scholarly journals Redistribution and beliefs about the source of income inequality

Author(s):  
Vanessa Valero

AbstractPrevious literature demonstrates that beliefs about the determinants of income inequality play a major role in individual support for income redistribution. This study investigates how people form beliefs regarding the extent to which work versus luck determines income inequality. Specifically, I examine whether people form self-serving beliefs to justify supporting personally advantageous redistributive policies. I use a laboratory experiment where I directly measure beliefs and manipulate the incentives to engage in self-deception. I first replicate earlier results demonstrating that (1) people attribute income inequality to work when they receive a high income and to luck when they receive a low income and (2) their beliefs about the source of income inequality influence their preferences over redistributive policies. However, I do not find that people’s beliefs about the causes of income inequality are further influenced by self-serving motivations based on a desire to justify favorable redistributive policies. I conclude that, in my experiment, self-serving beliefs about the causes of income inequality are driven primarily by overconfidence and self-image concerns and not to justify favorable redistributive policies.

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeleta Gezahegne Kebede ◽  
Vincent Tawiah

PurposeThe general purpose of the paper is to examine the effect of financial globalization on income inequality. The specific purposes are: 1) To examine the effect of overall financial globalization on income inequality. 2) To analyze whether de facto and de jure financial globalization have differential effects on income inequality. 3) To scrutinize whether the effect of financial globalization on income inequality varies across countries of different income groups and quantiles of income inequality.Design/methodology/approachThe authors employed panel quantile regression using 73 countries over 2000–2016 to examine the effect of financial globalization on income inequality. The authors employed fixed effect and panel quantile regressions and classified the countries into income groups to compare differential effects of financial globalization across different income groups. Further, the authors unbundled financial globalization into de facto and de jure financial globalizations to investigate whether their effects on income inequality vary.FindingsOverall financial globalization raises income inequality more at lower quantiles of inequality. De jure financial globalization reduces income inequality in high-income countries. In high-income countries, de jure financial globalization has more favorable income distribution at lower quantiles of inequality. In contrast, de facto financial globalization raises inequality regardless of income classification of the countries.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors’ knowledge, the authors for the first time employed panel quantile regression to analyze whether financial globalization affects income inequality across different quantiles. In addition to de facto globalization, the authors used the newly developed de jure financial globalization index to examine its impact on income inequality. The de jure dimension is largely neglected in the literature. The authors provide empirical evidence on how the different dimensions of financial globalization, de facto and de jure, impact inequality in high-income, middle-income and low-income countries.


2021 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y. Oswald ◽  
J.K. Steinberger ◽  
D. Ivanova ◽  
J. Millward-Hopkins

Non-technical summary Global income inequality and energy consumption inequality are related. High-income households consume more energy than low-income ones, and for different purposes. Here, we explore the global household energy consumption implications of global income redistribution. We show that global income inequality shapes not only inequalities of energy consumption but the quantity and composition of overall energy demand. Our results call for the inclusion of income distribution into energy system models, as well as into energy and climate policy. Technical summary Despite a rapidly growing number of studies on the relationship between inequality and energy, there is little research estimating the effect of income redistribution on energy demand. We contribute to this debate by proposing a simple but granular and data-driven model of the global income distribution and of global household energy consumption. We isolate the effect of income distribution on household energy consumption and move beyond the assumption of aggregate income–energy elasticities. First, we model expenditure as a function of income. Second, we determine budget shares of expenditure for a variety of products and services by employing product-granular income elasticities of demand. Subsequently, we apply consumption-based final energy intensities to product and services to obtain energy footprint accounts. Testing variants of the global income distribution, we find that the ‘energy costs’ of equity are small. Equitable and inequitable distributions of income, however, entail distinct structural change in energy system terms. In an equitable world, fewer people live in energy poverty and more energy is consumed for subsistence and necessities, instead of luxury and transport. Social media summary Equality in global income shifts household energy footprints towards subsistence, while inequality shifts them towards transport and luxury.


Agrociencia ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 55 (7) ◽  
pp. 627-643
Author(s):  
Roberto Gallardo Del Ángel ◽  
Mario Miguel Ojeda Ramírez ◽  
Cecilia Cruz López

Despite the efforts to reduce poverty in rural municipalities income inequality persists in Mexico. This study presents an analysis on rural household income distribution in the country, since it is argued that conditional federal transfers fail on improving income distribution among rural households. The hypothesis stated that, because of local public goods are also part of individual budget constraints, it is rational to think that an expansion in the provision of local public goods will increase total income and, if such public goods are financed with conditional grants that target low-income groups, it is expected that income inequality may decrease. Thus, the objective was to classify rural municipalities in order to observe which among them have benefited from federal grants and those that did not, finding the reasons why assuming grants are accepted as an instrument contributing to reduce poverty and income inequality in recent years. Each group was analysed as a cluster to observe the effect of federal transfers on rural household income distribution. Main results showed that municipalities with rural low income-inequality and better economic development indicators improve income distribution when obtaining unconditional grants. This means that, in such cases, those transfers designed to reduce poverty also reduce rural income inequality. But that was not the case for the high income-inequality groups, where conditional grants did not have any effect on inequality and, in some cases, inequality increased. For the rural high income-inequality group, unconditional grants showed not to have a positive effect on reducing inequality. The clustering and regression analyses revealed large heterogeneity in the rural areas in terms of income and economic development.


2021 ◽  
Vol 52 (6) ◽  
pp. 375-386
Author(s):  
Lucía Macchia ◽  
Ashley V. Whillans

Abstract. The questions of whether high-income individuals are more prosocial than low-income individuals and whether income inequality moderates this effect have received extensive attention. We shed new light on this topic by analyzing a large-scale dataset with a representative sample of respondents from 133 countries ( N = 948,837). We conduct a multiverse analysis with 30 statistical models: 15 models predicting the likelihood of donating money to charity and 15 models predicting the likelihood of volunteering time to an organization. Across all model specifications, high-income individuals were more likely to donate their money and volunteer their time than low-income individuals. High-income individuals were more likely to engage in prosocial behavior under high (vs. low) income inequality. Avenues for future research and potential mechanisms are discussed.


Author(s):  
Maarten van Ham ◽  
Tiit Tammaru ◽  
Rūta Ubarevičienė ◽  
Heleen Janssen

AbstractThe book “Urban Socio-Economic Segregation and Income Inequality: a Global Perspective” investigates the link between income inequality and residential segregation between socio-economic groups in 24 large cities and their urban regions in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, and South America. Author teams with in-depth local knowledge provide an extensive analysis of each case study city. Based on their findings, the main results of the book can be summarised as follows. Rising inequalities lead to rising levels of socio-economic segregation almost everywhere in the world. Levels of inequality and segregation are higher in cities in lower income countries, but the growth in inequality and segregation is faster in cities in high-income countries, which leads to a convergence of global trends. In many cities the workforce is professionalising, with an increasing share of the top socio-economic groups. In most cities the high-income workers are moving to the centre or to attractive coastal areas, and low-income workers are moving to the edges of the urban region. In some cities, mainly in lower income countries, high-income workers are also concentrating in out-of-centre enclaves or gated communities. The urban geography of inequality changes faster and is more pronounced than city-wide single-number segregation indices reveal. Taken together, these findings have resulted in the formulation of a Global Segregation Thesis.


2019 ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Andrew Graczyk ◽  
Toan Phan

We analyze the welfare effects of asset bubbles in a model with income inequality and financial friction. We show that a bubble that emerges in the value of housing, a durable asset that is fundamentally useful for everyone, has regressive welfare effects. By raising the housing price, the bubble benefits high-income savers but negatively affects low-income borrowers. The key intuition is that, by creating a bubble in the market price, savers’ demand for the housing asset for investment purposes imposes a negative externality on borrowers, who only demand the housing asset for utility purposes. The model also implies a feedback loop: high-income inequality depresses the interest rates, facilitating the existence of housing bubbles, which in turn has regressive welfare effects.


Jurnal Dampak ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yommi Dewilda ◽  
Yeggi Darnas
Keyword(s):  

Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mendapatkan data timbulan dan komposisi sampah domestik di Kabupaten Tanah Datar serta dapat membandingkan perbedaan timbulan dan komposisi sampah yang dihasilkan berdasarkan tingkat pendapatan masyarakat (High income, Medium income dan Low income). Data timbulan dan komposisi sampah diperlukan dalam perencanaan dan pengembangan sistem pengelolaan sampah. Sampling timbulan dan jumlah sampling dilakukan berdasarkan SNI 19-3964-1994. Hasil penelitian timbulan sampah domestik dalam satuan berat 0,232 kg/o/h dan dalam satuan volume 3,646 l/o/h. Berdasarkan tingkat pendapatan dalam satuan berat High Income (HI) 0,308 kg/o/h, Medium Income (MI) 0,198 kg/o/h dan Low Income (LI) 0,190 kg/o/h dalam satuan volume HI 4,269 l/o/h, MI 3,835 l/o/h dan LI 2,835 l/o/h. Timbulan sampah yang dihasilkan penduduk dengan High Incame lebih besar dibandingkan dengan penduduk dengan pendapatan Medium Income dan Low Income. Komposisi sampah domestik untuk sampah basah 75,5%; sampah plastik 16,6%; sampah kertas 5,3%; sampah tekstil 0,8%; sampah kayu 0,3%; sampah kaca 0,7%; sampah logam ferrous 0,2%; sampah logam non ferrous 0,1%; dan sampah lain-lain 0,5%.Kata kunci: sampah domestik, komposisi sampah, timbulan Sampah


Nutrients ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 2530
Author(s):  
Navika Gangrade ◽  
Janet Figueroa ◽  
Tashara M. Leak

Snacking contributes a significant portion of adolescents’ daily energy intake and is associated with poor overall diet and increased body mass index. Adolescents from low socioeconomic status (SES) households have poorer snacking behaviors than their higher-SES counterparts. However, it is unclear if the types of food/beverages and nutrients consumed during snacking differ by SES among adolescents. Therefore, this study examines SES disparities in the aforementioned snacking characteristics by analyzing the data of 7132 adolescents (12–19 years) from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2005–2018. Results reveal that adolescents from low-income households (poverty-to-income ratio (PIR) ≤ 1.3) have lower odds of consuming the food/beverage categories “Milk and Dairy” (aOR: 0.74; 95% CI: 0.58-0.95; p = 0.007) and “Fruits” (aOR: 0.62, 95% CI: 0.50–0.78; p = 0.001) as snacks and higher odds of consuming “Beverages” (aOR: 1.45; 95% CI: 1.19-1.76; p = 0.001) compared to those from high-income households (PIR > 3.5). Additionally, adolescents from low- and middle-income (PIR > 1.3–3.5) households consume more added sugar (7.98 and 7.78 g vs. 6.66 g; p = 0.012, p = 0.026) and less fiber (0.78 and 0.77 g vs. 0.84 g; p = 0.044, p = 0.019) from snacks compared to their high-income counterparts. Future research is necessary to understand factors that influence snacking among adolescents, and interventions are needed, especially for adolescents from low-SES communities.


2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 183449092110257
Author(s):  
Qiong Li ◽  
Chen Deng ◽  
Bin Zuo ◽  
Xiaobin Zhang

This study explored whether vertical position affects social categorization of the rich and the poor. Experiment 1 used high- and low-income occupations as stimuli, and found participants categorized high-income occupations faster when they were presented in the top vertical position compared to the bottom vertical position. In Experiment 2, participants responded using either the “up” or “down” key to categorize high- and low-income occupations, and responded faster to high-income occupations with the “up” key and low-income occupations with the “down” key. In Experiment 3, names identified as belonging to either rich or poor individuals were presented at the top or bottom of a screen, and the results were the same as in Experiments 1 and 2. These findings suggest that social categorization based on wealth involved perceptual simulations of vertical position, and that vertical position affects the social categorization of the rich and the poor.


2021 ◽  
pp. 104346312110155
Author(s):  
Markus Tepe ◽  
Fabian Paetzel ◽  
Jan Lorenz ◽  
Maximilian Lutz

Income redistribution with an efficiency loss is expected to have a twofold negative effect on support for redistribution, as it lowers egoistic support for redistribution and activates efficiency preferences. This study tests whether such a negative relationship exists, increases with the size of efficiency loss and interacts with group communication and the income position. We present a laboratory experiment in which subjects receive a randomly allocated income and must coordinate on a majority tax rate using a deliberative communication tool. The rate of money lost as a part of the redistribution process is manipulated as a treatment variable (0%, 5%, 20%, or 60%). Experimental evidence shows that efficiency loss exerts a robust negative effect on support for redistribution. The effect shows a tipping point pattern, is stronger at the lower end of the income distribution and is not fully explained by egoistic preferences. Inefficiency matters mostly for the chosen tax rate after group communication. At an efficiency loss of 60%, however, group communication does not affect support for redistribution, which implies that inefficiencies tend to play a minor role in the context of redistribution as long as they are within a moderate range. JEL Classification: C91, C92, D63, D72


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document