Cannot keep up with the Joneses: how relative deprivation pushes internal migration in Austria

PurposeUsing aggregated data at the municipality level allows the authors to assess the role of relative deprivation (RD) – a measure of income inequality – on top of absolute income in shaping internal migration in Austria.Design/methodology/approachIn this study, the authors analyse the effect of regional income inequality on emigration rates of Austrian municipalities using a unique spatial dataset that is constructed based on Austrian administrative register data. The register-based data contain information on the municipality of residence of all individuals aged 16 and over that have their main residency in Austria, as well as their income and socio-demographic characteristics.FindingsThe authors find that increases in relative deprivation in a municipality are related to higher emigration from the municipality. Allowing for heterogeneous effects across income, education and age groups reveals that the effect is stronger among those with comparably low levels of income and among low-skilled and young individuals.Originality/valueThe unique spatially disaggregated perspective is based on novel data from Austrian administrative registers, which comprehensively capture the economic situation and geographic movements of the whole Austrian population. Most importantly, this approach allows for measuring income inequality within local communities and for a direct identification of social groups that are more sensitive to inequality.

The Causes and Countermeasures of Corruption in China

Based on the Transparency International’s rank, China have had serious corruption issue so far (Lawrence & Weber, 2017). Since the reform and opening-up policy has been carried out in 1978, corruption has rapidly worsened in China, although the Chinese economy has been performing well (Wederman, 2004). Some scholars argued that the corruption may distort the allocation of resources, but unlike other countries, China’s economic growth was not affected significantly by corruption because of high level of public trust (Li & Wu, 2007). However, corruption may result in a serious regional income inequality and has significant negative consequences of increasing public resentment and social unrest causing more harm to economy (Wu & Zhu, 2011). As a result, the Chinese government often aggressively punishes the corruption actions by law (Lawrence & Weber, 2017).There are currently few researches to focus on corruption in China because of sensitive nature of corruption and lack of effective methodologies limited to surveys and case studies (Guo, 2008). In this paper, corruption only refers to bribery, a common form and consequence of abuse of public authority for personal gains (Wederman, 2004). By looking at some literatures, this short paper first elaborated on several reasons why corruption in China has been so serious, then come up with a constructive framework coping with corruption.

COVID-19 and Regional Income Inequality in China

This study investigates the impact of COVID-19 and social distancing policies on regional income inequality. We base our study on a sample of 295 prefecture (and above) cities in 31 provinces in China. A distribution dynamics approach is employed to reveal the trend and movement of disposable income per capita in each city before the COVID-19 pandemic, during the COVID-19 pandemic, and in the period when the COVID-19 was under the control. The findings reveal significant negative economic consequences of the COVID-19 in the first quarter of 2020 and show that most cities will converge to a level of disposable income which is much less than the Pre-COVID level if the COVID pandemic persists. Regional income inequality has intensified in the cities that have a longer duration of stringent social distancing policies during the COVID-19 pandemic and disappeared in the cities with policies of short duration. Disposable income per capita for urban residents recovered quickly when the transmission of coronavirus was effectively contained; and yet the impact of the pandemic on rural residents remains unresolved, if not intensified. This study demonstrates a significant divergence of the trend of disposable income across cities with different durations of social distancing policies and between urban and rural residents. It also highlights the importance of stringent social distancing policies in containing the spread of virus in a short time and calls for special policy attention for rural regions in the recovery from the COVID-19.

How Does Carbon Emission Reduction Efficiency Affect Regional Income Inequality? The Mediator Effect of Interregional Labor Flow

Global income inequality is widening and carbon emissions remain high. So, reducing carbon emissions and income gap are urgent challenges. The purpose of this paper is to analysis how carbon emission efficiency influences the region income inequality. The improvement of carbon emission reduction efficiency has widened the regional income inequality with the flow of high-tech labor as an intermediary variable in China. Methods used in this article are mediating effect model and DEA method. This paper constructs a disposable income model of income and health costs, where health costs are a function of carbon reduction. If income is fixed, then the expectations of disposable income will change as the level of carbon emission reduction changes. This study finds that the disposable income expectations of high-income areas increases, while the disposable income expectations of lower-income areas decrease with the improvement of carbon emission reduction efficiency. High-income regions attract high-income labor from other regions, resulting in the widening of regional income inequality under the constraint of high cost of living. This result is verified by the data of China from 2007 to 2017. The regression model with Geordie coefficient as the dependent variable, carbon emission reduction efficiency as the core independent variable, gravitation of high-tech talent as the mediator variable, and urbanization rate, educational level, social security coverage, and highway and railway traffic mileage as control variables not only verifies the above results but also finds that high-tech talents’ flow is not the only intermediary between carbon emission reduction efficiency and regional income inequality. This paper finds that when the carbon emission reduction efficiency increases by one unit, the income inequality gap of 25 provinces increases by 0.0202 units, provinces with high carbon emission reduction efficiency increases by 0.107 units, and provinces with medium carbon emission reduction efficiency increases by 0.026 units. However, the income inequality gap of provinces with low carbon emission reduction efficiency decreases by 0.0390 units. The carbon emission reduction efficiency of the high and medium carbon emission reduction efficiency groups is proportional to the income inequality, while the low carbon emission reduction efficiency group is the opposite, when the carbon emission reduction efficiency is grouped into high efficiency group, medium efficiency group, and low efficiency group. The reason for this result is that the high carbon emission reduction efficiency of the former attracts high-income high-tech talent, while the latter's narrowing regional income inequality benefits from the reduction costs of health and the government’s ecological compensation. The effective measures to narrow the income inequality are to implement carbon emission reduction policy, industrial policy, education investment policy, and public service policy, according to the above findings.

Convergence Potentials in SAARC and ASEAN Economies

This study has set to compare the usefulness of the regional integration efforts taken by two important economic blocs, SAARC and ASEAN, within the Asian continent to reduce the regional income inequality. Therefore, the existence of income convergence (or divergence) among the SAARC and ASEAN countries is the aim of this study. To investigate whether (or not) there exists income convergence across the SAARC and ASEAN blocs over the period of 1970-2017, [Formula: see text]-convergence, σ-convergence and club convergence estimation methods have been applied. The results confirm the convergence of income across the ASEAN member countries, which is absent for the SAARC member countries at the intra-regional level. Although we considered all countries of the SAARC and ASEAN blocs together in the panel, an evidence of income convergence over the years has been found. The analysis supports the view of trade liberalization and recommends investing in the human capital to narrow down the regional disparity in future. To achieve a favorable impact of Asian rising growth, regional integration is important, for that a collective policy framework at the regional level is needed for both SAARC and ASEAN.

The impact of regional income inequality on residents’ health in China

Since the reform and opening up, China’s economy has been developing, residents’ income has been increasing, people’s health awareness has also been building up, and the health situation has gradually improved. However, with the development of Chinese economy, the problem of income inequality also follows, which has an impact on the health of Chinese residents. In particular, the imbalance of regional economic development and the difference between urban and rural residents’ disposable income inequality have a negative impact on the health of residents, which is not conducive to sustainable economic development and social harmony and stability. This paper analyzes the correlation between regional income inequality and residents’ health status, uses descriptive statistical analysis and principal component analysis to do empirical analysis on the relationship between regional income inequality and residents’ health status, and selects the data from “China Health Statistics Yearbook 2019”. The results of empirical analysis show that regional income inequality has an impact on the health of residents in China. The health level of residents in high-income areas is higher than that in low-income areas. The economic development of the eastern and northern regions is better than that of the central and western regions, and the health status of the residents in the eastern and northern regions is better than that in the central and western regions. In addition, urban-rural income inequality also has an impact on the health of residents. The data show that the health status of urban residents is better than that of rural residents. It can be seen that there is a positive correlation between income level and residents’ health level, and a negative correlation between income inequality and residents’ health level. That is, the higher the income, the higher the health level of residents, the lower the income, the lower the health level of residents; the higher the degree of income inequality, the worse the health status of residents, and it is not conducive to the overall improvement of the health level of residents.