The Great Recession and the Distribution of Household Income, by Stephen P. Jenkins, Andrea Brandolini, John Mickelwright, and Brian Nolan (Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, 2013), pp. 277.

The financial crisis of 2008 precipitated the “Great Recession”. In this scenario, we took Spain as a country of study, because although it experienced significant negative shocks associated with macroeconomic variables (GDP or unemployment), its welfare indicators have been marked by limited changes. This study used data from waves 2 and 4 (years 2006–2007 and 2010–2012, respectively) of the Survey on Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). Specifically, through logistic regressions we have analysed the effects of socioeconomic, demographic, health and “Great Recession” factors on the quality of life (QoL) of elders in Spain. Although QoL did not change too much during the “Great Recession”, the results confirmed the importance of several factors (such as chronicity) that affect the satisfaction with the QoL among the older people. In this regard, statistically significant effects were obtained for individual exposure to recession. Therefore, a decrease in household income in the crisis period with respect to the pre-crisis period would increase by 44% the probability of reporting a low QoL (OR = 1.44; 95% CI: 1.00–2.07). Furthermore, gender differences were observed. Health and socioeconomic variables are the most significant when determining individual QoL. Therefore, when creating policies, establishing multidisciplinary collaborations is essential.

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The Evolution of Household Income Volatility

The B E Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy ◽

10.1515/1935-1682.3347 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 12 (2) ◽

Cited By ~ 60

Author(s):

Karen Dynan ◽

Douglas Elmendorf ◽

Daniel Sichel

Keyword(s):

Great Recession ◽

Economic Activity ◽

Household Income ◽

Longitudinal Survey ◽

Income Volatility ◽

Transfer Payments ◽

The Great Recession ◽

Labor Earnings ◽

Run Up ◽

Over Time

Abstract Using a representative longitudinal survey of U.S. households, we find that household income became noticeably more volatile between the early 1970s and the late 2000s despite the moderation seen in aggregate economic activity during this period. We estimate that the standard deviation of percent changes in household income rose about 30 percent between 1971 and 2008. This widening in the distribution of percent changes was concentrated in the tails. The share of households experiencing a 50 percent plunge in income over a two-year period climbed from about 7 percent in the early 1970s to more than 12 percent in the early 2000s before retreating to 10 percent in the run-up to the Great Recession. Households’ labor earnings and transfer payments have both become more volatile over time. As best we can tell, the rise in the volatility of men’s earnings appears to owe both to greater volatility in earnings per hour and in hours worked.

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A Critical Review of Recent Literature on Populism

Politics and Governance ◽

10.17645/pag.v5i4.1146 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 5 (4) ◽

pp. 177-186 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

John Abromeit

Keyword(s):

Great Recession ◽

Recent Literature ◽

Frankfurt School ◽

University Of Pennsylvania ◽

European Politics ◽

Right Wing ◽

Short Introduction ◽

The Great Recession ◽

Oxford University ◽

Politics Of Fear

This is a review article of the following five recent studies on populism: 1) Ruth Wodak’s The Politics of Fear: What Right-Wing Populist Discourses Mean (Sage, 2015); 2) Benjamin Moffitt’s The Global Rise of Populism: Performance, Political Style and Representation (Stanford University Press, 2016); 3) Cas Mudde and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser’s Populism: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2017); 4) Jan-Werner Müller’s What is Populism? (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016); and 5) John B. Judis’ The Populist Explosion: How the Great Recession Transformed American and European Politics (Columbia Global Reports, 2016). The review argues for a return to early Frankfurt School Critical Theory to address some of the shortcomings of these studies.

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