The Construction and Interpretation of Combined Cross-Section and Time-Series Inequality Datasets

François, Joseph; Rojas‐Romagosa, Hugo

doi:10.2139/ssrn.825965

“…Furthermore, changes in inequality have been episodic rather than steadily trending, and apparently not "glacial" as had been previously thought (see Atkinson, 1997Atkinson, , 2000Francois and Rojas-Romagosa, 2005).…”

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confidence: 68%

Has Globalisation Increased Inequality?

Dreher

¹

,

Gaston

²

2006

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may AbstractThere has been no shortage of theories which purport to explain why globalisation may have, adverse, insignificant or even beneficial effects on income and earnings inequality. Surprisingly, the empirical realities remain an almost complete mystery. In this paper we use data on industrial wage inequality, household income inequality as well as measures of the economic, social and political dimensions of globalisation to examine this controversial issue.We find that the economic dimension of globalisation, and -less robustly -political integration, have exacerbated wage inequality in developed countries. In contrast, the impact of globalisation on both income and earnings inequality in less-developed countries has been negligible.

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“…16 To measure income inequality we use the Gini coefficient data recently updated and re-calculated by Francois and Rojas-Romagosa (2005).…”

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confidence: 99%

Relief for the Environment? The Importance of an Increasingly Unimportant Industrial Sector

Gassebner

¹

,

Gaston

²

,

Lamla

³

2006

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Deindustrialisation, stagnant real incomes of production workers and increasing inequality are latter-day features of many economies. It's common to assume that such developments pressure policy-makers to relax environmental standards. However, when heavily polluting industries become less important economically, their political importance also tends to diminish. Consequently, a regulator may increase the stringency of environmental policies. We find that declining industrial employment translates into stricter environmental standards. In contrast to previous studies, but consistent with our argument, we find that greater income inequality is associated with policies that promote a cleaner environment.

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“…6 We use θ=1 7 These data are part of a larger project aimed at evaluating the impact of household data comparability problems on the current empirical literature on globalization, distribution of income, and poverty. See Francois and Rojas-Romagosa (2004). 8 See Kanbur (2000) for a recent survey.…”

Section: Regression Model and Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Trade Policy and the Household Distribution of Income

François

¹

,

Rojas‐Romagosa

²

2004

SSRN Journal

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4

0

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. In this paper we analyze the impact of trade and tariffs on the observed cross-country variation in the household distribution of income. We build on results of the literature on production and the functional distribution of income in the 2x2 and higher-dimensional manifestations of the factorintensity model of international trade to link import protection to variations in the household distribution of income. Working with a new dataset on inequality, we then examine cross-country variation in inequality with respect to import protection. Results are fully consistent with the predictions of the factor-intensity model of trade. Our regression results suggest that import protection makes income distribution worse for countries with labour-intensive production patterns --technically know as diversification cones. This relationship shifts to one of falling inequality as incomes rise and we move to capital-intensive diversification cones. The crossing-point is for the set of economies with a per-capita income of between $5500 and $8750 (in 1995 dollars). Below this level, increased import protection tends to make gross household income inequality worse at the margin. Above this range, import protection tends to reduce inequality. Results also suggest that OLS-based cross-country inequality regressions might best be viewed with some suspicion, due to quality of data for countries at lower income levels and variability in variables at this income range left out of unconditional Kuznets-U regressions. Terms of use: Documents inOur results also have implications for the welfare consequences of trade policy. If we work with Sen-type social welfare indexes, then increased inequality discounts the welfare benefits of improved incomes through the efficiency gains from trade. It is in higher-income countries thathigher import protection appears to improve the gross household distribution of income the most.Yet these are the same countries with well-developed social safety nets (at least vis-à-vis lower income countries), such that the adverse effects of inequality that accompany efficiency gains may be offset. As such, current import protection patterns impose welfare costs related to inequality exactly in those countries least able to offset distribution losses through a well-functioning social safety net.1 TRADE POLICY AND THE HOUSEHOLD DISTRIBUTION OF INCOME Abstract: We explore the relationship between import protection and the household distribution of income. We ...

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The Construction and Interpretation of Combined Cross-Section and Time-Series Inequality Datasets

Cited by 9 publications

References 29 publications

Has Globalisation Increased Inequality?

Has Globalisation Increased Inequality?

Relief for the Environment? The Importance of an Increasingly Unimportant Industrial Sector

Trade Policy and the Household Distribution of Income

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