Download or read book Reallocating Public Spending to Reduce Income Inequality Can It Work written by Djeneba Doumbia and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2019-09-06 with total page 51 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Can a government reduce income inequality by changing the composition of public spending while keeping the total level of expenditure fixed? Using newly assembled data on spending composition for 83 countries across all income groups, this paper shows that reallocating spending toward social protection and infrastructure is associated with reduced income inequality, particularly when it is financed through cuts in defense spending. However, the political and security situation matters. The analysis does not find evidence that lowering defense spending to finance infrastructure and social outlays improves income distribution in countries with weak institutions and at higher risk of conflict. Reallocating social protection and infrastructure spending towards other types of spending tends to increase income inequality. Accounting for the long-term impact of health spending, and particularly education spending, helps to better capture the equalizing effects of these expenditures. The paper includes a discussion of the implications of the findings for Indonesia, a major emerging market where income inequality is at the center of policy issues.
Download or read book Reallocating Public Spending to Reduce Income Inequality Can It Work written by Djeneba Doumbia and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2019-09-06 with total page 51 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Can a government reduce income inequality by changing the composition of public spending while keeping the total level of expenditure fixed? Using newly assembled data on spending composition for 83 countries across all income groups, this paper shows that reallocating spending toward social protection and infrastructure is associated with reduced income inequality, particularly when it is financed through cuts in defense spending. However, the political and security situation matters. The analysis does not find evidence that lowering defense spending to finance infrastructure and social outlays improves income distribution in countries with weak institutions and at higher risk of conflict. Reallocating social protection and infrastructure spending towards other types of spending tends to increase income inequality. Accounting for the long-term impact of health spending, and particularly education spending, helps to better capture the equalizing effects of these expenditures. The paper includes a discussion of the implications of the findings for Indonesia, a major emerging market where income inequality is at the center of policy issues.
Download or read book Income Inequality and Redistributive Government Spending written by Luiz De Mello and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Does Corruption Affect Income Inequality and Poverty written by Mr.Sanjeev Gupta and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 1998-05-01 with total page 42 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper demonstrates that high and rising corruption increases income inequality and poverty by reducing economic growth, the progressivity of the tax system, the level and effectiveness of social spending, and the formation of human capital, and by perpetuating an unequal distribution of asset ownership and unequal access to education. These findings hold for countries with different growth experiences, at different stages of development, and using various indices of corruption. An important implication of these results is that policies that reduce corruption will also lower income inequality and poverty.
Download or read book Income Inequality and Redistributive Government Spending written by International Monetary Fund and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2003-01-01 with total page 28 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The paper examines empirically the question of whether more unequal societies spend more on income redistribution than their more egalitarian counterparts. Theoretical arguments on this issue are inconclusive. The political economy literature suggests that redistributive spending is higher in unequal societies due to median voter preferences. Alternatively, it can be argued that unequal societies may spend less on redistribution because of capital market imperfections. Based on different data sources, the cross-country evidence reported in this paper suggests that more unequal societies do spend less on redistribution.
Download or read book World Social Report 2020 written by Department of Economic and Social Affairs and published by United Nations. This book was released on 2020-02-14 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report examines the links between inequality and other major global trends (or megatrends), with a focus on technological change, climate change, urbanization and international migration. The analysis pays particular attention to poverty and labour market trends, as they mediate the distributional impacts of the major trends selected. It also provides policy recommendations to manage these megatrends in an equitable manner and considers the policy implications, so as to reduce inequalities and support their implementation.
Download or read book Causes and Consequences of Income Inequality written by Ms.Era Dabla-Norris and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2015-06-15 with total page 39 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper analyzes the extent of income inequality from a global perspective, its drivers, and what to do about it. The drivers of inequality vary widely amongst countries, with some common drivers being the skill premium associated with technical change and globalization, weakening protection for labor, and lack of financial inclusion in developing countries. We find that increasing the income share of the poor and the middle class actually increases growth while a rising income share of the top 20 percent results in lower growth—that is, when the rich get richer, benefits do not trickle down. This suggests that policies need to be country specific but should focus on raising the income share of the poor, and ensuring there is no hollowing out of the middle class. To tackle inequality, financial inclusion is imperative in emerging and developing countries while in advanced economies, policies should focus on raising human capital and skills and making tax systems more progressive.
Download or read book Fiscal Redistribution and Income Inequality in Latin America written by Edwin Goni and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2008 with total page 31 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Abstract: Income inequality in Latin America ranks among the highest in the world. It can be traced back to the unequal distribution of assets (especially land and education) in the region. But the extent to which asset inequality translates into income inequality depends on the redistributive capacity of the state. This paper documents the performance of Latin American fiscal systems from the perspective of income redistribution using newly-available information on the incidence of taxes and transfers across the region. The findings indicate that: (i) the differences in income inequality before taxes and transfers between Latin America and Western Europe are much more modest than those after taxes and transfers; (ii) the key reason is that, in contrast with industrial countries, in most Latin American countries the fiscal system is of little help in reducing income inequality; and (iii) in countries where fiscal redistribution is significant, it is achieved mostly through transfers rather than taxes. These facts stress the need for fiscal reforms across the region to further the goal of social equity. However, different countries need to place different relative emphasis on raising tax collection, restructuring the tax system, and improving the targeting of expenditures.
Download or read book Redistribution Inequality and Growth written by Mr.Jonathan David Ostry and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2014-02-17 with total page 30 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Fund has recognized in recent years that one cannot separate issues of economic growth and stability on one hand and equality on the other. Indeed, there is a strong case for considering inequality and an inability to sustain economic growth as two sides of the same coin. Central to the Fund’s mandate is providing advice that will enable members’ economies to grow on a sustained basis. But the Fund has rightly been cautious about recommending the use of redistributive policies given that such policies may themselves undercut economic efficiency and the prospects for sustained growth (the so-called “leaky bucket” hypothesis written about by the famous Yale economist Arthur Okun in the 1970s). This SDN follows up the previous SDN on inequality and growth by focusing on the role of redistribution. It finds that, from the perspective of the best available macroeconomic data, there is not a lot of evidence that redistribution has in fact undercut economic growth (except in extreme cases). One should be careful not to assume therefore—as Okun and others have—that there is a big tradeoff between redistribution and growth. The best available macroeconomic data do not support such a conclusion.
Download or read book Income Inequality and Government Transfers in Mexico written by Frederic Lambert and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2019-07-11 with total page 24 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We analyze microdata from Mexico's survey on household income and expenditures (ENIGH) to study the evolution of income inequality in Mexico over 2004-16, identify its sources, and investigate how it was affected by government social policy. We find evidence of only a small decline in inequality over this period. The observed decline may be attributed to government transfers, notably targeted cash transfers (Prospera) and non-contributory pensions. In 2016, those two programs accounted for more than two thirds of the reduction in the Gini coefficient due to government transfers. Other transfer programs such as farmland subsidies (Proagro), government scholarships, and non-monetary transfers for medical expenditures have not been as effective.
Download or read book Public Expenditure and Income Distribution in Malaysia written by Mukaramah Harun and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2022-07-19 with total page 142 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book studies the impact of public expenditure allocations in achieving income equality goals in Malaysia. The book examines the initial functional and institutional distribution of income across different institutional agents and sectors and evaluates the impact of the public expenditure policies in reducing the inter-ethnic and rural–urban disparity. Since Malaysia has made enormous progress in eliminating poverty, the authors suggest that a change of emphasis in the public expenditure policy may now be called for. They present evidence on the importance of public expenditure in improving income inequality and examine the initial functional and institutional distribution of income across different institutional agents and sectors. The development of the Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) model that presents both economic and social statistics in an economy can be served as a useful tool of this work. The SAM model is used to evaluate the impact of the public expenditure policies in reducing inter-ethnic and rural–urban disparity. A comprehensive source of information on how to deal with inequality economic challenges, the book will be of interest to economists and researchers on Southeast Asian Studies.
Download or read book Income Inequality and Poverty written by Nanak Kakwani and published by New York : Published for the World Bank [by] Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1980 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Deals with income distribution methods and their economic applications.
Download or read book Testing Piketty s Hypothesis on the Drivers of Income Inequality written by Carlos Góes and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2016-08-03 with total page 27 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century puts forth a logically consistent explanation for changes in income and wealth inequality patterns. However, while rich in data, the book provides no formal empirical testing for its theoretical causal chain. In this paper, I build a set of Panel SVAR models to check if inequality and capital share in the national income move up as the r-g gap grows. Using a sample of 19 advanced economies spanning over 30 years, I find no empirical evidence that dynamics move in the way Piketty suggests. Results are robust to several alternative estimates of r-g.
Download or read book Designing Fiscal Redistribution The Role of Universal and Targeted Transfers written by Mr.David Coady and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2020-06-26 with total page 27 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is a growing debate on the relative merits of universal and targeted social assistance transfers in achieving income redistribution objectives. While the benefits of targeting are clear, i.e., a larger poverty impact for a given transfer budget or lower fiscal cost for a given poverty impact, in practice targeting also comes with various costs, including incentive, administrative, social and political costs. The appropriate balance between targeted and universal transfers will therefore depend on how countries decide to trade-off these costs and benefits as well as on the potential for redistribution through taxes. This paper discusses the trade-offs that arise in different country contexts and the potential for strengthening fiscal redistribution in advanced and developing countries, including through expanding transfer coverage and progressive tax financing.
Download or read book Reducing Inequalities written by Rémi Genevey and published by The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI). This book was released on 2013-01-01 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The reduction of inequalities within and between countries stands as a policy goal, and deserves to take centre stage in the design of the Sustainable Development Goals agreed during the Rio+20 Summit in 2012.The 2013 edition of A Planet for Life represents a unique international initiative grounded on conceptual and strategic thinking, and – most importantly – empirical experiments, conducted on five continents and touching on multiple realities. This unprecedented collection of works proposes a solid empirical approach, rather than an ideological one, to inform future debate.The case studies collected in this volume demonstrate the complexity of the new systems required to accommodate each country's specific economic, political and cultural realities. These systems combine technical, financial, legal, fiscal and organizational elements with a great deal of applied expertise, and are articulated within a clear, well-understood, growth- and job-generating development strategy.Inequality reduction does not occur by decree; neither does it automatically arise through economic growth, nor through policies that equalize incomes downward via ill conceived fiscal policies. Inequality reduction involves a collaborative effort that must motivate all concerned parties, one that constitutes a genuine political and social innovation, and one that often runs counter to prevailing political and economic forces.
Download or read book Inequality in China Trends Drivers and Policy Remedies written by Ms.Sonali Jain-Chandra and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2018-06-05 with total page 31 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: China has experienced rapid economic growth over the past two decades and is on the brink of eradicating poverty. However, income inequality increased sharply from the early 1980s and rendered China among the most unequal countries in the world. This trend has started to reverse as China has experienced a modest decline in inequality since 2008. This paper identifies various drivers behind these trends – including structural changes such as urbanization and aging and, more recently, policy initiatives to combat it. It finds that policies will need to play an important role in curbing inequality in the future, as projected structural trends will put further strain on equity considerations. In particular, fiscal policy reforms have the potential to enhance inclusiveness and equity, both on the tax and expenditure side.
Download or read book Income Inequality and Education Revisited written by Mr.David Coady and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2017-05-26 with total page 23 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper presents new results on the relationship between education expansion and income inequality. While human capital theory suggests that income inequality increases with inequality of education outcomes, the expected relationship between income inequality and the level of education is ambiguous. Consistent with these theoretical priors, when dynamic panel estimation techniques are used to address issues of persistence and endogeneity we find a large, positive, statistically significant and stable relationship between education inequality and income inequality, especially in emerging and developing economies and among older age cohorts. The relationship between income inequality and education levels is positive but small and not always statistically significant, but we find a statistically significant negative relationship with schooling levels of younger cohorts. Statistical tests indicate that our dynamic estimators are consistent and that our identifying instruments are valid. Policy simulations suggest that education expansion will continue to be inequality reducing but that this role will diminish as countries develop.
