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Immigrants and their native-born children often face considerable wage penalties relative to natives, but less is known about whether this inequality arises through differences in educational qualifications, segregation across occupations and establishments, or unequal pay for the same work. Using linked employer–employee data from Norway, the authors ask whether immigrant–native wage disparities 1) reflect differences in detailed educational qualifications, labor market segregation, or within-job pay differences; 2) differ by immigrant generation; and 3) vary across different segments of the labor market. They find that immigrant–native wage disparities primarily reflect sorting into lower-paying jobs, and that wage disadvantages are considerably reduced across immigrant generations. When doing the same work for the same employer, immigrant-background workers, especially children of immigrants, earn similar wages to natives. Sorting into jobs seems more meritocratic for university graduates, for professionals, and in the public sector, but within-job pay differences are strikingly similar across market segments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the wage earnings of refugee immigrants in Sweden. Using administrative employer–employee data from 1990 onward, approximately 100,000 refugee immigrants who arrived between 1980 and 1996 and were granted asylum are compared to a matched sample of native-born workers. Employing recentered influence function (RIF) quantile regressions to wage earnings for the period 2011–2015, the occupational-task-based Oaxaca–Blinder decomposition approach shows that refugees perform better than natives at the median wage, controlling for individual and firm characteristics. This overperformance is attributable to female refugee immigrants. Given their characteristics, refugee immigrant females perform better than native females across all occupational tasks studied, including non-routine cognitive tasks. A notable similarity of the wage premium exists among various refugee groups, suggesting that cultural differences and the length of time spent in the host country do not have a major impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors investigate how race and political partisanship affected variations in workplace and non-workplace mobility at three COVID-19 phases—lockdown (2020), reopening (2021), and endemic COVID (2022). They theorize that structural racism compelled relatively greater workplace mobility rates in Black communities during lockdown, and reduced Black workplace mobility during reopening and endemic COVID. By contrast, they posit elite-level anti-science skepticism and its amplification resulted in Trump-voting communities experiencing relatively higher workplace and non-workplace mobility rates than non-Trump-voting areas throughout the pandemic. Regressions primarily using county-level Google Mobility Reports data support the hypotheses, conditioning on state-level fixed effects and county-level urbanity, COVID job-type sorting, demographics, and socioeconomics. The county-level results are complemented by outcomes from novel individual-level COVID lockdown survey data, helping connect the proposed individual-level mechanisms to the county-level findings. The authors conclude that work mobility during COVID was racialized and politicized, offering empirical insights into how systematic disadvantages can lead to increased and unequal precarity during periods of acute economic or social crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rising income inequality is taking a toll on people's subjective well-being (SWB), and many commentators have implicated the role of material possessions, and thereby marketing, in this regard. Making a more nuanced argument, this research proposes that certain material possessions—namely, favorite possessions—can mitigate the detrimental psychological effect of income inequality on SWB. In support of this proposition, experimental data from nine countries (N = 3,687) and social media posts from 138 countries (N = 31,332) converge to show that, while SWB generally declines as income inequality increases, encouraging consumers to attend to their favorite possessions can mitigate the negative effect of inequality on SWB. This is because attending to favorite possessions reduces consumers' tendency to make social comparisons related to material resources and wealth, which otherwise arise when income inequality is high. Consequently, even when they perceive high income inequality, consumers feel less deprived relative to others, which buffers their SWB. These findings have meaningful consumer welfare implications. In particular, one way consumers can feel happier with their quality of life in an unequal society is to avoid comparing their material wealth with that of others and instead attend to the material possessions most special to them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current research proposes and tests a novel model explaining how job insecurity shapes well-being and has consequences for stratification and inequality. I draw on evolutionary life history theory, which proposes that growing up in a poorer versus wealthier environment impacts the sense of control people feel when exposed to threat in adulthood. I integrate this perspective with transactional stress theory to propose that job insecurity has a disproportionately negative effect on employees from poorer backgrounds, leading to lower engagement and higher emotional exhaustion among such employees, while those from wealthier backgrounds are buffered against these effects. These responses to job insecurity, in turn, amplify job loss risk for employees from poorer backgrounds, regardless of employees' current job or financial situation. A preregistered, multisource, five-wave longitudinal study conducted at the height of the COVID-19 crisis in India found support for these predictions. A follow-up quasi-experiment conducted in India and the United States replicated the effects on engagement and exhaustion. The impact of job insecurity on well-being is stratified and acts as a mechanism that reproduces childhood inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The tourism literature has largely neglected another important factor that may influence the tourism and income inequality relationship. This factor reflects democratic institutions of the destination country. To contribute to the tourism literature, this study attempts to fill a gap in the corresponding literature by investigating the moderating effect of democracy on the tourism-income inequality nexus for a panel of 23 sub-Sharan African countries over the period 2000-2020. The empirical evidence is based on the panel corrected standard errors (PCSE) estimation technique. The results obtained from our study show that tourism and democracy unconditionally worsen income inequality. Moreover, democracy complements tourism to further undermine income distribution as positive synergies are apparent. Policy implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study utilizes data from A-share listed companies between 2011 and 2020 to empirically investigate the impact and mechanism of public welfare donations on the internal income gap of enterprises. The research findings indicate that public welfare donations significantly increase the per capita salary of management, while their impact on the per capita salary of ordinary employees is not significant, thus leading to an expansion of the internal income gap within enterprises. The results from mechanism testing reveal that the income tax benefits resulting from charitable donations and the rise in corporate operating income have contributed to an increase in excess rent shared by enterprises and employees. Due to a stronger bargaining power, management shares more excess rents, thereby widening the income gap within the enterprise. Heterogeneity analysis demonstrates that public welfare donations have a greater impact on the internal income gap of non-state-owned enterprises; however, limiting executive compensation and enhancing employees' bargaining power can mitigate this widening effect caused by public welfare donations on enterprise's internal income gap. The research value of this study is threefold. Firstly, there is a scarcity of studies on the impact of public welfare donations on the income gap within enterprises, and this study contributes to enriching the research in this area. Secondly, this paper examines the effect of tax incentives for public welfare donations on the internal income gap of enterprises, thereby deepening the research on the impact of tax reduction and fee reduction, as well as expanding our understanding of corporate income tax preferential policies. Thirdly, it offers insights into improving enterprise compensation systems and enhancing corporate governance. Senior executives can potentially allocate more excess rent through their strong bargaining power. If their compensation remains unrestricted, it may lead to a widening internal income gap and negatively affect company operational efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Background/Aims Methods Results Conclusion With polarizing income disparities, this study investigated the prevalence and trends of liver disease in a U.S. population‐based sample based on income‐to‐poverty ratio (IPR).This cross‐sectional study analysed survey data from the 1999–2018 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey with highest (HIG), middle‐income (MIG), and lowest income (LIG) groups defined as IPR ≤ 1, 1 < IPR <5, and IPR ≥ 5, respectively.We analysed 59,204 adult participants with 48.2% male, 39.7% aged 18–39, 36.2% 40–59, and 24.1% ≥60 years. The weighted prevalence of hepatitis C (HCV), B (HBV) infection, non‐alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), alcohol‐associated liver disease (ALD), and advanced fibrosis in LIG were 3.9% (n = 276), 7.4% (n = 527), 33.2% (n = 714), 5.2% (n = 401), and 9.0% (n = 694), respectively, compared to lower rates for HIG: 1.0% (n = 82), 3.2% (n = 263), 29.6% (n = 798), 3.9% (n = 354), and 5.0% (n = 638). After adjusting for age, sex, race and ethnicity, education, and birthplace, HIG had the lowest odds of having any liver disease [adjusted odds ratio (aOR) 0.67, p < 0.0001], with similar findings for specific conditions including HCV, HBV, and advanced fibrosis (aOR 0.24, 0.52, and 0.64, all p < 0.0001, respectively). While viraemic HCV prevalence decreased over time for HIG, there were no changes for MIG nor LIG. Similarly, NAFLD prevalence was stable for HIG but increased for MIG and LIG.LIG and MIG in the United States have higher liver disease burdens than HIG, with increasing NAFLD prevalence and lack of decline in current HCV infection prevalence over time as opposed to declining or stable trend in HIG. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Between 2006 and 2017, antenatal care (ANC) coverage in Benin declined, potentially exacerbating inequalities and substantiating the need for health inequality monitoring. This study examines inequalities in ANC attendance in Benin, disaggregated by women's age, educational level, economic status, place of residence, region of residence, and the extent to which they have changed over time. Methods: Three rounds of the Benin Demographic and Health Surveys (2006, 2011–12, and 2017–18) were analyzed to examine inequalities in ANC coverage. An exploratory descriptive approach was adopted for the analysis. Simple [difference (D) and ratio (R)] and complex [population attributable risk (PAR) and population attributable fraction (PAF)] measures of inequalities were computed using the World Health Organization's Health Equity Assessment Toolkit (WHO's HEAT) online platform. The measures were computed separately for each of the three surveys, and their estimates were compared. Results: The findings revealed an 8.4% decline in at least four ANC visits between 2006 and 2017–18. The decline occurred irrespective of age, educational status, economic status, place of residence, and region. Region-related inequalities were the largest and increased slightly between 2006 (D = 54.6; R = 2.6; PAF = 47.8, PAR = 29.0) and 2017–18 (D = 55.8; R = 3.1; PAF = 57.2, PAR = 29.8). Education (2006: D = 31.3, R = 1.6, PAF = 40.5, PAR = 24.5; 2017–18: D = 25.2, R = 1.6, PAF = 34.9, PAR = 18.1) and rural-urban (2006: D = 16.8, R = 1.3, PAF = 17.8, PAR = 10.8; 2017–18: D = 11.2, R = 1.2, PAF = 13.1, PAR = 6.8) inequalities reduced while economic status inequalities did not improve (2006: D = 48, R = 2.2, PAF = 44.5, PAR = 26.9; 2017–18: D = 43.9, R = 2.4, PAF = 45.0, PAR = 23.4). Age inequalities were very minimal. Conclusion: ANC inequalities remain deeply ingrained in Benin. Addressing their varying levels requires comprehensive strategies that encompass both supply—and demand-side interventions, focusing on reaching uneducated women in the poorest households and those residing in rural areas and Atacora. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the nexus between shadow economy and income inequality in the West African region. The study applies second-generation panel estimation techniques to analyze the effect and the direction of causation between the variables. The results reveal that the shadow economy reduces income inequality in the region in both short-run and long-run estimations. A similar result is documented when alternative estimation techniques are employed. In addition, the panel causality results show a bidirectional relationship between shadow economy and income inequality in the West African economy. The implications of the study are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is a perennial challenge for different political organisations, including environmental NGOs (ENGOs), to accommodate diverse social and political groups’ interests, opinions, and experiences. Without sufficient inclusiveness, ENGOs struggle to help create social and political change at a much faster pace, with climate action in Australia being a key example. In this regard, this paper argues that inclusiveness needs to encompass three dimensions, diversity, equity, and procedural justice, which are critical to managing internal tensions, disagreements, and conflicts. Evidence from two different ENGOs, the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) and Extinction Rebellion Australia (XR Aus), shows that despite different types of organisational structures and resource availability, there are different challenges and opportunities for the two ENGOs in trying to establish and maintain higher inclusiveness. While diversity remains challenging to both groups, XR Aus’s self-organising and decentralisation have much easier access to decision-making and autonomous participation than ACF. However, it remains to be seen if XR Aus could harass its organising features to establish and maintain a higher level of procedural justice. These findings are relevant not only to issues in climate action problems but also to other collective action problems such as ethnics equality, domestic violence, income disparity, and gun control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the increase of the share of highly-educated women, gender wage gap remains an ongoing issue in developing countries. The increase in women's education would provide them with more job opportunities resulting in higher employment rate amongst women and, thus, lower gender pay gap. In Palestine, the share of women with high education is 62% while their labor force participation rate is only 18%. This paper examines the effects of gender higher education on wage inequality in the Palestinian context. The study applied the Mincer equation to study the determinants of wage, while the decomposed Gini coefficient is used to measure the contribution of education and other factors to overall wage inequality. The study used data from the labor force survey (LFS) which is conducted by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) covering the period from 2010 to 2020. Results show that those with higher education have relatively higher wages as compared to those with only high education or with school education. Results also show that gender wage inequality has increased during the study period (2010–2020), but the contribution of both gender and education differences to the overall wage inequality has decreased. In general, the gender pay gap remains a crucial issue in the Palestinian context with a persisting decreasing pay gap over time across all education levels. Policymakers shall orient efforts towards investing in women's education, thus increasing their empowerment in the labor market, which in turn would improve the level of development and economic growth in the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Poverty is a well-known risk factor for poor health. This scoping review (ScR) mapped research linking early childhood caries (ECC) and poverty using the targets and indicators of the Sustainable Development Goal 1 (SDG1). Methods: We searched PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus in December 2023 using search terms derived from SDG1. Studies were included if they addressed clinically assessed or reported ECC, used indicators of monetary or multidimensional poverty or both, and were published in English with no date restriction. We excluded books and studies where data of children under 6 years of age could not be extracted. We charted the publication year, study location (categorized into income levels and continents), children age, sample size, study design, measures of ECC, types and levels of poverty indicators and adjusted analysis. The publications were also classified based on how the relation between poverty and ECC was conceptualized. Results: In total, 193 publications were included with 3.4 million children. The studies were published from 1989 to 2023. Europe and North America produced the highest number of publications, predominantly from the UK and the US, respectively. Age-wise, 3–5-year-olds were the most studied (62.2%). Primary studies (83.9%) were the majority, primarily of cross-sectional design (69.8%). Non-primary studies (16.1%) included reviews and systematic reviews. ECC was mainly measured using the dmf indices (79.3%), while poverty indicators varied, with the most common used indicator being income (46.1%). Most studies measured poverty at family (48.7%) and individual (30.1%) levels. The greatest percentage of publications addressed poverty as an exposure or confounder (53.4%), with some studies using poverty to describe groups (11.9%) or report policies or programs addressing ECC in disadvantaged communities (11.4%). In addition, 24.1% of studies requiring adjusted analysis lacked it. Only 13% of publications aligned with SDG1 indicators and targets. Conclusion: The ScR highlight the need for studies to use indicators that provide a comprehensive understanding of poverty and thoroughly examine the social, political, and economic determinants and impact of ECC. More studies in low and middle-income countries and country-level studies may help design interventions that are setting- and economic context-relevant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Perceived economic inequality is positively associated with public support for policies to reduce it. However, providing information about economic inequality does not necessarily motivate people to support redistributive policies. This inconsistency may be due to how people interpret the information about inequality. We argue that the interpretation of information about inequality differs between individuals as a function of the characteristics of the source and people's ideologies. We conducted two experiments using an exploratory (N = 239) and confirmatory (N = 707) strategy. We found that attitudes toward redistribution increased when a seemingly neutral international institution (as opposed to a left-wing political party) provided information about economic inequality due to the credibility attributed to the source—but not due to power and familiarity. Moreover, the effect of providing information about inequality on support for redistribution (via source credibility) depended on people's ideologies: it was positive and statistically significant for people who held more (vs. less) system-justifying beliefs. These findings contribute to understanding the interplay between social psychological processes, communication strategies, and attitudes toward redistribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Innovation can lead to wage inequalities through different channels. This paper explores this relationship, focusing on the direct and spillover (indirect) effects of these channels on personal wage inequalities in Brazilian regions. Product and process innovation are measured by patents and the acquisition of foreign technology through imports of capital goods respectively. Based on data that covers 482 regions from 2003 to 2014, we use the Spatial Durbin Model with spatial fixed effects to control spatial dependence and heterogeneity across regions. The results point to a positive association between our measures of innovation and wage inequalities. However, as we found a non‐linear relationship between imports of capital goods and wage inequality, an increase in imports of capital goods may reduce wage inequality. Other variables may also cause inequality to fall, such as the share of the population with a higher education degree and social skills. Drivers behind an increase in inequality are female participation in the workforce and the level of GDP per capita. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collaborating with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), World Food Program (WFP), and NGOs, the Bangladesh Government implemented cash assistance programs for Rohingya refugee households facing exacerbated food insecurity because of the COVID-19 pandemic. This study investigates the impact of a cash assistance program on alleviating the food insecurity experienced by Rohingya migrants during the pandemic. Additionally, this study explores potential variations of the impact of cash assistance with reference to vulnerability levels based on gender and income inequality. These findings indicate a significant reduction in food insecurity among Rohingya migrants who received cash assistance. However, further analysis reveals that cash assistance is not effective in ensuring the food security of comparatively more vulnerable households headed by women and households with no earning members. This policy implication underscores the need to restructure, redesign, and reconsider the features of cash assistance programs to enhance the welfare of refugee households across all levels of vulnerability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we argue that one of the variables that may influence perceived inequality in everyday life is cultural differences in relational mobility. We examined this research question across two cross‐cultural studies in Japan (Study 1, N = 196; Study 2, N = 214) and Spain (Study 1, N = 199; Study 2, 199), two countries that differ in their relational mobility levels. In Study 1, we contrasted two competing hypotheses: On the one hand, it could be predicted that individuals in countries with high relational mobility perceive greater inequality due to increased exposure to diverse social networks. On the other hand, it is also plausible that in contexts of high relational mobility, people perceive less inequality as they selectively choose to interact with individuals who share similar social backgrounds. Results supported the former hypotheses and showed that people in a country high in relational mobility (i.e. Spain) tend to perceive more economic inequality (vs. Japan, a country low in relational mobility). Moreover, we found an indirect effect of this cross‐cultural difference through the cultural affordances for meeting new people (i.e. one of the dimensions of relational mobility). In Study 2, we preregistered and replicated these results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although China's carbon emission trading schemes (CETS) garnered significant attention in the field of climate mitigation, limited data availability has hindered exploration into the impact of CETS on economic inequality at the county level in China. Given its potential to facilitate industrial upgrading and generate employment opportunities, the adoption of CETS holds promise for reducing economic inequality. To address data limitations, we employed a combination of gridded nighttime light data and land use data to estimate China's county-level Dagum Gini coefficient and its components. Subsequently, we applied a difference-in-difference-in-difference method to examine how CETS affected economic inequalities between and within urban and rural areas in China. Our findings reveal that: (1) CETS significantly reduced overall economic inequality in counties with a high proportion of secondary industry output; (2) this reduction primarily occurred within urban and rural areas rather than between them. Further heterogeneity analysis demonstrates that while CETS effectively mitigated economic inequality between urban and rural areas in central and western regions, it did not achieve similar outcomes in the eastern region; (3) service industry development and rural GDP per capita served as important channels through which CETS reduced economic inequality within rural areas. Infrastructure development driven by CETS primarily addressed economic inequality within urban areas rather than rural areas. Key policy insights: It is confirmed that China's CETS made a significant contribution to mitigating economic inequalities within urban and rural areas. This empirical evidence provides new decision-making support for the future promotion of CETS at the county level. It is recommended to propose higher quotas for service industries in rural areas and allocate a portion of revenue from carbon emission trading markets to promote entrepreneurship among rural residents and support upgrades in the rural industrial structure. Considering that the infrastructure development driven by CETS has predominantly addressed economic inequality within urban areas rather than rural areas, it is imperative to allocate a greater proportion of revenue from CETS towards supporting rural infrastructure construction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses 556 model scenarios assessed by IPCC's Working Group-III for the 6th Assessment Report, which have an underlying 10-region classification and correspond to restricting warming levels to 1.5 ℃ and 2 ℃. We show that across all scenarios, the current global inequalities in incomes, energy use, and emissions, are projected to continue even in 2050. Scenarios also project higher per capita fossil fuel use and lower carbon dioxide removal in developed countries in 2050 compared to developing countries. Our results demonstrate the scale and scope of unequal outcomes in these scenarios, that have been anticipated by theoretical critiques of the underlying models. The paper explores the potential reasons for the unequal outcomes of the scenarios focusing on the two key issues of scenario design and modelling framework. Our analysis also suggests that instead of summary assessments focusing on singular median values or percentile ranges, as undertaken in the IPCC report, more could be learned from focusing on differences between models or considering outliers that could present new and innovative solutions to the determination of equitable and efficient future mitigation pathways. Our analysis underlines the need for new frameworks for emissions modelling and scenario building, for constructing possible futures that can also foreground equity and climate justice. Key Policy Insights: Scenarios assessed by IPCC project continuing global inequality in 2050. Inequality is pervasive across all variables – energy, fuel use, GDP, and emissions. Higher CO2 reduction and CDR are projected for some developing regions. IPCC must comprehensively review scenario assessment and reporting processes to ensure the transparent representation of all scenarios in the literature. There is a need for new scenario and modelling frameworks that consider and include climate equity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rise of economic inequality in recent decades, dollar stores have flourished in the United States. Although the media has increasingly portrayed dollar stores as violent crime magnets, limited academic research has examined their impact on nearby crime. This study employed a difference-in-differences approach to investigate the impact of dollar stores on localized violent crime patterns in Chicago. Results showed a significant increase in violent crimes, especially robberies, in nearby areas relative to the control areas, following the opening of dollar stores. There were no signs of spatial crime displacement. Moreover, after the closing of dollar stores, the levels of violent crime in nearby areas relative to the control areas returned to those of the prestore opening period, regardless of the type of crime. This study also explored how the impact of dollar store openings on nearby crime rates evolves over time and varies according to the surrounding context of the store's location. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although actual experiences of upward social mobility are historically low, many adolescents and adults express a belief in social mobility (e.g., that social status can change). Although a belief in upward mobility (e.g., that status can improve) can be helpful for economically disadvantaged adolescents and adults, a belief in upward social mobility in adults is also associated with greater acceptance of societal inequality. While this belief might have similar benefits or consequences in children, no previous work has examined whether children are even capable of reasoning about social mobility. This is surprising, given that elementary‐aged children exhibit sophisticated reasoning about both social status, as well as about the fixedness or malleability of properties and group membership. Across an economically advantaged group of 5‐ to 12‐year‐old American children (N = 151, Mage = 8.91, 63% racial majority, 25% racially marginalized; Mhousehold income = $133,064), we found evidence that children can reason about social mobility for their own families and for others. Similar to research in adults, children believe that others are more likely to experience upward than downward mobility. However, in contrast to adult's typical beliefs—but in line with economic realities—between 7‐ and 9‐years‐old, children become less likely to expect upward mobility for economically disadvantaged, versus advantaged, families. In sum, children are capable of reasoning about social mobility in nuanced ways; future work should explore the implications of these beliefs. Research Highlights: Despite harsh economic realities, a belief in upward social mobility and the American Dream is alive and well.Between 7 and 9 years of age, economically advantaged, American children begin to expect economically disadvantaged families to experience less upward mobility than economically advantaged families.Children's beliefs about social mobility better accord with reality than adults' do. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Countries around the world are working to develop social protection floors to help reduce poverty. Ensuring workers can earn adequate wages is an important component of social protection floors. In this paper, we explore who receives minimum, poverty, median, and living wages in Jordan, comparing 2010 and 2016, and in Tunisia in 2014. We demonstrate that while the majority of workers do earn at least minimum and poverty wages, only a minority of workers earn a living wage. The chances of earning minimum, poverty, median, and living wages depend on the characteristics of workplaces, specific work characteristics (especially job formality and skills required), and the demographic characteristics of workers. While results are consistent with wages reflecting, in part, workers' productivity, they may also reflect rents, efficiency wages, and for minimum wages issues with enforceability and policy design. These findings highlight which workers are vulnerable to low earnings and where greater enforcement or redesign of minimum wage legislation might be needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We evaluated the impact of the displacement project on land and income inequalities in Koto Panjang resettlement villages of Riau Province of Indonesia. The displaced households received equally compensated land before the project's operation. We took that displacement as a treatment and conducted a with-and-without project comparison to the changes in the household economy, putting the non-displaced households as counterfactual. Using the 2003 and 2013 Indonesian Agricultural Household Income Survey, we found that the displaced areas had equally distributed land but unequally distributed income. In addition, both land and income levels were higher in the displaced than in the non-displaced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the macroeconomic and social determinants of voting behavior, and especially of political polarization – defined here as the increasing electoral success of far-right and far-left parties – in 20 advanced countries using annual data from 1970 to 2016 and covering 291 parliamentary elections. Our analysis indicates that the link between income inequality and political polarization appears to have significantly changed over the last 20 years. Indeed, we find that both average net income inequality, as well as the bottom 10% income share are statistically linked to the recent success of far-right parties (but not of far-left parties), while the top 10% or top 20% income shares are not. The link of income inequality and political polarization, and in particular the increasing success of far-right parties, thus seems to be based on the deterioration of the relative economic position especially of the poorest fraction of the population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• More than two-thirds of the world's population are affected by the escalating issue of rising income inequality. This phenomenon is intensifying the risk of societal divisions, provoking protests in numerous countries, and impeding economic and social development. • BioTrade refers to products or services derived from biodiversity, which are commercialized and traded in a manner that upholds respect for both people and nature. • There exists a robust positive correlation between BioTrade and income inequality. However, the impact of BioTrade on inequality exhibits heterogeneity based on sub-regions and the distribution of income disparities. • The level of preparedness for advanced technologies serves as one pathway through which BioTrade influences global inequality. While empirical studies exploring the impacts of international trade on income inequality have continued to expand, yielding mixed results, less attention has been devoted to the effects of BioTrade on income redistribution. This article addresses this gap by examining the impact of BioTrade on income inequality, with a specific emphasis on the role of technological innovations. We employ a panel model encompassing 131 countries over the period 2010–2019, utilizing instrumental variable two-stage least squares and smoothed instrumental-variable quantile regression. Overall, the results indicate a strong positive link between BioTrade and income inequality, yet its effects remain heterogeneous across sub-regions and the distribution of income inequality. To elucidate this positive link, the article presents evidence of the crucial role of the level of readiness for advanced technologies. Consequently, technological innovations play a pivotal role in mitigating the accelerating effects of BioTrade on inequality. The results are robust to a battery of robustness tests, including variations in estimation methodologies, alternative measures of inequality and BioTrade, and the inclusion of control variables. These results call upon policymakers to champion technological innovations, such as Internet access and research and development, as crucial strategies for effectively and sustainably alleviating the aggravation of inequalities induced by BioTrade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Nexus between the positioning of economies along Global Value Chains (GVCs) and within-country income inequality for 101 countries in 2003–2015. • Distinguish product-level from "functional" positioning of economies, the latter defined by the value-adding activities performed along GVCs. • A more upstream product-level positioning is associated with higher (lower) inequality in low- and middle- (high-) income countries. • Greater involvement of economies in pre- and post-production functions is associated with lower income disparities. • Results on the distributional effects of functional positioning are driven by low- and middle-income countries. This work addresses the nexus between Global Value Chains (GVCs) and within-country inequality by distinguishing two key dimensions: the "product-level positioning" of economies, i.e. their involvement in more upstream or downstream industries, and their "functional positioning", defined by the value-adding activities performed along GVCs. Using trade and FDI data on 101 countries in 2003–2015, we show that a more upstream product-level positioning is associated with higher inequality in low- and middle-income countries. This is consistent with these countries' greater involvement in industries supplying raw materials and energy inputs, characterised by a remarkable income polarisation. Conversely, a more downstream product-level positioning goes together with greater inequality in high-income countries, reflecting downward pressures on labour income due to massive outsourcing of inputs to foreign suppliers. As for functional positioning, we find that a greater involvement of economies in pre- and post-production stages is associated with lower income disparities, while a larger engagement in production operations goes together with higher inequality. This result is driven by low- and middle-income countries, suggesting that a greater involvement in knowledge-intensive GVC activities fosters technological upgrading in these economies, with beneficial effects also on the lower segments of the labour force. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the trajectory of global income inequality since 1981. Commonly used (relative) definitions indicate a decline in global inequality since the late 1980s. Looking ahead, it has been intuited that the influence of China's economic development—and that of other rapidly growing, populous nations—on the between-country component will, at some juncture, diminish and start to add to global inequality should economic growth persist. Our paper formalizes the turning point of global inequality through a simple model. For illustrative purposes, we empirically present the implications for the timing of the turning point in the context of a weaker post-pandemic growth recovery versus a stronger, albeit improbable, post-pandemic growth recovery. We conclude by arguing that the era of declining global income inequality is likely over, considering the forces influencing both the between-country and within-country components. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The primary focus of this study is to examine the distributional consequences of the widespread increase in prices. The fundamental question the study aims to address is whether the dynamics of income distribution due to higher inflation differ in the short term compared to the long run. Design/methodology/approach: The authors estimated a panel-data model (fixed effects) using inequality and inflation data available at a high frequency, i.e. on a quarterly basis for over 30 years, and found evidence that inflation causes rapid swings in income distribution. Findings: The authors' contribution to the literature lies in providing evidence that inflation rapidly causes swings in income distribution, even after controlling for the state of the economy. The authors also demonstrate that the magnitude and direction of the effect of inflation on income inequality depend on whether the initial inflation rate is below or above the Federal Reserve's target of 2%. Originality/value: To the best of the authors' knowledge, the authors are the first to emphasize that the targets set by central banks can drive the strength and direction of the relationship between inflation and income inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with global imbalances as an increasingly important issue in our age. While the literature establishes that current accounts are inversely related to the ratio of income to consumption inequality in OECD, our study finds that this relationship is reversed in Asia. That ratio has much to do with various schemes of consumption smoothing, which are affected by policy interventions to alleviate the effects of rising income inequality. Different policies may generate opposite outcomes. In OECD, policy encourages consumer credit and deficit spending among low-income people so that consumption inequality is kept artificially low, leading up to a current account deficit. In Asia, policy promotes output growth via high savings with no well-developed smoothing schemes designed to help poor households, so that consumption inequality moves in line with income inequality, with excess savings recycled into a current account surplus. Hence, any reduction in global imbalances requires both regions to adjust their policies for mitigating income inequality and optimizing smoothing schemes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the transition from Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the concept of development has shifted from development to inclusive development. This motivates authors to include not only growth and inequality but also poverty, which will represent our concept of inclusive development. The literature on trade and its impact on inequality and poverty is ambiguous and heterogeneous, reflecting the need for more empirical analyses to enable effective policy targeting and implementation. The study examines the dynamic linkages between trade and the GIP triangle (economic growth, poverty, and inequality) in 18 emerging countries from 1991 to 2020. As a contribution to the existing literature, the study emphasizes direct and indirect linkages between trade and the GIP triangle. Using the panel ARDL approach for panel data, the study finds that trade promotes growth. Trade also helps in deteriorating income inequality, while it is not a factor of poverty eradication in emerging economies. The study recommends that to maximize the effectiveness of trade policies; they must be complementary and implemented in tandem with trade reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the implications of fiscal policy for labor income inequality through two causal channels. First, I estimate how fiscal policy reacts to negative income shocks happening at different points on the labor income distribution, to examine whether fiscal policy responds differently when there are changes in income for low-income earners, versus median-income earners or high-income earners. Secondly, I estimate the impact that various fiscal policies have on labor market income at the low, median, and high ends. I consider eight different fiscal policy variables, including four types of government transfer variables shown to be countercyclical, government consumption and government investment, and personal versus corporate tax revenue. Embedding each fiscal policy variable into a Bayesian structural vector autoregression, I estimate both the reaction of each fiscal policy variable to shocks to labor income at three points of the labor income distribution, and the impact of shocks to each fiscal policy variable on labor income along the same three points of the distribution. Impulse response functions show most fiscal policies are more responsive to shocks to the low end of the income distribution. The impulse response functions also show that it is often the median and upper-end of the income distribution that benefit most from fiscal expansions, leading to greater income inequality. The results also reveal that the fiscal policies most effective for boosting income at low income levels also lead to the largest increases in income inequality. Finally, I find that the fiscal policies most effective for stimulating labor income are also the least responsive to labor income shocks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy poverty remains a significant challenge in developing nations, as exemplified by the situation in Indonesia. The connection between energy poverty and insufficient financial resources to fulfill basic energy requirements is significant. Remittances hold the potential to address energy poverty. This study seeks to explore the contribution of remittances to alleviating multidimensional energy poverty among households in Indonesia. Data for this research are sourced from the Indonesian Family Life Survey (IFLS) from 2007 to 2014. This study uses traditional migrant-sending districts as an instrumental variable to address endogeneity concerns arising from the reverse causality between remittances and energy poverty. The findings indicate that remittances from migrant workers can help alleviate multidimensional energy poverty in Indonesia, as demonstrated by the two-stage least-squares (2SLS) methodology. Households receiving assistance use the funds to increase their energy consumption and alleviate energy deprivation by directing resources toward electricity, appliances, and communication services. Additionally, the study highlights that economic disparities play a role in shaping the relationship between remittances and energy poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research examining the immigration and crime connection has proliferated, stimulating a vigorous debate among academics and politicians alike. Researchers are examining this relationship at both individual and aggregate levels. However, studies continue to provide often contradictory results. Using Eurostat data over 2017–2020 on crime rates, GDP per capita, income inequality, unemployment rates, and immigration in 38 European countries, this study examines the link between crime and immigration in the context of socioeconomic variables. The main goal is to identify and analyze possible relationships between immigration, unemployment, and crime in Europe. The statistical evidence appears in general to support the hypothesis that the level of crime in Europe during the time period under study can be explained by the level of immigration in the context of country-wide sociodemographic factors. Results show that the homicide rate is significantly associated negatively with immigration (r = − 0.15), GDP per capita (r = − 0.41), and positively associated with both unemployment (r=0.22) and income inequality (r=0.34). Sexual violence rate is significantly and positively associated with immigation (r=0.20) and GDP per capita (r=0.71), and negatively associated with unemployment (r=-0.36) and income inequality (r=-0.41). Finally theft has the same associations and directions as that of sexual violence for all variables, except GDP per capita. The results are discussed in the context of some criminological theories of strain and relative deprivation to suggest policy implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neoliberalism is a political economic philosophy consisting of two claims, one economic and the other political. The economic claim is laissez-faire is the best way to organize economic activity as it generates efficient outcomes that maximize well-being. The political claim is free markets promote individual liberty. This article argues both claims are problematic. The evidence from the Neoliberal era shows Neoliberalism has undercut shared prosperity and unleashed illiberal forces that threaten liberty. The article distinguishes between the first political turn which established Neoliberal political hegemony, and the second political turn toward proto-fascism now underway. The second turn is being driven by a collection of factors which have created a demand for proto-fascism and weakened the defenses against alt-right ideas. Those factors include socio-economic disembedding, institutional destruction and political disembedding, increased economic inequality that tilts political power, transformation of attitudes to government and governance, transformation of economic identity, and behavioral transformation that celebrates sociopathic egotism. The Third Way's capture of center-left politics means liberal elites occupy the political place that should be held by true opponents of Neoliberalism. Those elites obstruct the politics needed to reverse the deep causes of the drift to proto-fascism. Ironically, that makes them a real danger. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Earnings inequality in Germany has increased dramatically. Measuring inequality locally at the level of cities annually since 1985, we find that behind this development is the rapidly worsening inequality in the largest cities, driven by increasing earnings polarisation. In the cross-section, local earnings inequality rises substantially in city size, and this city-size inequality penalty has increased steadily since 1985, reaching an elasticity of.2 in 2010. Inequality decompositions reveal that overall earnings inequality is almost fully explained by the within-locations component, which in turn is driven by the largest cities. The worsening inequality in the largest cities is amplified by their greater population weight. Examining the local earnings distributions directly reveals that this is due to increasing earnings polarisation that is strongest in the largest places. Both upper and lower distributional tails become heavier over time, and are the heaviest in the largest cities. We establish these results using a large and spatially representative administrative data set, and address the top-coding problem in these data using a parametric distribution approach that outperforms standard imputations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Income interventions with pro-poor targeting is a common fiscal policy around the world. However their distributional effects on consumption and savings are not well understood. Motivated by the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), we use longitudinal data on income and consumption of Indian households to estimate distributional effects of such interventions in a model with endogenous consumption and savings distribution, where households face uninsured income risks. In the model, a standard scheme of interventions that consistently targets low-income cohorts, has small distributional impacts on targeted and non-targeted cohorts alike. In contrast, a fiscally-equivalent scheme that changes the expected income profile of the targeted households in the same initial cohort irrespective of their future incomes, generates larger effects by changing income mobility for both the targeted and non-targeted cohorts. This mobility-based channel generates consumption responses even though the magnitude of the shock is lesser for the initially targeted cohort, as it more than offsets the effect from permanent income shock. Quantitatively, such an intervention in the order of 0.6 percent of output, approximating the Indian scenario, increases consumption share of the targeted cohort by nearly 2.5 percent, five times as large as the effect of standard interventions. The distributional effects are similar to those arising from a counterfactual policy of universal basic income. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pay gaps for women and minorities have persisted after accounting for observable differences. Recently, a dozen US states have banned employer access to salary histories. We analyze the effects of these salary history bans (SHBs) on private employer wage posting and pay. We develop a theoretical model of firms' choices between posting wages and bargaining, drawing out the implications of SHBs on wages for different groups of jobs. We then implement a comprehensive analysis in a difference-in-differences design, using Burning Glass job posting data in the US and the Current Population Survey. The results show that following SHBs, private employers posted wages more often and increased pay for job changers, particularly for women (6.2%) and non-whites (5.8%). The results imply that when employers can access applicants' salary histories while bargaining over wages, they can take advantage of past inequities, perpetuating inequality. There is also no evidence of adverse selection of workers overall or adverse employer reactions in the short run. Bargaining behavior and the use of salary histories appear to account for much of the difference in pay between disadvantaged job changers and others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We construct a comprehensive database of educational quality by cohort for 92 countries from 1970 to 2015 and analyze its impact on disparities in income and growth worldwide. To estimate educational quality, we utilize secondary students' scores on international mathematics and science tests. Additionally, we impute unobserved test scores for individual countries in non-participating survey years. Wage regressions using individual earnings data reveal considerable returns to educational quality. We estimate human capital stock by incorporating differences in educational quantity and quality by age group across countries and over time. Our newly-constructed human capital dataset enabled us to explore the role of educational quality and human capital in understanding cross-country income disparities. The findings from development and growth accounting exercises indicated a discernible contribution of educational quality to per capita income and its growth rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the impact of macroprudential policies, capital controls, and their joint effect on income inequality. Using a panel dataset covering 60 countries from 2000 to 2019, we find that macroprudential policies and capital controls can mitigate income inequality, which are robust to various subsets of policy indexes. However, the effectiveness of macroprudential policies on income inequality depends on the tightness of capital controls. We verify that macroprudential policies affect income inequality through private sector leverage, and both capital controls and macroprudential policies have significant influences on gross capital flows and net capital flows to affect income inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores how income inequality among individuals in each country and trade costs depicting geographic distance between countries impact economic welfare and regime choice under representative democracy, comparing three trading regimes: most favored nation, customs union, and free trade agreement. We examine two cases: one in which trade costs are incurred symmetrically among all countries, and the other in which no trade costs are incurred among the potential member countries, but only between them and nonmembers. In each case, we identify the political feasibility of each regime as well as the impact on the average welfare levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the distributive and welfare effects of cross‐ownership by firms in a general equilibrium economy on the product and factor markets. The cross‐ownership of equities, such as collusion, tends to be anticompetitive, thereby narrowing the wage gap between skilled and unskilled labor in the short term with the existing number of firms. In the capital market, reducing capital cost through cross‐ownership causes new firms to enter the market in the long term. This firm‐entry effect induced by cross‐ownership through an increase in the number of competitors generates a competitive force that exacerbates wage inequality and reduces welfare in the economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this research, we argue that conscientiousness can be a key factor in accounting for the racial pay gap among Black and White workers. Drawing from shifting standard and status characteristics theories and the literature on occupations, we propose that conscientiousness yields differential rewards for Blacks and Whites because of the incongruence between stereotypes about Black workers and conscientiousness. We further suggest the occupational value of status as an occupational‐level boundary condition that affects the relationships between conscientiousness, race, and pay. We first tested our model with a large national panel dataset, the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 97 (NLSY97), and occupational characteristics scores in the Occupational Information Network (O*NET), finding that the positive effects of conscientiousness on pay were greater for Whites compared to Blacks and that such pay inequality is more pronounced in occupations with high‐status values than in those with low‐status values. A follow‐up experimental study that recruited 202 managers working in the U.S. produced similar results, suggesting that our findings were not attributable to the levels of job performance. Thus, our research demonstrates the role of conscientiousness in generating pay differentials based on race and sheds light on the importance of considering a discrete occupational context that contributes to organizational inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the development of Internet technology and modern supply chains, cross‐border e‐commerce (CBEC) has become one of the most important forms of international trade. The impact of this new mode of trade on economic growth and income disparity is worthy of further examination. This study treats the CBEC pilot zone policy as a quasi‐natural experiment, using the difference‐in‐differences approach to examine its impact on the urban–rural income gap. The findings showed that: (1) This policy significantly widened the urban–rural income gap; (2) innovation, entrepreneurship, and export are important paths toward expanding the impact of the CBEC pilot policy on the income gap, but the digital environment suppresses these expanding paths; and (3) the impact of this policy on the income gap shows distinct regional heterogeneity. This study provides several recommendations on how to promote balanced incomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]