...THE GLOBALIZATION RORSCHACH TEST: INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC INTEGRATION, INEQUALITY AND THE ROLE OF GOVERNMENT NANCY BRUNE and GEOFFREY GARRETT* November 2004 Forthcoming in Annual Review of Political Science vol. 8, 2005 In this review essay, we address the three principal questions that have dominated the debate over the distributive effects of globalization. First, how has globalization affected inequality among countries? Second, how has globalization affected inequality within countries? Third, how has globalization affected the ability of national governments to redistribute wealth and risk within countries? We conclude that despite the proliferation of social science research on the consequences of globalization, there is no solid consensus in the relevant literatures on any of these questions. This is because scholars disagree about how to measure globalization and about how to draw causal inferences about its effects. Keywords: globalization, inequality, economic growth, government spending, privatization ___________________________________________________________ * Nancy Brune is a doctoral candidate at Yale University. She can be reached at nbrune@isop.ucla.edu. Geoffrey Garrett is Vice Provost and Dean of the International Institute, Director of the Ronald W. Burkle Center for International Relations, and Professor of Political Science at UCLA. He can be reached at ggarrett@international.ucla.edu. The authors Alexandra Guisinger, David Nickerson and Jason Sorens...
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...Abstract This paper explores the direct relationship between income and happiness. The first section of the paper discusses the issue of economics and migration and what this means for people’s happiness. The second section has to do with the correlation between age, money and happiness. It researches to see if your age has any effect on your happiness when it comes to your income level. The paper also talks about the main relationship between income and happiness and how having any kind of inequality can greatly affect your happiness in life. It looks into a certain situation where they look at the relationship between a family’s income and their happiness as a whole. The last section of the paper is one quite interesting because it looks into the concept of being self-employed and what effect, if any, it has on your happiness. One would think that it would cause a positive effect because you are your own boss, but the article goes into more depth with the direct and indirect ways it affects you and also on a national and individual level of self-employment. The Economics of Happiness There are two different sections for when it comes to the concept of economics and migration. The first part has to do with people migrating to another country looking for better opportunities and furthermore, in income. When they migrate from a less developed country to a more developed country, they have a belief that since it is a better economy, they will have more wealth. This belief...
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...Democracy, Religion and Inequality University of Groningen Faculty of Economics and Business Bachelor Thesis International Economics and Business Name Student: Yitian Jing Student ID Number: s2012790 Student email: y.jing@student.rug.nl Date Thesis: Jun. 5th, 2012 Name Supervisor: Dr. Robbert K. J. Maseland First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere appreciation and gratitude to my advisor, Dr. R. K. J. Maseland, for his academic guidance and encouragement throughout the research. He has been very generous sharing his experiences on institutional and cultural determinants on economy, as well as on academic research methodology and beyond. I would not have finished such a thesis paper without his support. His effort and patience would never be forgotten. Abstract The democracy’s inequality decreasing effect has been appealing to researchers for long but lacks concentrated argumentation and empirical evidence, as well as the interaction between democracy and religion. This paper conduct an empirical analysis covering time period of 1978-2010 with 86 countries to test the hypotheses of whether democracy decreases inequality and whether an egalitarian religion decreases the influence of democracy. The result shows the direct effect of democracy is weak, however, the hypothesis of religion’s effect on the democracy’s influence is partially confirmed. Therefore, democracy itself has minor influence on inequality while a large proportion of the effect is...
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...Income inequality is one of the big issues in 21st century. Unequal distribution of income in society is considered to be an obstacle to economic growth. The income allocation of a country’s population can be measured by a Gini coefficient. The value of Gini coefficient can be between 0 and 1 and used to define the income gap between the rich and the poor. The value 0 shows perfect equality and value 1 illustrates perfect inequality. The US can be an example of country with high income inequality. The US Gini coefficient has risen by 20% between 1979 and 2010 (Frizell, 2014). Factors like family structure (i.e. how many earners are there in family), technology (i.e. changes the way that we live), and immigration (i.e. changes the supply of...
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...Should Income Inequality be Considered as a Serious Problem that Affects the Health of Most Individuals? Peng Peng AEIS111 Instructor: Roger Frost August 5,2015 With the rapid development of society, people did not have to worry about rising of income and income’s effects. Poor communities tend to suffer different diseases compared to rich people. The rich people will be associated with obesity while the poor are associated with wide range of diseases such as malnutrition, cholera, waterborne diseases and others (Rowlingson, 2011). In the recent years, all this seems different, and the apprehension has majorly shifted. Considering all this truly income inequality does affect the health of most individuals. Income inequality affects life expectancy, disease prevalence and social problems. On contrary, it is argued out that income inequality the main causative agent for health problems (Richard, 2015). This paper is an argumentative essay on how income inequality affects individual health and also identifies if it is the main causative agent or health problems. Firstly, there have been various studies that determine if indeed inequality affects the health of individuals. Those studies such as Whitehall studies have been able to demonstrate a link that is clear between the economic background and the health of individuals.It found out that people living in areas that are poor will die seven years earlier than the people that are living in areas that are...
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...Education and Income Inequality: A Meta-Regression Analysis Abdul Jabbar Abdullah* Hristos Doucouliagos Elizabeth Manning - FIRST DRAFT - Please do not quote without permission from the authors September 2011 Abstract This paper revisits the literature that investigates the effects of education on inequality. Specifically, the paper provides a comprehensive quantitative review of the extant econometrics literature through a meta-regression analysis of 64 empirical studies that collectively report 868 estimates of the effects of education on inequality. We find that education affects the two tails of the distribution of incomes; it reduces the income share of top earners and increases the share of the bottom earners, but has no effect on the share of the middle class. Inequality in education widens income inequality. Education has a larger negative effect on inequality in Africa. The heterogeneity in reported estimates can be largely explained by differences in the specification of the econometric model. JEL Codes: I24, C01 Keywords: Education, inequality, meta-regression analysis Number of words: 12,683 * Corresponding author. Abdullah: Universiti Teknologi Mara Sarawak Campus, Malaysia and PhD Candidate Deakin University, ajabd@deakin.edu.au Doucouliagos: School of Accounting, Economic and Finance, Deakin University, douc@deakin.edu.au Manning: School of Accounting, Economic and Finance, Deakin University, elizabem@deakin.edu.au 1 Education and Income Inequality:...
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...grateful for helpful comments and insights from Rhoda Reddock, Christine Barrow, Caren Grown, three anonymous referees, and participants at the Building Capacity for Gender Analysis in Policy Making, Programme Development, and Implementation: Research Seminar and Workshop, University of West Indies, Barbados, November 2007. Micro-Macro Linkages Between Gender, Development, and Growth: Implications for the Caribbean Region Abstract Over the last two decades, scholars have investigated the two-way relationship between gender inequality on the one hand, and economic development and growth on the other. Research in this area offers new ways to address the economic stagnation and crisis developing countries have experienced over the last two decades. This paper contributes to that literature, exploring the channels by which gender inequality affects, and in important ways, constrains economic development and growth in the Caribbean region. It further explores the endogeneity of gender inequality to the macroeconomic policy environment. The paper concludes with a discussion of economic policies that can promote a win-win outcome—greater gender equality and economic development and growth. Key Words: gender, inequality, development, household economics, macroeconomic policy, Caribbean. 1 Micro-Macro Linkages Between Gender, Development, and Growth: Implications for the Caribbean Region I. Introduction Since the 1970s, developing countries have...
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...Running head: INCOME DISTRIBUTION IN THE UNITED STATES Income Distribution in the United States and the Lorenz Curve 1 Market economies are favored and well-known for generating macroeconomic growth and progress in industrialized nations, such as the United States. Numerous academic studies and economic research have been done not only to measure economic growth, but also to analyze any disparities in income distributions among the general American population. This paper will examine trends and patterns of American wages since the 1970s, focusing on shifts in income distributions to see if these shifts can be interpreted as income inequality across different sectors of our society. Furthermore, this paper will study two important and interlinked methods of measuring income inequality, which are the Lorenz Curve and the Gini Coefficient Index. The Executive Branch of our federal government and the U.S. Congress keep a close eye on income distributions throughout the entire nation. These bodies rely heavily on data collected and analyzed by non-partisan agencies such as the U.S. Census Bureau, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), and academic institutitions that provide data and statistical analysis to assist in economic and budgetary decisions made by elected officials concerning a wide array of policy issues such as taxes, social insurance programs and other issues that impact the overall economy...
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...Income Inequality in America: An Analysis of Policies from Reagan to Obama and What Policies Can Help Close the Gap Income inequality in America has been of great importance in recent election cycles. Candidates from both sides of the political aisle have addressed the growing economic and social concern of increasing income and wealth inequality throughout the country. However, policies to address this growing concern are vastly different. This paper seeks to examine policies from Reagan to Obama that contributed to today’s massive income and wealth inequality. Was it tax reform throughout the 1980s and 1990s that contributed to inequality? Did the Federal Reserve perpetuate policies through massive quantitative easing that led to...
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...improvements in their standards of living and material life. However, my findings contradict the notion that an increase in income and standard of living will gain people happiness. My major findings show that income inequality and other major social problems, such as lack of religious belief and faith, political problems, and family burden have contributed to the decline of happiness among Chinese people. Other negative feelings emerging with the rapid economic growth, such as greed, interpersonal distrust and less compassion show adverse effects on Chinese happiness. I conclude the research by suggesting possible future researches for further studies. 1. Introduction After the Cultural Revolution ended in 1978, China launched a comprehensive reformation in its state controlled economy under the new leadership, Mr. Deng Xiaoping. Since then, China has gradually opened its door to the world and begun its transition into a market economy. (Chai, 1997) Over the past thirty years, China had the most enduring and rapid economic growth in the human history. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Saint Louis, China’s average GDP growth is nearly 10 percent for the past 30 year. (FRED, 2013) In urban China, the average disposable income increase more than 71 times in the past three decades, from 343 Yuan in 1978 to 34565 Yuan in 2012; while the average disposable income in rural China increase more than 37 times, from 208 Yuan in1978 to 7917 Yuan in 2012. (National...
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...Discussion Question: How do you accurately account for economic inequality in order to better assess living standards across and within countries? Discuss the factors affecting economic inequality and the implications on a local and global scale. Before even getting into the debate of assessing living standards, inequality and its measurement, let us first define income and consumption and how these measures are used to assess living standards in mainstream economics. According to Folbre, income encompasses all resource inflows to the household while resource outflows make up for the consumption variable (Folbre, 2009). In today’s world, living standards are assessed by looking at either of the two measures; however, most people agree that looking at living standards from the consumption angle gives us a better, more accurate feel for disparities. That being said, we recognize that these two measures do not provide a full picture: we look at resource inflows and outflows to and from households; however, we do not take into account what actually happens within the household. In recent years, more and more economists have shifted their attention to those non-market factors that directly impact standard of living among the population. In the following paragraphs, we will first examine how economic inequality is currently measured and the limitations underlying those methods. We will then elaborate on the additional parameters (household production and leisure) and their importance...
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...divide can be understood as inequalities in four successive types of access: motivation, physical access, digital skills and different usage. It is claimed that the divide has shifted from the first to the last-called types of access in the last ten years. For the purpose of this paper I will touch base on all types of access. Disadvantages Amongst Man Contemporary research of the digital divide and digital skills is marked by a descriptive nature. Inequalities are described using simple demographics of individuals who have more or less access to computers and the Internet and a different level of digital skills. The explanation of these differences has far less attention. One of the reasons for this state of affairs is the predominance of individualistic notions of inequality. Like most social scientific and economic investigations, digital divide research works on the basis of so-called methodological individualism (Wellman & Berkowitz, 1988). Differential access to information and computer technologies (ICTs) is related to individuals and their characteristics: level of income and education, employment, age, sex, and ethnicity, to mention the most important ones. This is the usual approach in survey research, which measures the properties of individual respondents. Making multivariate analyses of several individual properties and aggregating them to produce properties of collectivities, one hopes to find background explanations. This kind of research might produce useful data...
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...Abstract Research has shown that economic inequality can adversely affect us as an individual and society. Economic inequality does and can affect an organizations performance through employee development which will affect its individual employees and their interactions at work. I will provide an overview of the relationship between economic inequality and management. Introduction Inequalities have been on the rise and on the public’s mind since the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protests which have been noted by many government agencies (i.e. Congressional Budget Office, 2011), international economic organizations (i.e. Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD], 2011) and researchers (Piketty, 2014). Inequality debates still capture headlines and continue to stir debates, for example, Oxfam’s assertion that the 85 richest people in the world hold as much wealth as the poorest half of the world, but also occupied a central stage in the discussions at the annual meeting of World Economic Forum (Oxfam, 2015). This has been researched and studied for years. The earliest article accessible through Web of Science was published in 1930 and discussed the effect of rural migration on urban–rural economic inequality (Rutledge, 1930). Since 1930, research has been done in a range of to examine the relationships between economic inequality and socioeconomics, including economic growth (Kuznets, 1955), public health (Marmot et al., 1991), socio-political instability (Alesina...
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...A STUDY: INCOME AND HAPPINESS ACROSS EUROPE: DO REFERENCE VALUES MATTER? Contents Summary 2 The Silver Lining of Materialism: The Impact of Luxury Consumption on Subjective Well-Being 3 Data used for analysis 5 Econometric Model 6 Critical Reflection 8 Reference List 11 A Study: Income and happiness across Europe: Do reference values matter? Summary The authors in this study - Guglielmo Maria Caporale, Yannis Georgellis, Nicholas Tsitsianis and Ya Ping Yin - assess the relationship between income and subjective well-being; by tracing back to works of Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Veblen and Duesenberry, the authors revive significant attention to the neoclassical economic theory that portrays well-being and absolute income to be highly correlated. The data was retrieved from the European Social Survey (ESS) to examine a potential relationship between income and happiness (self-reported satisfaction), the authors execute their study across 19 European Countries. With utilisation of Easterlin (1974) as their seminal paper, the research draws attention to the Easterlin Paradox (Easterlin, 1995) that suggests there is no relationship between economic expansion in industrialised countries and its average level of happiness. The authors look to assess topical contradictory findings that conclude absolute income is correlated with levels of happiness (e.g.: Frijters et al., 2004). The research purpose of this paper was to re-examine this controversial link for...
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...ISLAM and INEQUALITY Introduction Fish (2011) in his book named “Are Muslims Distinctive: A Look at the Evidence.” discusses whether Muslims show any systematic differences on individual and country levels in various issues such as democracy, large scale violence, corruption, tolerance and social inequality. In terms of inequality, Fish compares Muslim and non- Muslim countries in relation to gender and income inequality. As a result of his data analyses he concludes: “On gender based inequality Muslims lag; on income inequality they lead” (Fish, 2011: 228). I consider the finding about income inequality as an unexpected one because in the income inequality literature, religion in general and Islam in specific are not commonly considered as potential determinants. Fish`s proposed causal mechanism makes his study even more suspicious because his references are anecdotal and his reasoning is culturalist. This is why, I decided to investigate his findings deeper and conduct a test on his claims that Muslims are culturally more egalitarian than Christians. The plan of this paper works in the following way: I will start with a literature review and continue with a brief summary of Fish`s data analysis and his major claims about the causal mechanism behind the relationship between Muslim culture and egalitarian state policies. Afterwards, I will continue with my alternative replication of Fish`s regression analysis with a different dataset which measures inequality in an alternative...
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