scholarly journals Rising Income Inequality and Living Standards in OECD Countries: How Does the Middle Fare?

2018 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Stefan Thewissen ◽  
Lane Kenworthy ◽  
Brian Nolan ◽  
Max Roser ◽  
Tim Smeeding
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Income Inequality ◽  
Oecd Countries ◽  
Living Standards ◽  
Income Growth ◽  
The Past ◽  
Past Generation ◽  
Top Income Shares ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Household Incomes

Income inequality has increased in a number of the rich democratic nations over the past generation. We examine whether this has reduced income growth for middleincome households. Using LIS, OECD and WID data, we show how median household incomes and income inequality have evolved between 1980 and 2013, and we analyse whether these trends are related. Growth in median incomes is negatively associated with changes in the Gini but not with changes in top income shares. Economic growth is strongly associated with growth in median incomes, although it does not seem to fully transmit.

scholarly journals Growing Fat on Reform: Obesity and Nutritional Disparities among China's Children, 1979–2005

2014 ◽  
Vol 220 ◽  
pp. 1033-1068 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen L. Morgan
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Nutritional Status ◽  
Body Mass ◽  
Regional Disparities ◽  
Living Standards ◽  
School Age ◽  
National Surveys ◽  
The Past ◽  
Chinese School ◽  
Household Incomes

AbstractEconomic growth over the past three decades has greatly improved the nutrition and living standards of people in China. However, increasingly, the Chinese are becoming heavier. As many as a quarter of Chinese school-age urban boys are overweight or obese, yet a third of Chinese children remain underweight. Drawing on six national surveys of children's health conducted since 1979, the article reports on trends in nutritional status and regional disparities. It shows that the drivers behind the increase in mean body mass and in nutritional inequality are associated with rising household incomes and associated inequalities between provinces.

Inequality and Living Standards

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Förster ◽  
Brian Nolan
Keyword(s):  
Income Inequality ◽  
Income Distribution ◽  
Real Income ◽  
Comparative Data ◽  
Living Standards ◽  
Income Growth ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Rich Countries

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.

Generating Prosperity for Working Families in Affluent Countries

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Real Income ◽  
Living Standards ◽  
Financial Strain ◽  
Inclusive Growth ◽  
Working Families ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Rich Countries ◽  
Analysis Of Performance

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.

Income Inequality and Economic Development

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew McKeever
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Economic Development ◽  
Income Inequality ◽  
Poverty Reduction ◽  
Industrial Society ◽  
Considerable Debate ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Rich ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Relationship

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.

REDUCING INCOME INEQUALITY WHILE BOOSTING ECONOMIC GROWTH: CAN IT BE DONE? EVIDENCE FROM OECD COUNTRIES

2014 ◽  
Vol 59 (01) ◽  
pp. 1450001 ◽  
Author(s):  
PETER HOELLER ◽  
ISABELLE JOUMARD ◽  
ISABELL KOSKE
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Labor Market ◽  
Income Inequality ◽  
Oecd Countries ◽  
Gdp Per Capita ◽  
Labor Market Institutions ◽  
Policy Reforms ◽  
Market Institutions ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
Per Capita

This paper identifies inequality patterns across Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries and provides new analysis of their policy and non-policy drivers. One key finding is that education and anti-discrimination policies, well-designed labor market institutions and large and/or progressive tax and transfer systems can all reduce income inequality. On this basis, the paper identifies several policy reforms that could yield a double dividend in terms of boosting GDP per capita and reducing income inequality, and also flags other policy areas where reforms would entail a trade-off between both objectives.

The shape of income distribution and decomposition of the changes in income inequality in India

2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 760-776 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aswini Kumar Mishra ◽  
Anil Kumar ◽  
Abhishek Sinha
Keyword(s):  
Income Inequality ◽  
Research Work ◽  
Income Growth ◽  
Analysis Tool ◽  
Distribution Analysis ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Income Distributions ◽  
The Rich ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
Practical Implications

Purpose Though Indian economy since 1980s has expanded very rapidly, yet the benefits of growth remain very unequally distributed. The purpose of this paper is to provide new evidence about the shape, intensity and decomposition of inequality change between 2005 and 2012. The authors find that Gini, as a measure of income inequality, has increased irrespective of geographic regions. Design/methodology/approach Based on a recent distribution analysis tool, “ABG,” the paper focuses on local inequality, and summarizes the shape of inequality in terms of three inequality parameters (α, β and γ) to examine how the income distributions have changed over time. Here, the central coefficient (α) measures inequality at the median level, with adjustment parameters at the top (β) and bottom (γ). Findings The results reveal that at the middle of distribution (α), there is almost the same inequality in both the periods, but the coefficients on the curvature parameters β and γ show that there is increasing inequality in the subsequent period. Finally, an analysis of decomposition of inequality change suggests that though income growth was progressive, however, this equalizing effect was more than offset by the disequalizing effect of income reranking. Research limitations/implications This paper shows how it can be possible both for “the poor” to fare badly relatively to “the rich” and for income growth to be pro-poor. Practical implications This paper stresses the significance of inequality reduction. Social implications Inequality reduction is very much imperative in ending poverty and boosting shared prosperity. Originality/value Perhaps, this research work is first of its kind to examine the shape and decomposition of change in income inequality in India in recent years.

scholarly journals Can Reducing Income Inequality Decouple Economic Growth from CO2 Emissions?

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 237802311877271 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julius Alexander McGee ◽  
Patrick Trent Greiner
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Income Inequality ◽  
National Income ◽  
Recent Period ◽  
The Past ◽  
Socioeconomic Drivers ◽  
Advance Research ◽  
Developed Nations ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Distribution Of Income

In the past two decades, income inequality has steadily increased in most developed nations. During this same period, the growth rate of CO2 emissions has declined in many developed nations, cumulating to a recent period of decoupling between economic growth and CO2 emissions. The aim of the present study is to advance research on socioeconomic drivers of CO2 emissions by assessing how the distribution of income affects the relationship between economic growth and CO2 emissions. The authors find that from 1985 to 2011, rising income inequality leads to a tighter coupling between economic growth and CO2 emissions in developed nations. Additionally, the authors find that increases in the top 20 percent of income earners’ share of national income have resulted in a larger association between economic growth and CO2 emissions, while increases in the bottom 20 percent of income earners’ share of national income reduced the association between economic growth and CO2 emissions.

The Evolution of Living Standards for Middle and Lower Income Households in OECD Countries

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Nolan ◽  
Stefan Thewissen
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Income Distribution ◽  
Real Income ◽  
Living Standards ◽  
Entire Population ◽  
Income Growth ◽  
Lower Income ◽  
Working Age ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Rich Countries

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.

scholarly journals Some Macroeconomics for the 21st Century

2000 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 159-168 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert E Lucas
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Numerical Simulation ◽  
Income Inequality ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Technology Diffusion ◽  
Relative Income ◽  
Income Growth ◽  
Income Dynamics ◽  
World Income ◽  
To Come

This note describes a numerical simulation of a model of economic growth, a simplified version of Robert Tamura's (1996) model of world income dynamics, based on technology diffusion. The model makes predictions for trends in average world income growth and about the evolution of the relative income distribution that accord well with observation. The model is used to forecast the course of world income growth and income inequality over the century to come.

Great Escapes and Great Divergences

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert H. Wade
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Income Inequality ◽  
Income Distribution ◽  
Geographical Distribution ◽  
Population Distribution ◽  
Distribution Patterns ◽  
Extreme Poverty ◽  
The Past ◽  
World Income

This article highlights ambiguities and indeterminacies in our knowledge about growth, inequality, and poverty, stemming in particular from measurement difficulties and from differences in measures of what is ostensibly the same thing (“poverty,” “inequality”). It examines global income distribution, patterns of economic growth, the movement of countries in the global income hierarchy, trends in income distribution between countries and between individuals or households, and trends in the incidence of “extreme” and “ordinary” poverty. The article begins with a snapshop of world income and population distribution, followed by a discussion on growth and geographical distribution. It then considers income inequality within countries, along with income inequality between countries and all people. It shows that the global income distribution is still highly polarized and that the proportion of the world’s population living in the degree of poverty which kills—“extreme poverty”—has probably fallen over the past several decades.

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