The Journal of Economic Inequality最新文献

We propose Fieller-type methods for inference on generalized entropy inequality indices in the context of the two-sample problem which covers testing the statistical significance of the difference in indices, and the construction of a confidence set for this difference. In addition to irregularities arising from thick distributional tails, standard inference procedures are prone to identification problems because of the ratio transformation that defines the considered indices. Simulation results show that our proposed method outperforms existing counterparts including simulation-based permutation methods and results are robust to different assumptions about the shape of the null distributions. Improvements are most notable for indices that put more weight on the right tail of the distribution and for sample sizes that match macroeconomic type inequality analysis. While irregularities arising from the right tail have long been documented, we find that left tail irregularities are equally important in explaining the failure of standard inference methods. We apply our proposed method to analyze income per-capita inequality across U.S. states and non-OECD countries. Empirical results illustrate how Fieller-based confidence sets can: (i) differ consequentially from available ones leading to conflicts in test decisions, and (ii) reveal prohibitive estimation uncertainty in the form of unbounded outcomes which serve as proper warning against flawed interpretations of statistical tests.

The ‘paradox of progress’ is an empirical regularity that associates more education with larger income inequality. Two driving and competing factors behind this phenomenon are the convexity of the ‘Mincer equation’ (that links wages and education) and the heterogeneity in the returns to education, as captured by quantile regressions. We propose a joint least-squares and quantile regression statistical framework to derive a decomposition to evaluate the relative contribution of each explanation. We apply the proposed decomposition strategy to the case of Argentina 1992 to 2015.

This study investigates how restrictions in healthcare access in European countries during the COVID-19 pandemic affected health outcomes among a key group of vulnerable people: older adults. This group is vulnerable in that older adults are more susceptible to social changes and less capable of adapting, either because of individual characteristics or pre-existing structural inequalities. We employ multi-level modelling using data from the SHARE and SHARE Corona surveys. The findings show that older adults have, on average, perceived a worsening in general and mental health, especially among women and those to whom medical care was restricted. Those whose health status was already poor and those who contracted COVID-19 were most strongly associated with worsened perceptions of general health. Social distancing, loss of employment, and previous depressive episodes were the strongest predictors of worsening mental health. Hence, the pandemic appears to have exacerbated inequalities in health outcomes. Our findings corroborate national-level studies from both within and outside the EU, particularly concerning the gender dimension, access to healthcare, and pre-existing socio-economic inequalities. We conclude with some policy implications and the necessity to craft preventive policies to make the social system more resilient in responding to future crises.

Sen (1973 and 1997) presents the Gini coefficient of income inequality in a population as follows. “In any pair-wise comparison the man with the lower income can be thought to be suffering from some depression on finding his income to be lower. Let this depression be proportional to the difference in income. The sum total of all such depressions in all possible pair-wise comparisons takes us to the Gini coefficient.” (This citation is from Sen 1973, p. 8.) Sen’s verbal account is accompanied by a formula (Sen 1997, p. 31, eq. 2.8.1), which is replicated in the text of this note as equation (1). The formula yields a coefficient bounded from above by a number smaller than 1. This creates a difficulty, because the “mission” of a measure of inequality defined on the unit interval is to accord 0 to perfect equality (maximal equality) and 1 to perfect inequality (maximal inequality). In this note we show that when the Gini coefficient is elicited from a neat measure of the aggregate income-related depression of the population that consists of the people who experience income-related depression, then the obtained Gini coefficient is “well behaved” in the sense that it is bounded from above by 1. We conjecture a reason for a drawback of Sen’s definition, and we present repercussions of the usage of the “well-behaved” Gini coefficient.

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.

This paper provides evidence on the poverty-eradication effect of governmental support, broadly categorised into human support and living support. Following the doubly robust approach and using data collected from 1,538 households of mountainous ethnic minorities, the evidence indicates that current governmental support can help reduce the poor’s multidimensional poverty. However, these supports cannot mitigate all of the deprivations the poor endure. The alleviation impact of human support is observed in education and health deprivations, but that of living support is limited to health deprivation. Employment and living standard deprivations appear to not be significantly influenced by both supports. The results on the effect of human support on education and of living support on health are robust to sensitivity checks, following a novel approach examining violations of unconfoundedness. These findings contribute to the literature on government policy efficacy and suggest a crucial policy adjustment area.

With 20 years of PSID data, we document persistent racial differentials in consumption dynamics. Starting from similar positions in the consumption distribution Blacks end up in lower percentiles than Whites. Education, income, and wealth are three key drivers of these different dynamics. Blacks tend to save less, and hence have less buffer than the Whites to prevent them from falling in the lower part of the consumption distribution.