Understanding of the value and economic contribution of intangible assets is hampered by measurement challenges, which stem from the characteristics of intangibles and weaknesses in survey design. We characterize these challenges with four “F words”—forgotten, fuzzy, framing, and frequency. We establish these characteristics theoretically, with reference to the survey design literature. We then provide a summary of a range of official business surveys that capture data on intangible assets in the UK. Using these sources, we test the (in)consistency and quality of data on intangibles collected through business surveys in the UK, using a range of data sources and microdata linkage. We draw on this research to propose modifications to surveys on intangible investment that might yield superior data in future.
{"title":"The “F Words”: Why Surveying Businesses About Intangibles is so Hard","authors":"Josh Martin","doi":"10.1111/roiw.12666","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/roiw.12666","url":null,"abstract":"Understanding of the value and economic contribution of intangible assets is hampered by measurement challenges, which stem from the characteristics of intangibles and weaknesses in survey design. We characterize these challenges with four “F words”—forgotten, fuzzy, framing, and frequency. We establish these characteristics theoretically, with reference to the survey design literature. We then provide a summary of a range of official business surveys that capture data on intangible assets in the UK. Using these sources, we test the (in)consistency and quality of data on intangibles collected through business surveys in the UK, using a range of data sources and microdata linkage. We draw on this research to propose modifications to surveys on intangible investment that might yield superior data in future.","PeriodicalId":47853,"journal":{"name":"Review of Income and Wealth","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140199740","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
We study the intergenerational transmission of welfare benefit receipt in Germany. We first describe the correlation between welfare receipt experienced in the parental household and subsequent own welfare receipt of young adults. In a second step, we investigate whether the observed correlations reflect causal effects of past welfare experience. We use family fixed effects estimations and Gottschalk's (1996) approach and take advantage of the long‐running German Socio‐Economic Panel Survey to contribute to a sparse literature. We find strong positive correlations between parental and own welfare receipt. These patterns do, however, not persist after controlling for unobserved heterogeneities. Therefore, our results suggest that the strong intergenerational correlation of welfare benefit receipt is determined by family background rather than by the experience of parental welfare benefit receipt.
{"title":"Intergenerational Transmission of Welfare Benefit Receipt: Evidence from Germany","authors":"Regina T. Riphahn, Jennifer Feichtmayer","doi":"10.1111/roiw.12680","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/roiw.12680","url":null,"abstract":"We study the intergenerational transmission of welfare benefit receipt in Germany. We first describe the correlation between welfare receipt experienced in the parental household and subsequent own welfare receipt of young adults. In a second step, we investigate whether the observed correlations reflect causal effects of past welfare experience. We use family fixed effects estimations and Gottschalk's (1996) approach and take advantage of the long‐running German Socio‐Economic Panel Survey to contribute to a sparse literature. We find strong positive correlations between parental and own welfare receipt. These patterns do, however, not persist after controlling for unobserved heterogeneities. Therefore, our results suggest that the strong intergenerational correlation of welfare benefit receipt is determined by family background rather than by the experience of parental welfare benefit receipt.","PeriodicalId":47853,"journal":{"name":"Review of Income and Wealth","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140199541","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The Foster‐Greer‐Thorbecke class of indices and the TIP curve have become classical tools to measure poverty. In this paper we adapt these indices and curve to the income mobility literature and measure downward income mobility considering its three dimensions of incidence, intensity, and inequality. This strategy allows us to incorporate reference dependence, loss aversion and diminishing sensitivity, features emphasized as welfare determinants in Prospect Theory. We propose the use of a class of measures and a Three I's of Downward Mobility curve as a useful graphical device in the income growth framework. Based on this curve we can evaluate the degree of regressivity (or progressivity) of income losses. We provide an empirical illustration for Spain in two recent recession periods. Results show that even if for most households the pandemic shock was not as severe as the Great Recession, some sociodemographic groups had a more similar downward mobility experience in both crises.
福斯特-格里尔-特贝克指数和 TIP 曲线已成为衡量贫困的经典工具。在本文中,我们将这些指数和曲线与收入流动性文献相结合,并从发生率、强度和不平等三个维度来衡量收入向下流动性。通过这一策略,我们可以将参考依赖、损失厌恶和敏感性递减这些前景理论中强调的福利决定因素纳入其中。我们建议在收入增长框架中使用一类衡量标准和三 I 向下流动曲线作为有用的图表工具。根据这条曲线,我们可以评估收入损失的倒退(或进步)程度。我们提供了西班牙最近两次经济衰退时期的经验说明。结果显示,即使对大多数家庭来说,大流行病的冲击不如大衰退严重,但在两次危机中,一些社会人口群体的向下流动经历更为相似。
{"title":"The three I's of downward income mobility: A directional subgroup decomposable measure","authors":"Elena Bárcena‐Martín, Olga Cantó","doi":"10.1111/roiw.12686","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/roiw.12686","url":null,"abstract":"The Foster‐Greer‐Thorbecke class of indices and the TIP curve have become classical tools to measure poverty. In this paper we adapt these indices and curve to the income mobility literature and measure downward income mobility considering its three dimensions of incidence, intensity, and inequality. This strategy allows us to incorporate reference dependence, loss aversion and diminishing sensitivity, features emphasized as welfare determinants in Prospect Theory. We propose the use of a class of measures and a Three I's of Downward Mobility curve as a useful graphical device in the income growth framework. Based on this curve we can evaluate the degree of regressivity (or progressivity) of income losses. We provide an empirical illustration for Spain in two recent recession periods. Results show that even if for most households the pandemic shock was not as severe as the Great Recession, some sociodemographic groups had a more similar downward mobility experience in both crises.","PeriodicalId":47853,"journal":{"name":"Review of Income and Wealth","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140153521","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Global eradication of extreme poverty requires absolute convergence of poverty rates worldwide towards zero. Empirical analysis of poverty data for 100 emerging and developing countries over four decades reveals that such a goal is likely to remain elusive. Rather than absolute convergence, we find club convergence: countries' long‐run poverty rates cluster into several distinct clubs, whose number depends on the specific poverty dimension considered. Only the lowest‐poverty club exhibits poverty rates approaching zero by the end of the sample. In contrast, the highest‐poverty club, which accounts for nearly half the world's poor, evokes a poverty trap: its average poverty barely budged over the entire period examined. Overall, income—its initial level and, especially, its growth rate—matters more than inequality for shaping countries' club membership, particularly for the highest‐poverty club. Nevertheless, inequality plays a substantive role for membership in the intermediate‐poverty clubs, which achieved the greatest poverty reduction.
{"title":"Poverty convergence clubs","authors":"Ángel S. Marrero, Gustavo A. Marrero, Luis Servén","doi":"10.1111/roiw.12688","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/roiw.12688","url":null,"abstract":"Global eradication of extreme poverty requires absolute convergence of poverty rates worldwide towards zero. Empirical analysis of poverty data for 100 emerging and developing countries over four decades reveals that such a goal is likely to remain elusive. Rather than absolute convergence, we find club convergence: countries' long‐run poverty rates cluster into several distinct clubs, whose number depends on the specific poverty dimension considered. Only the lowest‐poverty club exhibits poverty rates approaching zero by the end of the sample. In contrast, the highest‐poverty club, which accounts for nearly half the world's poor, evokes a poverty trap: its average poverty barely budged over the entire period examined. Overall, income—its initial level and, especially, its growth rate—matters more than inequality for shaping countries' club membership, particularly for the highest‐poverty club. Nevertheless, inequality plays a substantive role for membership in the intermediate‐poverty clubs, which achieved the greatest poverty reduction.","PeriodicalId":47853,"journal":{"name":"Review of Income and Wealth","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140243163","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
While wealth accumulation and its distribution are arguably two of the key drivers of overall economic inequality, as well as being of major importance in their own right, very little is known about them in the developing world. I contribute to filling this gap by providing a micro–macro consistent series of aggregate wealth and its distribution in Uruguay. The country's balance sheet, which is not estimated by official institutions, is constructed for the first time by combining a wide array of data sources, leading to a book‐value wealth‐to‐income ratio of 450–500 percent. Private wealth distribution is then estimated based on the capitalization method, taking stock of combined survey‐tax‐national accounts micro‐data, resulting in a top 1 percent wealth share of 37–40 percent. Estimates are systematically compared with results based on the estate multiplier method, real estate wealth tax, household wealth survey, and Forbes billionaires list.
{"title":"Wealth Inequality in the South: Multi‐Source Evidence from Uruguay","authors":"Mauricio De Rosa","doi":"10.1111/roiw.12683","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/roiw.12683","url":null,"abstract":"While wealth accumulation and its distribution are arguably two of the key drivers of overall economic inequality, as well as being of major importance in their own right, very little is known about them in the developing world. I contribute to filling this gap by providing a micro–macro consistent series of aggregate wealth and its distribution in Uruguay. The country's balance sheet, which is not estimated by official institutions, is constructed for the first time by combining a wide array of data sources, leading to a book‐value wealth‐to‐income ratio of 450–500 percent. Private wealth distribution is then estimated based on the capitalization method, taking stock of combined survey‐tax‐national accounts micro‐data, resulting in a top 1 percent wealth share of 37–40 percent. Estimates are systematically compared with results based on the estate multiplier method, real estate wealth tax, household wealth survey, and Forbes billionaires list.","PeriodicalId":47853,"journal":{"name":"Review of Income and Wealth","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140249597","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nicola Amendola, Giulia Mancini, Silvia Redaelli, Giovanni Vecchi
We investigate the effect that seemingly minor features of the implementation of cost-of-living adjustments have on the distribution of household expenditures, by developing an analytical framework that is consistent with standard consumer theory, and mindful of data limitations faced by practitioners. The main result is at odds with common sense: even when multiple price indices are available (e.g., a food Consumer Price Index and a non-food one), it turns out that using a single price index (e.g., the total Consumer Price Index), to adjust the consumption aggregate is recommended. The practice of adjusting subcomponents of consumption separately (food with a food index and nonfood with a nonfood index) can lead to a systematic bias in the welfare measure, and consequently in poverty and inequality measures. Using Iran's 2019 Household Expenditures and Income Survey, we find that the bias manifests as a systematic underestimation of urban poverty and overestimation of rural poverty.
{"title":"Deflation by Expenditure Components: A Harmless Adjustment?","authors":"Nicola Amendola, Giulia Mancini, Silvia Redaelli, Giovanni Vecchi","doi":"10.1111/roiw.12685","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/roiw.12685","url":null,"abstract":"We investigate the effect that seemingly minor features of the implementation of cost-of-living adjustments have on the distribution of household expenditures, by developing an analytical framework that is consistent with standard consumer theory, and mindful of data limitations faced by practitioners. The main result is at odds with common sense: even when multiple price indices are available (e.g., a food Consumer Price Index and a non-food one), it turns out that using a single price index (e.g., the total Consumer Price Index), to adjust the consumption aggregate is recommended. The practice of adjusting subcomponents of consumption separately (food with a food index and nonfood with a nonfood index) can lead to a systematic bias in the welfare measure, and consequently in poverty and inequality measures. Using Iran's 2019 Household Expenditures and Income Survey, we find that the bias manifests as a systematic underestimation of urban poverty and overestimation of rural poverty.","PeriodicalId":47853,"journal":{"name":"Review of Income and Wealth","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140105174","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
We study decennial anonymous and non‐anonymous growth incidence curves in the United States during the past 50 years. The former show income growth by quantile independent of initial incomes and are typically upward sloping, reflecting increasing inequality. The latter are conditional on initial ranks and are flat or downward sloping. This suggests distributional neutrality of growth when accounting for initial income positions. We explain this difference by decomposing the non‐anonymous curves into mobility and shape components. The former is always downward sloping, whereas the latter is upward sloping in periods of increasing inequality. Thus, flat non‐anonymous curves can be observed even with increasing inequality. We exploit the decomposition to show that the slope of non‐anonymous curves in the United States is determined by the evolution of cross‐sectional income distributions. This enables inferring the shape of non‐anonymous curves from cross‐sectional data and test them for a generalized pro‐poorness social welfare criterion.
{"title":"Evaluating the Distributive Incidence of Growth Using Cross‐sections and Panels","authors":"Yonatan Berman, François Bourguignon","doi":"10.1111/roiw.12681","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/roiw.12681","url":null,"abstract":"We study decennial anonymous and non‐anonymous growth incidence curves in the United States during the past 50 years. The former show income growth by quantile independent of initial incomes and are typically upward sloping, reflecting increasing inequality. The latter are conditional on initial ranks and are flat or downward sloping. This suggests distributional neutrality of growth when accounting for initial income positions. We explain this difference by decomposing the non‐anonymous curves into mobility and shape components. The former is always downward sloping, whereas the latter is upward sloping in periods of increasing inequality. Thus, flat non‐anonymous curves can be observed even with increasing inequality. We exploit the decomposition to show that the slope of non‐anonymous curves in the United States is determined by the evolution of cross‐sectional income distributions. This enables inferring the shape of non‐anonymous curves from cross‐sectional data and test them for a generalized pro‐poorness social welfare criterion.","PeriodicalId":47853,"journal":{"name":"Review of Income and Wealth","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139954799","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
A chained price index is said to suffer from chain drift bias if it indicates an overall price change, even though the prices and quantities in the current period have reverted back to their levels of the base period. The empirical relevance of this bias is well documented in studies that apply sub‐annual chaining to scanner data. There it is shown that stockpiling can lead to downward chain drift bias. The present paper draws attention to the fact that smoothing consumption causes substantial upward chain drift. In addition, this study introduces a stochastic simulation approach that is consistent with both, stockpiling and consumption smoothing. A “stress test” is conducted that examines whether rolling window variants of multilateral indices (GEKS, TPD, and GK) effectively curtail the chain drift problem.
{"title":"Inflation measurement in the presence of stockpiling and consumption smoothing","authors":"Ludwig von Auer","doi":"10.1111/roiw.12682","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/roiw.12682","url":null,"abstract":"A chained price index is said to suffer from chain drift bias if it indicates an overall price change, even though the prices and quantities in the current period have reverted back to their levels of the base period. The empirical relevance of this bias is well documented in studies that apply sub‐annual chaining to scanner data. There it is shown that stockpiling can lead to <jats:italic>downward</jats:italic> chain drift bias. The present paper draws attention to the fact that smoothing consumption causes substantial <jats:italic>upward</jats:italic> chain drift. In addition, this study introduces a stochastic simulation approach that is consistent with both, stockpiling and consumption smoothing. A “stress test” is conducted that examines whether rolling window variants of multilateral indices (GEKS, TPD, and GK) effectively curtail the chain drift problem.","PeriodicalId":47853,"journal":{"name":"Review of Income and Wealth","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139954828","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper focuses on the international trade in services related to intangible assets and intellectual property products (IPP), and it explores to what extent they might be used as a channel to shift the profits of multinational firms to tax havens. Using survey data on Italian firms, we first provide a geographical and sectoral analysis of Italy's trade in IPP services. We then estimate the amount of profit shifted abroad by foreign-owned firms in our sample, applying at various levels of aggregation a methodology recently put forward in the literature. Finally, we look for a correlation at the firm level between estimated shifted profits and imports of IPP services. We find that while the overall correlation is very low, there is a small cluster of firms displaying a positive correlation between these two variables.
{"title":"Trade in services related to intangibles and the profit shifting hypothesis","authors":"Nadia Accoto, Stefano Federico, Giacomo Oddo","doi":"10.1111/roiw.12673","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/roiw.12673","url":null,"abstract":"This paper focuses on the international trade in services related to intangible assets and intellectual property products (IPP), and it explores to what extent they might be used as a channel to shift the profits of multinational firms to tax havens. Using survey data on Italian firms, we first provide a geographical and sectoral analysis of Italy's trade in IPP services. We then estimate the amount of profit shifted abroad by foreign-owned firms in our sample, applying at various levels of aggregation a methodology recently put forward in the literature. Finally, we look for a correlation at the firm level between estimated shifted profits and imports of IPP services. We find that while the overall correlation is very low, there is a small cluster of firms displaying a positive correlation between these two variables.","PeriodicalId":47853,"journal":{"name":"Review of Income and Wealth","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139762322","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Are excessively concentrated markets inequitable as well as inefficient? We explore this issue by analyzing the degree of market concentration in the industries where Australia's wealthiest made their fortunes. Compared with the economy at large, we find that top wealth holders have tended to make their fortunes in industries with a higher-than-average degree of market concentration. Top wealth shares have grown substantially, and from 1990 to 2020, there appears to have been an increase in the propensity of top wealth holders to make their fortunes in highly concentrated industries.
{"title":"Inequality and Market Concentration: New Evidence from Australia","authors":"Lachlan Hotchin, Andrew Leigh","doi":"10.1111/roiw.12679","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/roiw.12679","url":null,"abstract":"Are excessively concentrated markets inequitable as well as inefficient? We explore this issue by analyzing the degree of market concentration in the industries where Australia's wealthiest made their fortunes. Compared with the economy at large, we find that top wealth holders have tended to make their fortunes in industries with a higher-than-average degree of market concentration. Top wealth shares have grown substantially, and from 1990 to 2020, there appears to have been an increase in the propensity of top wealth holders to make their fortunes in highly concentrated industries.","PeriodicalId":47853,"journal":{"name":"Review of Income and Wealth","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139679811","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}