revisits the Kuznets hypothesis. An extensive data set containing the most recent estimates of income distribution is utilized to test the Kuznets hypothesis. In addition, the data comparability problem, with respect to income distribution data, when conducting econometric analysis is addressed. The results indicate that the data comparability problem is not severe enough to nullify the estimates obtained from pooled regressions. The Kuznets hypothesis holds for this data set.

Actual contributions to public goods can be determined by evaluating the income distribution among individuals with voluntary contributions. This can be gleaned from a model that was developed using data from an experiment involving McMaster University students. The model tests the hypothesis that subjects in voluntary control games provide concepts of fairness into laboratories which cannot be controlled by the experimenter.

The paper investigates the Lorenz order within the four-parameter family of generalized beta distributions of the second kind. The sufficient and necessary conditions for this family can be used for an exhaustive exploration of the Lorenz order within other widely used income distribution models such as the Singh-Maddala distribution or the simple beta distribution of the second kind. Key words: Lorenz curve; Ranking income distributions; Social welfare; Inequality JEL classification: C49; D31; D63

A monetary policy model describing the concern of policymakers with output and inflation is examined. The model's interpretation is based on the assumption that output and inflation have distributional effects. It is also assumed that a quadratic loss function represents the preferences of policymakers. Results show the effects of output and inflation on size income distribution. The model illustrates the concern of policymakers with output growth and size income distribution.

The Heckscher-Ohlin-Vanek (HOV) theory hypothesizes that labor-abundant countries will most likely trade with capital-rich nations and that trade flows will be determined largely by comparative advantages identified during initial factor endowments. It also believes that significant income distribution effects will result from increased trade. The HOV theory was tested using a model confined to G-7 nations of comparable endowments and technology. The results failed to support the assertions of the HOV theory.

We analyze the welfare and other effects of immigration on a system of jurisdictions with a common labor market, mobile capital, and redistributive tax/transfer policies. Comparative-statics analysis of a model of Nash non-cooperative equilibria in tax/transfer policies shows that the welfare effect of immigration depends on whether immigrants are net fiscal contributors or burdens. Any one jurisdiction's redistribution and immigration policies generate fiscal externalities for others in the system, which a central government can internalize by appropriate taxes and subsidies. JEL classification: F22; H23; J61 Keywords: immigration; income redistribution

A consensus among economists is that aggregate income is lost when there is a redistribution of income. A model is presented where incentive constraints are created due to private information. Discretionary taxes which redistribute income can produce Pareto improvements. The analysis implies that the US policy's government-guaranteed loans have high default rates. There is a high rate of unprepared students dropping out from higher education.

Models of growth and income distribution consistent with the 'Kalecki-Steindl' approach have received a great deal of support. The approach emphasizes that the long-period equilibrium degree of productive capacity changes with various steady state paths. However, the approach has been put to severe criticisms, most of which are centered around the hypothetical constancy of pricing and investment behavior. Moreover, if the approach is universally applied to a multi-sector economy it faces the dangers of over-determination.

The fixed-income characterization theorem proposed by Ben Porath and Gilboa for the Generalized Gini equality indices is extended and given an alternative and more robust basis, which is at the same time simpler and shorter that that originally presented by the two authors. The alternative proof is made through a utility function that shows its linearity in the course of the income ranking process.

A general-equilibrium spatial model of a core-periphery system of cities which allows for labor heterogeneity was developed to determine the factors that give rise to the core-periphery structure of demographic, economic and income disparity trends. The results show that the equilibrium configuration is characterized by a core producing only high-technology products and a periphery that produces only food products. Search-and-match, transportation cost and city formation cost parameters are mainly responsible for income disparity between the core and periphery regions.

Western models of income inequality cannot be adequately applied to developing countries like Sri Lanka because they almost always assume the existence of an urban-industrial society and a dualist or corporatist political economy. The case of Sri Lanka demonstrates that income inequality theories should be modified to accomodate urban-rural segmentation, the role of the family as a work structure and cross-national differences in the corporatism's standardizing effects on income determination.

Standard models of public education provision predict an implicit transfer of resources from higher-income individuals toward lower-income individuals. Many studies have documented that public higher education involves a transfer in the reverse direction. We show that this pattern of redistribution is an equilibrium outcome in a model in which education is only partially publicly provided and individuals vote over the extent to which it is subsidized. We characterize economies in which poorer individuals are effectively excluded from obtaining an education and their tax payments help offset the cost of education obtained by others. We show that increased inequality in the income distribution makes this outcome more likely and that the efficiency implications of this exclusion depend on the wealth of the economy.

A new approach for evaluating the distribution of short-run and long-run economic impacts of regional environmental policy among urban and rural households was developed using the regional input-output model. Factors such as demand and price changes were considered. The results show that distribution of income in the short run is not widely different from the distribution of income in the long run. However, potential distribution effects may alter distribution in both time frames.

1. Introduction In recent articles, Samuelson (1991) and Miyazaki (1991) have commented adversely on an earlier paper of mine (1985). The 1985 paper was concerned with introducing retained business earnings [...]

A comparative assessment of the Paglin-type measure and an alternative age-adjustment procedure, based on an Entropy measure of dispersion, reveals that the former measure exaggerates the importance of age on profiles of trends in income inequality by more than 60%. The entropy measure allows accurate identification of age-related variations.

The income of poor black families may significantly be underestimated when percentile income estimates are made based on the assumption that income is uniformly distributed. This was gleaned from the results of a study comparing income estimates made on the assumption that incomes have a lognormal distribution and estimates made on the basis of a rectangular distribution. The rectangular assumption was found to result in inaccurate measures of income in the first income distribution interval.

A study was conducted to determine if there is enough empirical evidence to support Simon Kuznet's hypothesis that in the course of a country's economic growth, income inequality initially increases, reaches a peak and then declines. A constraint was imposed on the constant term of the regression model for simple models of the relationship of measures of income inequality with the level of income and the square of the income term. Analysis of data using the constrained model yielded sharper estimates of parameters and thus proves the validity of Kuznet's hypothesis.

We estimate a wage model that includes an array of variables measuring the fraction of time worked during each year of the career. This array fully characterizes past employment experience, regardless of how sporadic it has been. Our model yields substantially higher estimated returns to experience and lower returns to tenure than do models that measure experience cumulatively and use the standard quadratic functional form. We find that the data reject the standard model but fail to reject our model. Furthermore, we find that 12% of the male-female wage gap is due to differences in the timing of work experience.

Endogenous and exogenous models have been developed to account for economic development. The convergence of such growth in terms of real world data has been hampered by variable selection sensitivity of model results. This ambiguity can be partially corrected by replacing labor productivity with per capita income to generate a measurement bias. The error yields positive results when re-estimating convergence equations with labor force.

Conventional models of collective bargaining often fail to react to slight changes in one of their variables. This failure to respond to slight changes significantly affects the equilibrium of the models. To avoid such rigidity, a new model has been developed based on a linear invariance requirement. A discussion of the advantages of the new model over conventional models is presented.

We present a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the standard growth model modified to include precautionary saving motives and liquidity constraints. We address the impact on the aggregate saving rate, the importance of asset trading to individuals, and the relative inequality of wealth and income distributions., I. INTRODUCTION This paper has two main goals. The first is to provide an exposition of models whose aggregate behavior is the result of market interaction among a large number [...]

Estimates of equivalent income distribution can vary depending on the particular year of data and the specification or representation of the equivalence scale which is used. Although the choice of equivalence scale can result in lower or higher estimates of inequality and poverty, this effect is not due to an intrinsic quality of particular methodologies. This is evident in a study of UK Family Expenditure data, where numbers lower than half the average income varied with equivalence scale relativities in different years and where giving different weights to children caused variations in results.

Parametric equivalence scales and indices of inequality and poverty have an index-specific relationship. Contrary to views that results obtained using the McClements scale are affected by the year of data and the equivalence scale specification, the scale consistently produces estimates that are lower compared to other scales, provided it is properly characterized. This highlights the importance of examining how variations in equivalence scales impact on results.