Income inequality and intragenerational income mobility in Sweden from 1983 to 2010: Following two birth cohorts

Sweden has been known for having one of the most equal income distributions in the world. However, in recent decades, Sweden has experienced increasing income inequality. An alternative way of measuring the development of inequality is to study and compare the income development within and between two birth cohorts according to gender and different positions of income distribution. The focus in this paper is to study how individual disposable personal income has changed by aging and at various positions of the income distribution, as well as the gender disposable income gap and intragenerational income mobility. Three positions of the income distribution were chosen: percentile 10; median; and percentile 99. Two cohorts, including all individuals born in 1948 and 1958, were tracked from 35 years of age to 53 years of age – with two 18-year overlapping periods, 1983–2000, and 1993–2010. The results show a complex and multifaceted image of the development of income inequality and mobility, within and between the two birth cohorts. Especially male low-income earners, born 1958, have been left behind. Income mobility differ according to gender where women have increased mobility in the bottom quintile and decreased in the top quintile, men experienced the opposite. When modelling mobility education have decreased to contribute to an upward mobility, especial for cohort born 1958. Taking all the results together, the development of increasing income inequality in Sweden is apparent.

Desperate Housewives and Happy Working Mothers: Are Parent-Couples with Equal Income More Satisfied throughout Parenthood? A Dyadic Longitudinal Study

Are parent-couples with equal income more satisfied as their children grow up, than those who prioritize the father’s career (specialize)? For the first time, 384 German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) study couples were categorized into life-course coupled earnings types, by tracing how earnings were divided within couples between the ages of 1 to 15 of their youngest child. Multivariate, multilevel analysis showed that, unlike mothers pursuing an (eventually) equal earnings division, mothers in an (eventually) specialized arrangement experienced a strong decline in life satisfaction. Hence, particularly high-status mothers (having invested heavily into their career) were eventually up to two life satisfaction points less satisfied if they prioritized their partner’s earnings, than those who shared earnings equally with their partner. Paternal life satisfaction was not significantly different between patterns of earnings (in)equality. For most couples, earnings equality led to a win-win situation: mothers’ life satisfaction was higher than for specialized mothers without negatively affecting paternal satisfaction.

The Solidarity Solution

What is a fair income distribution? The empirical literature seems to assume that equal income would be fair, but the equal income answer faces two objections. First, equal income is likely to be inefficient. This book sets aside efficiency concerns as a downstream consideration; it seeks to identify a fair distribution. The second objection—pointed out by both leftist political philosopher G. A. Cohen and conservative economist Milton Friedman—is that equal income is unfair to the hardworking. Measuring labor burdens in order to adjust income shares, however, is no easy task. Some philosophers and economists attempt to sidestep the measurement problem by invoking the envy test. Yet a distribution in which no one prefers someone else’s circumstances to her own, as the envy test requires, is unlikely to exist—and, even if it does exist, the normative connection between the envy test and fairness has not been established. The Solidarity Solution provides a novel answer: when someone claims that her situation should be improved at someone else’s expense, she must be able to give a reason that cannot be rejected by a free and equal individual who regards everyone else as the same. Part I develops the solidarity solution and shows that rigorous distributive implications can be derived from a relational ideal. Part II uses the solidarity solution to critique the competing theories of Ronald Dworkin, Philippe Van Parijs, and Marc Fleurbaey. Finally, part III identifies insights for the gender wage gap and taxation.

The Task

Chapter 1 introduces the main question of the book: What is a fair income distribution? The empirical literature seems to assume that equal income would be fair. Consider, for example, the Gini coefficient. The reason researchers report the deviation from equality is presumably because they take equal income to have normative significance. Yet the equal income answer faces two objections. First, equal income is likely to be inefficient. This book sets aside efficiency concerns as a downstream consideration. The second objection—pointed out by both leftist political philosopher G. A. Cohen and conservative economist Milton Friedman—is that equal income is unfair to the hardworking. The question that needs answering, then, is: If equal income is unfair, what distribution of income would be fair?

Entrepreneurial ecosystem and sustainability as catalysts for regional development: proposition of a theoretical framework

The demands for a development model that considers the social and environmental dimensions, as well as the economic dimension, has become increasingly imperative, either by society in general or by the initiative of national or supranational bodies, as oversight and regulatory agencies. In this way, the precepts of sustainable development have been gaining more space in political agendas and civil debates. We propose here that this model of development, especially the one linked to strong sustainability (and relative to the branch of ecological economy), would be ideal. For this, based on literature review, we formulate a theoretical model that combines sustainable regional development (as a dependent variable), mediated by the independent variables of entrepreneurship and sustainability. That is, the objective of this paper is the proposition of a theoretical framework that assumes that the sustainable regional development can be reached from the articulation between the foment to the entrepreneurial activity and the precepts of sustainability. As an additive to this model, we also consider the construct of the entrepreneurial ecosystem as a catalyst for entrepreneurial activity at the regional level and sustainable entrepreneurship as a type of business conducive to a more equal income generation, improvement of social structure, and environmental preservation.

Absence of Envy among “Neighbors” Can Be Enough

We assume that the set of agents is decomposed into several classes containing individuals related each other in some way, for example groups of neighbors. We propose a new definition of fairness by requiring efficiency and envy-freeness only within each group. We identify conditions under which absence of envy among “neighbors” is enough to ensure fairness in the entire society. We also show that equal-income Walrasian equilibria are the only fair allocations according to our notion, deriving as corollaries the equivalence theorems of Zhou (1992) and Cato (2010). The analysis is conducted in atomless economies as well as in mixed markets.

Inequality and Social Rank: Income Increases Buy More Life Satisfaction in More Equal Countries

How do income and income inequality combine to influence subjective well-being? We examined the relation between income and life satisfaction in different societies, and found large effects of income inequality within a society on the relationship between individuals’ incomes and their life satisfaction. The income–satisfaction gradient is steeper in countries with more equal income distributions, such that the positive effect of a 10% increase in income on life satisfaction is more than twice as large in a country with low income inequality as it is in a country with high income inequality. These findings are predicted by an income rank hypothesis according to which life satisfaction is derived from social rank. A fixed increment in income confers a greater increment in social position in a more equal society. Income inequality may influence people’s preferences, such that in unequal countries people’s life satisfaction is determined more strongly by their income.

Does Financial Technology Affect Income Inequality in Indonesia?

Economic growth is insufficient to be a sole indicator of the population’s welfare. Specifically, high economic growth does not necessarily imply that the population is generally prosperous. Equal income distribution is crucial to achieving sustainable economic growth. Since 2000, the Gini index as a measure of income inequality in Indonesia showed an increasing trend. On the other side, financial technology 3.0 started to develop. This paper seeks to investigate the impact of fintech 3.0 development on income inequality in Indonesia and to identify the determining factors of income inequality in Indonesia. By using the partial adjustment model (PAM) with the observation period of 1990-2017, the study empirically shows that fintech 3.0 development that started in 2000 had a significant impact on income inequality in Indonesia. Besides, the investment variable also positively affect income inequality in Indonesia. Thus, the findings indicate that the Indonesian population did not equally utilize fintech development. Keywords: income inequality, financial technology, Indonesia, partial adjustment model

PI KP A - Kel 5 (PENTINGNYA INOVASI DAN KREATIFITAS ERA TEKNOLOGI DIGITAL)

The digital-based economy will be one of the drivers of Indonesia's economic growth and per capita income amid a sluggish global economy due to the trade war and rising oil prices on international markets. This includes realizing equal income, increasing per capita income, increasing financial inclusion and financial access.

Labour Supply and Inequality Effects of In-Work Benefits: Evidence from Serbia

Low labour market participation, together with the high effective tax wedge at low wage levels, create a fertile ground for the introduction of the in-work benefits (IWB) in Serbia. Our paper provides an ex-ante evaluation of the two IWB schemes, directed at stimulating the labour supply and more equal income distribution. The methodological approach combines the tax-and-benefit microsimulation model with the discrete labour supply model. Our results show that both individual and family-based IWB schemes would considerably boost labour market participation, although family-based benefits would have disincentivizing effects for the secondary earners in couples. Most of the behavioural changes take place among the poorest individuals, with significant redistributive effects.