Work Contracts and Earnings Inequality: The Case of Chile

Great social inequality has been one of the worrisome features of economic development in Latin America. This study focuses on Chile, one of Latin America's fastest growing economies with one of the highest levels of income inequality during the 1990s. Using micro-level data from the 1994 and 2000 Encuestas de Caracterización Socio-Económica, this article examines the role of work contracts in explaining male and female earnings and earnings inequality among wage and salary workers over the second half of the 1990s. The analysis distinguishes between wage and salary work without a work contract – referred to as ‘informal’ work, and wage and salary work with a work contract. Within the latter group, the study further differentiates by the type of work contract held, such as permanent and a variety of contingent work contracts. The findings reveal that the majority of employees in informal and contingent wage and salary work arrangements earned significantly less than their permanent counterparts. Additionally, informal and contingent wage and salary work arrangements accounted for a small, although increasing, fraction of male and female earnings inequality from 1994 to 2000. Finally, the proliferation of seasonal, fixed-term, and informal wage and salary work arrangements has been one of the few economically significant factors in explaining changes in male and female earnings inequality over the second half of the 1990s.     

Remittances,Poverty, Inequality and Welfare: Evidence from the Central Plateau of Burkina Faso

This paper applies Gini and concentration coefficient decomposition as well as the Foster-Greer-Thorbecke poverty index and the Stark-Yitzhaki welfare index to new data from four villages in Burkina Faso, to compare the marginal effects of remittances from intercontinental and intra-African migration on inequality, poverty and social welfare. Evidence is found that intra-African remittances reduce inequality while intercontinental remittances have the opposite effect. Also, it is found that although remittances from intercontinental migration are associated with much lower incidence, depth and severity of poverty, the marginal impact of remittances from this form of migration on social welfare is limited because recipients do not include the rural poor.     

The Welfare Effects of Balance of Payments Reform: A Micro-Macro Simulation of the Cost of Rent-Seeking

This article proposes a methodology for analysing the effect of balance of payments liberalisation on measures of poverty and distribution and applies it to the case of Jamaica in the 1990s. The methodology consists of a macro-micro simulation in which a CGE model provides labour market outcomes, which in turn are used to manipulate the sectoral allocation of employment to generate the income distribution consistent with the new labour market outcome. In the application to Jamaica, we find that the reallocation of resources away from rent-seeking activities in the presence of exchange controls is significant and has large macroeconomic effects. Opening up of the current account has little effect on poverty, but liberalisation of the capital account reduces poverty, especially amongst the very poor. Neither policy change taken separately, nor the combination of the two, has more than a negligible effect on the distribution of income.     

Market-Oriented Reforms as a Tool of State-Building: Russian Pension Reform in 2001

Despite domestic opposition and several policy alternatives, in 2001 the Russian government adopted a pension reform that was potentially costly and had uncertain long-term benefits. Demographic and fiscal pressures created the desire to reform and a more cooperative Duma made it possible to do so. These points do not explain why Putin chose the pension privatisation option. Russia's pension reform is best understood as part of a state-building strategy to diminish the role of powerful bureaucracies. Russia's welfare state was not merely the product of a powerful and popular president, but rather a tool to create a stronger executive.     

Local Financial Development and Household Welfare in Vietnam: Evidence from a Panel Survey

We examine the impact of local financial development on household welfare in Vietnam. We employ household-level panel data for the periods 2007, 2008, 2010 and 2013 covering three provinces and measure local financial development at the district, sub-district and village levels. To account for potential endogeneity that could emanate from the fact that local economic development could spur local financial development, we employ a recently suggested method of identification through heteroscedasticity. Our results show that local financial development has a significantly positive effect on household annual income, consumption and consumption smoothing.     

Effects of Governance Practices and Investment Strategies on State and Local Government Pension Fund Financial Performance

Abstract

Recent statistical studies concerning state and local government pension funds’ boards of trustees have focused on two complementary issues. First is the influence governance practices have on administration of fund assets. Second is the impact of investment strategy choices on funds’ total rates of return. Reported results indicate that the primary effects of governance practices on pension outcomes are indirect via asset allocation decisions. This study re-examined these issues using abnormal return as an inherently valued measure of risk adjusted financial performance. An innovation of the investigation is that “process analysis” was used to decompose the direct and indirect effects of governance practices on financial performance. Results suggest that while both types of effects exist, direct impacts dominate relative to mediating processes.     

The Effects of Democracy on Economic Growth and Inequality: A review

What effects does political democracy have on such development outcomes as economic growth and socioeconomic equality? Competing theoretical models have been proposed that represent each of the possibilities: democracy as facilitating development, democracy as a hindrance to development, and democracy as bearing no independent relationship to development outcomes. Each of these theoretical models is explicated and, then, the evidence from quantitative, cross-national tests of the effects is reviewed. Overall, the evidence provided by the approximately dozen studies for each outcome yields few robust conclusions with respect to the theoretical models. To guide in the evaluation of the evidence, the studies are in turn distinguished by such design characteristics as sample, period observed, measures used, and form of relationship specified. This procedure, while it does not produce definitive support for any of the models, does assist in interpreting the results of past research as well as generating fertile guidelines for future research.     

The Battle over Privileges and Pension Reform: Evidence from Legislative Roll Call Analysis in Poland

Pension reform is among the most economically pressing and politically controversial issues worldwide. Numerous countries have achieved noteworthy results, but for others overcoming opposition to reform remains an elusive task. This article argues that opposition does not necessarily come from the left, but also from parties connected with privileged occupational groups. Focusing on a distinction between the diffuse and concentrated costs of reform, the article analyses the formation of pro-reform and anti-reform coalitions in a two-dimensional space and discusses how particular configurations of the party system relate to reform outcomes and sustainability. The argument is tested using legislative roll call data from Poland.     

Politics of Risk-Taking: Welfare State Reform in Advanced Democracies,by Barbara Vis

This article considers the impacts on the public regulation of private business of three key transformations in public management: “towards more targeting of resources” (through more risk-based regulation); “towards a stronger service ethos” (through more customer-centricity); and “towards increased integration” (through more joined-up regulatory organization). Empirical evidence is presented from a program of research focusing on local authority regulation of the businesses sector in England and Wales. The article concludes by reflecting on how such transformations, which are of wide international significance, might be viewed, particularly from a public interest perspective.     

国际金融体系改革的评估与展望

由美国次贷危机开始的全球金融危机爆发之后,国际金融体系的改革取得重要进展。国际货币基金组织、世界银行两大重要国际金融组织以及国际金融监管体系领域均实现近年来最大改革,新兴市场国家崭露头角。但是在国际金融体系的公平性、公正性和有效性方面,仍然存在很多问题。中国应以G20为主要平台,推动国际金融机构改革继续深入,加强国际监管协调,支持储备货币多元化和人民币国际化,同步推进区域和双边金融合作,以真正实现全球金融安全网。     

The Effects of Child Physical Maltreatment on Nutritional Outcomes: Evidence from Peru

Do children whose parents use physical punishment as a disciplinary method have lower anthropometric measures? Using data for Peruvian children aged 0–5 years, we employ instrumental variables for physical punishment to overcome endogeneity problems common to the household violence literature. Across varying levels of controls, children exposed to physical punishment have significantly poorer short-term nutritional outcomes; although there is no effect on long-term nutrition. We explore heterogeneous effects and potential mechanisms. Children exposed to physical maltreatment fall ill more frequently and are less likely to access preventive and curative healthcare.     

The Effects of the Value-Added Tax on Revenue and Inequality

This paper examines the impact of the introduction of the value-added tax on inequality and government revenues using newly released macro data. We present both conventional country fixed effect regressions and instrumental variable analyses, where VAT adoption is instrumented using the previous values of neighbouring countries’ VAT systems as an instrument. The results reveal – in contrast to earlier work – that the revenue consequences of the VAT have not been positive. The results indicate that income-based inequality has increased due to the VAT adoption, whereas consumption inequality has remained unaffected.     

试论美国国会财政权的运作过程——以美国金融救市预算案为例分析

美国国会的财政权主要是国会按照宪法和法律赋予的权力和程序并依据辅助机构的技术支持对政府预算收支、特殊时期债务赤字提议进行审查决议及监督的权力,这一权力不仅是国会对总统为首的政府部门实施控制的“杀手锏”,而且它能否公正负责地履行这一权力,在很大程度上关系到作为纳税人的公众“钱袋权”能否真正实现的大问题。     

Political Entrepreneurs and Public Administration Reform: The Case of the Local Authorities' Unification Reform in Israel

This article examines a specific institutional change in Israel. In 2003 the Israeli Knesset implemented the local authority unification plan, an unprecedented reform in the structure of local authorities in Israel. This article is about a local government reorganization taking place in a unique political culture. This article tries to integrate the role of political entrepreneurs within an Institutionalist and “learning” perspectives to offer an explanation to a local government structure, thus politicians influence and are influenced by a wide range of institutional norms and practices in a complex process of design and determination of institutional change.     

The Effects of International Remittances on Poverty and Inequality in Ethiopia

Abstract

The article studies the effects of international remittances on poverty and inequality in Ethiopia using an urban household survey from 2004. Counterfactual consumption in the hypothetical case of no remittance is estimated in a selection-corrected estimation framework. Inequality and poverty values in the hypothetical and actual cases are then compared. There is a significant reduction in poverty, while inequality does not change. The head count, the poverty gap and the squared poverty gap ratios decreased from 0.41 to 0.38, 0.14 to 0.13, and 0.064 to 0.057 respectively.     

Rising Inequality in Mexico: Household Characteristics and Regional Effects

We use an empirical framework to identify the contributions of microeconomic factors to the sharp rise in household (per capita) income inequality in Mexico between 1984 and 1994. Results indicate that changes in returns to household characteristics, in particular changes in returns to education, are responsible for about half of the increase in the Gini coefficient. The deteriorating conditions in rural areas relative to the urban areas and of the southern region relative to other regions account for another fourth of the increase in the Gini.     

The 2011 presidential election in Peru: a thorny moral and political dilemma

The 2011 presidential elections in Peru was the third one held in the post-Fujimori era. A perusal of the campaign's political dynamics reveals pervasive anti-democratic behaviours, attitudes and rhetoric on the part of key political actors, showcasing the degree to which Peru remains an unconsolidated, precarious democracy. The second round presented a moral and political dilemma insofar as two unsavoury candidates of highly dubious democratic credentials vied for the presidency: Ollanta Humala, a former army lieutenant burdened by accusations of human rights violations who, additionally, led or supported two military uprisings; and Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of a convicted and jailed dictator who unabashedly touted the legacy of her father's authoritarian regime and surrounded herself with tainted fujimoristas. The paradox of this undesirable electoral outcome, which can be read as a popular rebuke of the status quo, is that it took place in the Latin American country posting the fastest economic growth over the past decade.     

The Information Have-Less: Inequality, Mobility, and Translocal Networks in Chinese Cities

The “information have-less” is a social, economic, and political category for millions of rural-to-urban migrants and laid-off workers, who populate the vast gray zone of China's digital divide. Disengaged from institutions of agricultural and industrial production, the information have-less make use of such inexpensive ICT services as Internet cafés, prepaid phone cards, and Little Smart mobile phones. These low-end digital technologies are critical to enhancing labor mobility (both physical and social) and to the formation of “translocal networks”. In this paper, we conduct a preliminary assessment of ICT usage in, key city-regions in China and consider the consequences of translocal network formations for evolving information inequality in China. These networks raise key theoretical issues related to regionalism, mobility, and state-firm relationships that impinge on low-end service provision, and stratified patterns of information access and utilization within the have-less populations. We view translocal networks an important socio-economic asset of the information have-less and an arena for the articulation of labor mobility in China’s industrialization process and latest wave of urbanization. Carolyn Cartier is associate professor of geography at the University of Southern California. She is the author ofGlobalizing South China (Blackwell, 2001) and the co-editor with Laurence J.C. Ma ofThe Chinese Diaspora: Place Space, Mobility and Identity (Routledge, 2003). Manuel Castells is Wallis Annenberg Chair in Communication Technology and Society at the University of Southern California, Research Professor at the Open University of Catalonia in Barcelona, and Professor Emeritus of Sociology and of City and Regional Planning at the University of California, Berkeley. His current, research focuses on the social and economic implications of the Internet and the debate on new development strategies for the Information Age. Jack Linchuan Qiu is assistant professor at the School of Journalism and Communication, Chinese University of Hong Kong. He co-founded and moderates the Chinese Internet Research Group, a network of researchers from the academic, policymaking, journalistic, and activist communities.