Income inequality and level of corruption in post-communist European countries between 1995 and 2014

This paper analyses the relationships between income inequality and corruption in Europe and looks specifically at post-communist European countries. The scientific community agrees that there is important relationship between income inequality and corruption and many authors believe that low income inequality is connected to low corruption. According to empirical papers, this is true not only on the European scale, but also on a global scale. In this paper, I test this claim by conducting a multilevel analysis on 39 European countries in the period of 1995–2014. This model ascertains that there are immense differences between post-communist countries and the rest of European countries. The effects of income inequality on the level of corruption are discussed.     

Inequality and Support for Political Engagement in New Democracies

Existing studies of income inequality and political participation—including related literature, for example, on preferences for redistribution—leave us with the question of whether citizens see political democracy as offering ways to challenge market inequalities. Using original surveys in 13 Central and Eastern European countries, I find that those who see high and undesirable levels of income inequality have stronger demands for popular democratic participation than those who do not. In addition, neither the aggregate levels of support for political engagement nor individuals’ perceptions of inequality are coordinated with either national-level indicators of income inequality or democratic performance.     

Does Changing Economic Well-Being Shape Resentment About Inequality in China?

The political consequences of income inequality in China have attracted increasing attention among researchers, and conventional wisdom states that economic development can mitigate negative views on inequality. I investigate the effects of subjective and objective changes in economic well-being on public opinion concerning income inequality based on a 2004 Chinese national survey. On the one hand, I find weak evidence of a negative correlation between perceived better economic well-being and negative opinion about inequality in China. On the other hand, I identify consistent evidence of a negative correlation between objective intergenerational upward mobility and negative views about inequality. It is worth noting that while the effect of intergenerational upward mobility is large, it is unable to completely reverse negative views about inequality among Chinese citizens. Hence, I suggest that economic development plays only a limited role in mitigating anger about inequality in China.     

Inequality and Economic Growth: The Empirical Relationship Reconsidered in the Light of Comparable Data

Almost all the recent empirical work on the relationship between income inequality and economic growth has used inequality data that are not consistently measured. This article argues that this is inappropriate and shows that the significant negative correlation often found between income inequality and growth across countries may not be robust when income inequality is measured in a consistent manner. However, evidence is found of a significant negative correlation between consistently measured inequality of expenditure data and economic growth for a sample of developing countries.     

Exploring income inequality in rural,coastal Viet Nam

Income inequality has been rising in parallel with the economic liberalisation process in the former centrally planned economies. The opportunities for non‐agricultural income associated with the market liberalisation process in former centrally planned economies would seem to be important in determining inequality within the rural sector. This article reviews the trends in inequality in Viet Nam examining differential trends and hypothesised causes. Inequality is important because of its relationship to other factors in the evolution of the agricultural economy such as the incidence of poverty and the sustainability of emerging income sources. This article analyses income inequality based on data collected by the author in two Districts in coastal northern Viet Nam. The results demonstrate that non‐agricultural income sources, specifically aquaculture and wage and remittance, contribute more to present inequality than any other income source. Simulation shows that the emergence of aquaculture since the late 1980s has been driving the inequality increase in that period. Hence the analysis provides evidence that non‐agricultural income increases inequality even without asset concentration. This concentration of income is important in the north Viet Nam context since it is concurrent with present‐day land allocation and will affect the structure of future income growth.     

Inequality,democracy and taxation: Lessons from the post-communist transition

Using data for the period 1989 – 2002, we examine the determinants of income inequality in post-communist economies. We find a strong positive association between equality and tax collection but note that this relationship is significantly stronger under authoritarian regimes than under democracies. We also discover that countries introducing sustainable democratic institutions early are characterised by lower inequality. We also confirm that education fosters equality and find that larger countries are prone to higher levels of inequality.     

Diasporas and democratization in the post-communist world

If diaspora communities are socialized with democratic values in Western societies, they could be expected to be sympathetic to the democratization of their home countries. However, there is a high degree of variation in their behavior. Contrary to the predominant understanding in the literature that diasporas act in exclusively nationalist ways, this article argues that they do engage with the democratization of their home countries. Various challenges to the sovereignty of their homelands explain whether diasporas involve with procedural or liberal aspects of democratization. Drawing evidence from the activities of the Ukrainian, Serbian, Albanian and Armenian diasporas after the end of communism, I argue that unless diasporas are linked to home countries that enjoy both international legal and domestic sovereignty, they will involve only with procedural aspects of democratization. Diasporas filter international pressure to democratize post-communist societies by utilizing democratic procedures to advance unresolved nationalist goals.     

中东欧政治转型的类型、进程和特点

由于内外部各种因素的不同,中东欧国家近20年的政治发展呈现出两种模式。一种是波兰等国的平稳演进型,即政治发展相对平稳、民主制度比较巩固,与西方国家的政治体制比较接近;另一种是除斯洛文尼亚外的前南地区的冲突裂变型,即政治发展受民族主义影响比较大,民主化引发了国家分裂和民族冲突。建立西方式民主制是各国政治转型的既定目标,两种类型都不会退回到社会主义时期的一党政治;但民主化并不是中东欧历史的终结,国情的多样性为各国培育新的民主模式提供了可能性。     

Inequality and the Impact of Growth on Poverty: Comparative Evidence for Sub-Saharan Africa

This study explores the extent to which inequality affects the impact of income growth on the rates of poverty changes in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) compared to non-SSA, based on an unbalanced panel of 86 countries over 1977–2004. For all three measures of poverty – headcount, gap, and squared gap – the impact of GDP growth on poverty reduction is a decreasing function of initial inequality. The impacts are similar in direction for SSA and non-SSA, so that within both regions there are considerable disparities in the responsiveness of poverty to income growth, depending on inequality. Nevertheless, the income–growth elasticity is substantially less for SSA, implying relatively small poverty-reduction response to growth.     

Does Financial Development Contribute to Poverty Reduction?

The article examines the contribution of financial development to poverty reduction in developing countries. Building on earlier research which has established links between financial development and economic growth, and between economic growth and poverty reduction, the article tests for a causal process linking financial sector growth and poverty reduction. The empirical results indicate that, up to a threshold level of economic development, financial sector growth contributes to poverty reduction through the growth-enhancing effect. The impact of financial development on poverty reduction will be affected, however, by any change in income inequality resulting from financial development.     

Civil war and the coalition government of democratic Kampuchea

This article explores the relationship between the politics of international development and the reproduction of global inequality. I argue that contemporary discourses about— and the practices of—‘development for developing countries’ represent an attempt to reconstitute the political utility of the ‘Third World’. In an era of globalisation the deployment of the notion of a Third World of ‘developing countries’ which require immediate, systemic attention through the discourse and practice of international development continues to provide a way of both disciplining and displacing the global dimension of social and political struggle. I refer to this dynamic in terms of the political utility of the Third World, which, I argue, has been conducive to the organisation of global capitalism and the management of social and political contradictions of inequality and poverty. I develop this argument by drawing on the historical implications and legacy of ‘international development’ as practised in and on the Third World and through a critical analysis of the methodological premises that constitute international development. I illustrate this by drawing on a key strategy aimed ostensibly at development: the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (prsp) approach, promulgated by the World Bank and the imf, which I discuss in relation to the ‘development agenda’ inaugurated during the 1999 wto meeting in Doha (Qatar). I argue that the ideology and practice of the global politics of international development reinforce the conditions of global inequality, and must be transcended as both an analytical framework and an organising principle of world politics. While the prsp and related approaches are currently presented as key elements in the building of the ‘architecture for (international) development’, what is emerging is a form of governance that attempts to foreclose social and political alternatives.     

Is There a Social Kuznets Curve? The Influence of Labour Standards on Inequality

This study empirically investigates the impact of core labour standards on income inequality for a range of 90 countries from 1990–2000. A synthetic index of labour standards is computed by means of a Multiple Correspondence Analysis and no significant correlation is found with the Gini index. One of the reasons pointed out is that the effective implementation of core labour standards depends on the quality of the country's political and legal systems. Using instrumental variables in a TSLS model, we found an inverse ‘U’ shaped curve between the new endogenous index of core labour standards and income inequality.     

The muslim experience in the Balkan states, 1919‐1991

This article analyzes the effects of nationalizing policies of the state, processes of democratization, and uneven socio-economic development on the rise of Kurdish ethno-mobilization led by the PKK terrorist organization since the 1980s in Turkey. Three features of the Turkish modernization context are identified as conducive for the rise and continuation of Kurdish ethno-mobilization: a) a nation-building autocratic state that resisted granting cultural rights and recognition for the Kurds; b) democratization with the exclusion of ethnic politics and rights; c) economic regional inequality that coincided with the regional distribution of the Kurdish population. It is argued that autocratic policies of the state during nation-building accompanied the development of an illiberal democracy and intolerance for cultural pluralism. These aspects of Turkish democracy seem to be incompatible with both the liberal and consociational models of democracy that accommodate ethnicity within multiculturalism.     

State Power and the Economic Origins of Democracy

Recent comparative politics scholarship on regime change has not taken state capacity seriously. Prominent works on the relationship between democracy and economic inequality center on the expectation by economic elites that democratization will lead to economic redistribution. But state capacity is necessary for redistribution, and where extractive capacity is lacking, rational economic elites should not fear that suffrage expansion would lead to effective redistribution, nor should the masses expect to gain economically from democratization. State capacity thus acts as a scope condition for the effect of inequality on regime outcomes. This prediction is confirmed through replication and extension of the analysis in Boix (2003), with the addition of the presence of a regularly implemented national census as a proxy for state capacity. In strong states, the effect of inequality on regime change is confirmed. But where the state is weak, inequality is shown to have no effect on regime outcomes. Thus, including state capacity in theories of regime change calls into question general claims about the “economic origins” of dictatorship and democracy.     

Distributional Consequences of Globalisation: Empirical Evidence from Panel Data

This paper investigates the impact of globalisation on cross-country inequality using a large panel dataset. The findings reveal that location and capital are the main determinants of inequality; trade intensity and foreign direct investment make only a small contribution (approximately 4%). The relative contributions of trade and foreign direct investment to inequality have changed little over time and have certainly not increased at the same rate as the rise in global trade and investment activity. Hence, globalisation does not emerge as a significant factor in driving cross-country inequality. Differences emerge when countries are grouped by relative income, but the main findings persist.     

Long Live Democracy: The Determinants of Political Instability in Latin America

We investigate the underlying causes of political instability in a panel of 18 Latin American countries from 1971–2000. We test whether regime type, regime durability, factionalism, income inequality, ethnic diversity, ethnic discrimination, regional spillover effects, urban growth and macroeconomic variables matter for instability. We find several important results: (1) democracy has a significant negative effect on instability that is robust to several alternative specifications; (2) factionalised political systems experience higher instability; (3) income inequality, ethnic fractionalisation, and urban growth have important nonlinear effects on instability; and (4) of the macroeconomic variables we study, only openness to trade has a significant negative effect on instability.     

Inequality,earnings and participation among the poor in rural India

Emphasising that there is a relative dimension to deprivation, an attempt is made here to decompose income inequality among the rural poor into inequality in earnings per worker, in participation rate and covariance of earnings per worker and participation rate. From this decomposition, the effects of (small) changes in inequality in earnings per worker and in participation rate on income inequality are evaluated. The analysis is based on a cross‐section of rural households in 1970–71. The samples of poor cultivating households and poor casual agricultural labour households are analysed separately for each of two regions, based on a classification of villages in terms of technological advancement.     

Income, Occupation, and Preferences for Redistribution in the Developing World

Much of the theoretical work on preferences for redistribution begins with the influential Melzer–Richard model, which makes predictions derived both from position in the income distribution and the overall level of inequality. Our evidence, however, points to limitations on such models of distributive politics. Drawing on World Values Survey evidence on preferences for redistribution in 41 developing countries, we find that the preferences of low-income groups vary significantly depending on occupation and place of residence, union members do not hold progressive views, and inequality has limited effects on demands for redistribution and may even dampen them.

Income distribution,the structure of consumer expenditure and development policy

This paper examines how and why the effects of inequality on the structure of consumption must be taken into account in development policy. It shows that, by utilising the concept of the ‘representative’ consumer, the role of income distribution as a determinant of the structure of consumption can be modelled in a theoretically consistent and empirically constructive way. The importance and methods of introducing consumer preferences and needs into the model are also analysed. Then using a simple Greek input‐output model several hypotheses about income redistribution are empirically investigated. The results indicate that egalitarian redistributions induce favourable employment and balance of payments effects, especially when the planner takes into account other sources of variation in consumer demand arising from differences in preferences across households. Rises in inequality are likely to cause comparatively more serious opposite effects and therefore must be avoided.     

Uncertainty,risk, and wealth and income distribution in peasant agriculture

An ethical justification of the market system is that while generating inequality of income distribution it nevertheless provides an equal opportunity for people to improve their material well‐being (1, p. 169). It is argued that the market system creates a society of unequals, but that it is a fluid society in which, though all may not improve absolutely and relatively, the opportunity to do so is randomly distributed through the population. In terms of economic development, this implies that within a free market framework, the distribution of the gains from growth need not be biased towards any economic class. To use a cliche, one of the justifications of a competitive market system is that there is nothing inherent in its operation which makes ‘the rich get richer and the poor get poorer’. The main barriers to economic and social mobility are thus treated as imperfections in the market—racial and ethnic discrimination, differential access to capital markets, traditional constraints on job choice, and so on.

Recently Michael Lipton has suggested an analytical framework for explaining the optimizing behaviour of peasant cultivators which challenges this sanguine view (2). His ‘survival algorithm’ implies that inherent in the market organization of economic society is a tendency for the benefits from economic development to be distributed systematically in favour of the wealthier groups in the society.

In the following section I shall summarize Lipton's hypothesis and demonstrate its implications for the distribution of wealth and income over time in the agricultural sector of developing countries. In Section III policy conclusions of the analysis are presented.