Sources of Household Income Growth in Rich Countries

Author(s):  
Brian Nolan ◽  
Stefan Thewissen ◽  
Alice Lazzati

This chapter seeks to capture what underpins patterns of real income growth versus stagnation for those around and below the middle by distinguishing the different sources of income they receive—in terms of the earnings of different household members, investment income, pensions, and social transfers, as well as the direct taxes and social insurance contributions deducted. The role each of these sources play in household income and its growth over time across countries is explored, bringing out both the key features of incomes around the middle versus towards the top and bottom of the distribution, and which sources have been key to sustained growth for those households.

Author(s):  
Brian Nolan ◽  
Max Roser ◽  
Stefan Thewissen

This chapter investigates the extent to which real income growth for households around the middle is seen to diverge from growth in national income per head—the most widely-used metric for assessing overall macroeconomic performance. While the concentration of income gains at the top of the distribution examined in Chapter 3 is one potential explanation, it is by no means the only one. A range of distinct factors that may contribute are described and their importance assessed across countries and over time. The implications are brought out both for understanding what drives ordinary living standards and for how they are best monitored and assessed.


2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 43-62
Author(s):  
Basanta Kumar Barmon ◽  
◽  
Sanzidur Rahman ◽  

This paper examines the long-term impacts of the joint prawn-rice gher farming system on agricultural and household incomes, soil fertility, and productivity of modern variety (MV) rice in southwestern Bangladesh, based on socioeconomic data of the gher farmers and soil fertility data of their gher plots. In 2005, 20 farmers operating on 30 plots were randomly selected from the Bilpabla village of Khulna from whom prawn and MV rice production data were collected using a questionnaire; soil samples were also collected and tested. In 2011 and 2017, the sustainability of the gher system over time was assessed through another survey of farmers following the same methodology. Results revealed that although the nominal income from gher farming increased by 59 percent in 2011 and 23 percent in 2017, the real income and per capita household income remained unchanged over time. Agricultural income has contributed about 65 percent to household income, which for gher farmers was about 200 percent higher than average rural incomes in Bangladesh. Rice productivity declined slightly from its 2005 level. However, the productivity of MV rice under prawn-rice gher farming is substantially higher than in the conventional MV rice farming system. The positive estimates of the Mean Soil Quality Index and Soil Degradation Index for land used for MV paddy production within the gher indicate an increase in soil nutrients. This suggests that the joint prawn-rice gher farming system is relatively sustainable, having improved soil fertility and stabilized real income. Policy implications toward promoting agricultural growth in the southwestern region of Bangladesh include research on developing varieties of MV rice suited to prawn-rice gher farming and the development of commercial feeds and markets for prawn to further raise productivity and incomes of gher farmers.


Author(s):  
Brian Nolan ◽  
Stefan Thewissen

This chapter carries out and presents the findings from an in-depth comparative analysis of real income growth around and below the middle of the income distribution across the rich countries of the OECD over recent decades. It examines trends in real incomes for the entire population and for working age households only, and sets the evolution of incomes around the middle in each country against what has been happening lower down and higher up the distribution. This allows the range of experiences across countries in these terms to be captured, providing the base which subsequent chapters seek to probe and get behind.


Author(s):  
Brian Nolan ◽  
Stefan Thewissen

This chapter focuses on how the patterns of real income growth or stagnation seen in Chapter 2 are related to changes to inequality in the distribution of income, which has played such a prominent role in recent commentary and debate. It examines how income inequality has evolved over recent decades across the rich countries, both overall and in terms of the share going to the very top of the distribution, and highlights key factors in driving inequality upwards—albeit differentially across countries and time-periods. The ways in which rising inequality may undermine real income growth for middle and lower income households are discussed, and the empirical relationship between inequality and such real income growth over recent decades across the rich countries is analysed. Alongside real income growth or its absence, some other ways of looking at whether ‘the middle’ has been ‘squeezed’ in income terms are also explored.


Author(s):  
Michael Förster ◽  
Brian Nolan

This chapter provides an overview of how inequality and living standards have evolved across the rich countries of the OECD in recent decades, of the factors driving income inequality upwards in many of them, and of the channels through which this may undermine real income growth and opportunity for households across the middle and lower parts of the income distribution. It presents an overview of key trends drawing on comparative data from the OECD’s Income Distribution Database. It reviews existing evidence on the drivers of income inequality and on how inequality may affect income growth around the middle. It highlights key gaps in knowledge, to be addressed by the in-depth examination of the varying experiences of a range of rich countries in this book.


This book addresses the central challenge facing rich countries: how to ensure that ordinary working families see their living standards and the prospects for their children improve rather than stagnate over time. It presents the findings from a comprehensive analysis of performance over recent decades across the rich countries of the OECD, in terms of real income growth around and below the middle. It relates this performance to overall economic growth, exploring why these often diverge substantially, and to the different models of capitalism or economic growth embedded in different countries. In-depth comparative and UK-focused analyses also focus on wages and the labour market and on the role of redistribution. Going beyond income, other indicators and aspects of living standards are also incorporated including non-monetary indicators of deprivation and financial strain, wealth and its distribution, and intergenerational mobility. By looking across this broad canvas, the book teases out how ordinary households have fared in recent decades in these critically important respects, and how that should inform the quest for inclusive growth and prosperity.


Author(s):  
Gerhard Bosch ◽  
Thorsten Kalina

This chapter describes how inequality and real incomes have evolved in Germany through the period from the 1980s, through reunification, up to the economic Crisis and its aftermath. It brings out how reunification was associated with a prolonged stagnation in real wages. It emphasizes how the distinctive German structures for wage bargaining were eroded over time, and the labour market and tax/transfer reforms of the late 1990s-early/mid-2000s led to increasing dualization in the labour market. The consequence was a marked increase in household income inequality, which went together with wage stagnation for much of the 1990s and subsequently. Coordination between government, employers, and unions still sufficed to avoid the impact the economic Crisis had on unemployment elsewhere, but the German social model has been altered fundamentally over the period


Author(s):  
Philippe Askenazy ◽  
Bruno Palier

This chapter describes France as apparently one of the few rich countries to have avoided a significant increase in income inequality in recent decades. However, stable average inequalities mask an asymmetric trend of income between age groups, the elderly improving their situation while the young see theirs worsening. Furthermore, it shows that behind this relatively still surface, a general trend of precarization of more and more ordinary workers is occurring. The importance of wage-setting processes and of regulation of the labour market is brought out, together with the way the tax and transfer systems have operated, in restraining the forces driving inequality upwards. Wage growth, while limited, has thus been reasonably uniform across the distribution and together with the redistributive system have kept household income inequality within bounds. However, in response to high unemployment both regulatory and tax–transfer systems have served to underpin the very rapid growth in precarious working over the last decade, representing a very serious challenge for policy.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (14) ◽  
pp. 7742
Author(s):  
Taiwo Temitope Lasisi ◽  
Kayode Kolawole Eluwole ◽  
Uju Violet Alola ◽  
Luigi Aldieri ◽  
Concetto Paolo Vinci ◽  
...  

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs) elaborately encompass a global goal for sustainable consumption and production (Goal 12: SDGs), thus providing potential drivers and/or pathways to attaining sustainable consumption. In view of this global goal, this study examined the role of real income per capita, urbanization and especially inbound tourism in domestic material consumption for the panel of OECD countries. The study is conducted for the period of 1995 to 2016 by employing the panel quantile approach. Interestingly, an inverted U-shaped relationship between outbound tourism and domestic material consumption is established across the quantiles, thus indicating that sustainable domestic consumption is achievable after a threshold of domestic material consumption is attained. In addition, achieving sustainable consumption through economic or income growth is a herculean task for the OECD countries because the current reality indicates that income growth triggers higher consumption of domestic materials. However, the results suggest that urbanization is a recipe for sustainable domestic consumption since there is a negative and significant relationship between the two parameters across the quantiles. Nevertheless, the study presents relevant policy for efficient material and resources utilization and that is suitable to drive the SDGs for 2030 and other country-specific sustainable ambitions.


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