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 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 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 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 Universal Basic Income Debate and Impact Assessment written by Maura Francese and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2018-12-10 with total page 24 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper discusses the definition and modelling of a universal basic income (UBI). After clarifying the debate about what a UBI is and presenting the arguments in favor and against, an analytical approach for its assessment is proposed. The adoption of a UBI as a policy tool is discussed with regard to the policy objectives (shaped by social preferences) it is designed to achieve. Key design dimensions to be considered include: coverage, generosity of the program, overall progressivity of the policy, and its financing.
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 Inequality and Growth written by Theo S. Eicher and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Essays exploring the relationship between economic growth and inequality and the implications for policy makers.
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 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 The Undeserving Rich written by Leslie McCall and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-03-29 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is widely assumed that Americans care little about income inequality, believe opportunities abound, admire the rich, and dislike redistributive policies. Leslie McCall contends that such assumptions are based on both incomplete survey data and economic conditions of the past and not present. In fact, Americans have desired less inequality for decades, and McCall's book explains why. Americans become most concerned about inequality in times of inequitable growth, when they view the rich as prospering while opportunities for good jobs, fair pay and high quality education are restricted for everyone else. As a result, they favor policies to expand opportunity and redistribute earnings in the workplace, reducing inequality in the market rather than redistributing income after the fact with tax and spending policies. This book resolves the paradox of how Americans can express little enthusiasm for welfare state policies and still yearn for a more equitable society, and forwards a new model of preferences about income inequality rooted in labor market opportunities rather than welfare state policies.
Download or read book Communities in Action written by National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2017-04-27 with total page 583 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.
Download or read book The Rise in Inequality After Pandemics Can Fiscal Support Play a Mitigating Role written by Davide Furceri and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2021-04-30 with total page 26 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Major epidemics of the last two decades (SARS, H1N1, MERS, Ebola and Zika) have been followed by increases in inequality (Furceri, Loungani, Ostry and Pizzuto, 2020). In this paper, we show that the extent of fiscal consolidation in the years following the onset of these pandemics has played an important role in determining the extent of the increase in inequality. Episodes marked by extreme austerity—measured using either the government’s fiscal balance, health expenditures or redistribution—have been associated with an increase in the Gini measure of inequality three times as large as in episodes where fiscal policy has been more supportive. We survey the evidence thus far on the distributional impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, which suggests that inequality is likely to increase in the absence of strong policy actions. We review the case made by many observers (IMF 2020; Stiglitz 2020; Sandbu 2020b) that fiscal support should not be withdrawn prematurely despite understandable concerns about high public debt-to-GDP ratios.
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 2016-08-19 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 Handbook of Income Inequality Measurement written by Jacques Silber and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 669 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Amartya Sen "Equality," I spoke the word As if a wedding vow Ah, but I was so much older then, I am younger than that now. Thus sang Bob Dylan in 1964. Approbation of equality varies not only with our age (though it is not absolutely clear in which direction the values may shift over one's life time), but also with the spirit of the times. The 1960s were good years for singing in praise of equality. The spirit of the present times would probably be better reflected by melodies in admiration of the Federal Reserve System. And yet the technical literature on the evaluation and measurement of economic inequality has grown remarkably over the last three decades. Even as actual economic policies (especially in North America and Europe) have tended to move towards focusing on virtues other than the avoidance of economic inequality, the professional literature on assessing and gauging economic inequality has taken quite a jump forward. A great many different problems have been addressed and effectively sorted out, and new problems continue to be posed and analyzed. The Contents: A Review Jacques Silber has done a great service to the subject by producing this collection of admirablyhelpful and illuminating papers on different aspects of the measurement of income inequality. The reach of this collection is quite remarkable. Along with a thorough overview from the editor himself, the major areas in this complex field have been carefully examined and accessibly discussed.
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 Fiscal Decentralization and Transfer Dependency written by Caroline-Antonia Goerl and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2014-04-16 with total page 26 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Within the context of reigniting post crisis macroeconomic growth, income inequality has emerged as a topic of significant interest for both academics and policymakers (Bastagli, Coady, and Gupta, 2012) This study builds on past literature on fiscal decentralization suggesting that redistribution is most effectively carried out at sub-central levels of government. Using the IMF’s multi-sector Government Finance Statistics Yearbook database, this paper tests the impact of decentralized redistribution on income inequality for a globally representative sample of countries since 1980. The findings suggest that the decentralization of government expenditure can help achieve a more equal distribution of income. However, several conditions need to be fulfilled: i) the government sector needs to be sufficiently large, ii) decentralization should be comprehensive, including redistributive government spending, and, iii) decentralization on the expenditure side should be accompanied by adequate decentralization on the revenue side, such that subnational governments rely primarily on their own revenue sources as opposed to intergovernmental transfers.
