scholarly journals Income Inequality, Social Mobility, and Electoral Participation in the US Counties: Revisiting the Inequality-Participation Nexus

2021 ◽  
pp. 003232172110594
Author(s):  
Dongkyu Kim ◽  
Mi-son Kim ◽  
Sang-Jic Lee

Previous research has provided contested hypotheses about the impact of income inequality on electoral participation. This study reexamines the debate between conflict and relative power theories by focusing on a largely ignored factor: social mobility. We argue that social mobility conditions the inequality-participation nexus by alleviating the frustration, class conflict, and efficacy gaps between the rich and the poor that the prevailing theories assume income inequality to create. By utilizing the Cooperative Congressional Election Survey, we test this argument focusing on US counties. Our analysis confirms that the effects of income inequality on citizens’ likelihood of voting vary depending on mobility, suggesting that social mobility provides a crucial context in which income inequality can play out in substantially different ways. This article implies that more scholarly endeavors should be made to clarify the multifaceted structure of inequality for improving our understanding of the relationship between economic and political inequality.

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 44
Author(s):  
Michael Dunn

This paper looks at degree completion and wages of immigrants to understand the extent to which a student’s chosen educational pathway limits his or her social mobility. Statistical modeling established the predictive strengths of key variables on educational pathway and statistical analysis is used to understand the relationship between educational pathway, degree completion, and wages. Findings show that educational pathway mediates many of the background determinants that previous research identified as key mechanisms for immigrant social mobility. Furthermore, findings also identify a significant “pathway wage penalty” despite degree completion. New immigration plus births to immigrants added more than 22 million people to the U.S. population in the last decade, equal to 80 percent of total population growth. Immigrants and their children now account for more than one in five public school students. The impact of immigrants and their children on the US population, and the education system, underscores the importance of research examining the immigrant experience.


2021 ◽  
pp. 135406612110014
Author(s):  
Glen Biglaiser ◽  
Ronald J. McGauvran

Developing countries, saddled with debts, often prefer investors absorb losses through debt restructurings. By not making full repayments, debtor governments could increase social spending, serving poorer constituents, and, in turn, lowering income inequality. Alternatively, debtor governments could reduce taxes and cut government spending, bolstering the assets of the rich at the expense of the poor. Using panel data for 71 developing countries from 1986 to 2016, we assess the effects of debt restructurings on societal income distribution. Specifically, we study the impact of debt restructurings on social spending, tax reform, and income inequality. We find that countries receiving debt restructurings tend to use their newly acquired economic flexibility to reduce taxes and lower social spending, worsening income inequality. The results are also robust to different model specifications. Our study contributes to the globalization and the poor debate, suggesting the economic harm caused to the less well-off following debt restructurings.


2021 ◽  
pp. 135406882110119
Author(s):  
Matthew Polacko

Previous research into the relationship between income inequality and turnout inequality has produced mixed results, as consensus is lacking whether inequality reduces turnout for all income groups, low-income earners, or no one. Therefore, this paper builds on this literature by introducing supply-side logic, through the first individual-level test of the impact that income inequality (moderated by policy manifesto positions) has on turnout. It does so through multilevel logistic regressions utilizing mixed effects, on a sample of 30 advanced democracies in 102 elections from 1996 to 2016. It finds that higher levels of income inequality significantly reduce turnout and widen the turnout gap between rich and poor. However, it also finds that when party systems are more polarized, low-income earners are mobilized the greatest extent coupled with higher inequality, resulting in a significantly reduced income gap in turnout. The findings magnify the negative impacts income inequality can exert on political behavior and contribute to the study of policy offerings as a key moderating mechanism in the relationship.


Asian Survey ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-28
Author(s):  
Alec Chung ◽  
Ki Eun Ryu

The relationship between the ROK and DPRK is bound to be affected by the two great powers—the US and China. Especially in recent decades, the power gap between the two great powers has continued to narrow. Given this, how is the geopolitical situation surrounding the Korean Peninsula shaping inter-Korean relations? This study uses event data and statistical analysis to explore the geopolitical factors that shaped inter-Korean relations from 1993 to 2019. We find that DPRK–ROK relations deteriorated as the power gap between the US and China narrowed. Also, inter-Korean relations were positive when DPRK–US relations were positive. In short, we conclude that during the shift in the US–China power distribution, maintaining positive DPRK–US relations while also managing inter-Korean relations peacefully is necessary for peace on the Korean Peninsula.


2020 ◽  
pp. 77-99
Author(s):  
Huw Dylan ◽  
David V. Gioe ◽  
Michael S. Goodman

The chapter is concerned with the CIA’s intelligence relationships with key international partners – the Five Eyes – and wrinkles in the relationship. Despite being extremely robust in general, there were difficulties. China was a notable exception; Britain and the US had fundamentally different policies. Korea was another. The chapter illustrates the impact this had on intelligence sharing. It then goes on to detail the paucity of CIA analysis concerning Korea, and why this was the case. Documents: Minutes of the British Joint Intelligence Committee 24 August 1949; CIA’s Current Capabilities of the Northern Korea Regime.


2020 ◽  
Vol 78 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 78-97
Author(s):  
Rebecca Mathews ◽  
Alison Kamil ◽  
YiFang Chu

Abstract Coronary heart disease (CHD) is the leading cause of death globally. Consumption of whole grains and cereal fiber, as part of a healthy diet, can lower the risk of CHD. Health claims on food products are effective in helping consumers select healthful diets. The US Food and Drug Administration was the first to approve a health claim, in 1997, between beta-glucan soluble fiber from whole oats, oat bran, and whole oat flour and reduced risk of CHD. Only a few countries have approved similar claims. Since 1997, a significant amount of additional evidence has been published on the relationship between oat beta-glucan and CHD. To assist other jurisdictions in potentially utilizing this claim, the full extent of data that supports this claim (ie, the evidence utilized by the US Food and Drug Administration to substantiate the claim, as well as the results of 49 clinical trials published since 1997) are reviewed here. The complexities involved in authoring evidence-based health claims, including the impact of processing on beta-glucan cholesterol-lowering efficacy in approving eligible beta-glucan products, are also discussed.


2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 319-336
Author(s):  
Hsin-Huang Michael Hsiao ◽  
Kevin Wong ◽  
Po-san Wan ◽  
Victor Zheng

This article, which is based on a comparative telephone survey conducted in 2016, examines the relationship between social mobility experience and the life satisfaction of people aged 18 to 35 in Taiwan and Hong Kong. Using both objective and subjective measures of social mobility, we found that young people’s perceptions of their own social mobility and that of the entire youth population correlated positively with life satisfaction. However, the objective upward experiences of intragenerational and intergenerational mobility did not have a significant effect on life satisfaction. In addition, the objective upward experiences of individuals were found to be uncorrelated with the perceptions of their own social mobility and that of the entire youth population. These findings suggest that young people will not become more satisfied even if they themselves have actually experienced upward mobility, because their positive perception of social mobility depends on whether they can move upward to their desired status. It is the expected social mobility and the competence to achieve rather than the actual past mobility experience that could affect the life satisfaction of the young generation in Taiwan and Hong Kong.


Author(s):  
Matthew McKeever

The nature of the relationship between economic development and income inequality has long been the subject of considerable debate. Economic growth has very different effects on poverty, depending on a country’s level of income inequality. In high inequality countries, economic growth that raises the overall level of income disproportionately tends to benefit the rich, whereas policies that encourage economic growth while reducing income inequality will greatly accelerate the achievement of poverty reduction goals. Thus, understanding how income inequality and economic development are linked is important for establishing economic growth policies that reduce poverty. The literature on the economic development–income inequality nexus in industrial society places emphasis on the causes of current social inequality. The central and most cited paper in the literature is S. Kuznets’s “Economic Growth and Income Inequality” (1955), which proposed an inverted U-shaped relationship between development and inequality over the course of industrialization. Some scholars have tried to build upon Kuznets’s theory by focusing on his claim that income inequality is a function of the nature of regulations put on the market. Other studies deal with the importance of studying the relationship between democracy and inequality, the effect of the nature of the government on shaping inequality compared to industrialization, and the implications of globalization for income inequality. This overview of the literature shows that there is little true consensus on the relationship between inequality and development and highlights two major areas for improvement: measurement and data quality.


Author(s):  
Amalendu Bhunia ◽  
Devrim Yaman

This paper examines the relationship between asset volatility and leverage for the three largest economies (based on purchasing power parity) in the world; US, China, and India. Collectively, these economies represent Int$56,269 billion of economic power, making it important to understand the relationship among these economies that provide valuable investment opportunities for investors. We focus on a volatile period in economic history starting in 1997 when the Asian financial crisis began. Using autoregressive models, we find that Chinese stock markets have the highest volatility among the three stock markets while the US stock market has the highest average returns. The Chinese market is less efficient than the US and Indian stock markets since the impact of new information takes longer to be reflected in stock prices. Our results show that the unconditional correlation among these stock markets is significant and positive although the correlation values are low in magnitude. We also find that past market volatility is a good indicator of future market volatility in our sample. The results show that positive stock market returns result in lower volatility compared to negative stock market returns. These results demonstrate that the largest economies of the world are highly integrated and investors should consider volatility and leverage besides returns when investing in these countries.


2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (6) ◽  
pp. 81-84
Author(s):  
Peter Buell Hirsch

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to highlight the ways in which long running secular trends and the COVID-19 pandemic have combined to re-energize labor movements and pushed political thinking to the left. Design/methodology/approach A review of emerging trends in public opinion and labor action to identify some critical tipping points. Findings There is a critical shift unfolding in which government intervention to stem income inequality is becoming politically acceptable. Originality/value To the best of the author’s knowledge, there have been few, if any comparable discussions of the relationship between the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the political will to stem income inequality and the implications for corporate behavior.


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