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Who Benefits From Economic Development? Reply, Gary S. Fields
Who Benefits From Economic Development? Reply, Gary S. Fields
Gary S Fields
[Excerpt] Before the appearance of my 1977 paper in this Review, it was widely thought that the income distribution worsened during the economic growth which took place in Brazil during the 1960's. My paper demonstrated that the familiar data, when analyzed from an absolute perspective, could show that the poor had benefited from growth. I found that the entire income distribution shifted, benefiting every income class; that the proportion of the economically active population with incomes below the poverty level (as defined by Brazilian standards) declined during the decade; that those who remained poor were less poor than before in …
Educational Progress And Economic Development, Gary S. Fields
Educational Progress And Economic Development, Gary S. Fields
Gary S Fields
[Excerpt] Many development agencies seek to channel economic assistance to those less-developed countries (LDCs) and activities that will help the poor to achieve a better life (this phraseology is from the U.S. Foreign Assistance Act as amended in 1975). Education is an important indicator of countries' performance. This chapter examines the suitability of alternative education indicators as guides for planning and evaluating countries' progress and commitment toward increasing the participation of the poor in development.
The Potential Role Of An Employment Guarantee Scheme In Korea's Social Safety Net, Gary S. Fields
The Potential Role Of An Employment Guarantee Scheme In Korea's Social Safety Net, Gary S. Fields
Gary S Fields
[Excerpt] Beginning in November 1997, the Republic of Korea underwent a devastating economic crisis. Declining macroeconomic conditions brought about major labor market disruptions in 1998: a quadrupling of unemployment, a fall of 9% in real wages, informalization of the remaining jobs, increased job insecurity, and rising poverty and inequality. Disadvantaged groups suffered a disproportionate impact. The result was not only economic misery but also social pain: increased homelessness, rising crime, heightened school dropouts, an accelerating divorce rate, and an overwhelming sense of social malaise. 1999 marked a major turnaround for Korea. GDP grew by 10.7%, and real wages are growing …
Assessing Progress Toward Greater Equality Of Income Distribution, Gary S. Fields
Assessing Progress Toward Greater Equality Of Income Distribution, Gary S. Fields
Gary S Fields
[Excerpt] Income distribution is only one indicator of economic well-being useful in gauging improvements in the economic position of the poor; change in income distribution, appropriately conceived and measured, is as good a criterion as any for assessing progress toward the alleviation of poverty. Income is intimately bound up with a family's command over economic resources. Rising modern-sector employment or reduced infant mortality might be suggestive of improvements in the economic position of the poor; gains in real income among low-income groups provide direct evidence that poverty is being alleviated. This chapter answers the following questions: What are the strengths …
Education And Income Distribution In Developing Countries: A Review Of The Literature, Gary S. Fields
Education And Income Distribution In Developing Countries: A Review Of The Literature, Gary S. Fields
Gary S Fields
[Excerpt] This paper is a survey of the available literature on education and income distribution in developing countries. Education may affect the distribution of income in a variety of ways: by raising the level of income; by changing, for better or worse, the dispersion of income; by opening up new opportunities for the children of the poor and thereby serving as a vehicle for social mobility and/or, by limiting participation to the children of the well-to-do, transmitting intergenerational inequality; by offering greater access to favored segments of the population (boys, city-dwellers, certain racial groups); by rewarding differently the education received …
Place-To-Place Migration In Colombia, Gary S. Fields
Place-To-Place Migration In Colombia, Gary S. Fields
Gary S Fields
[Excerpt] This paper builds upon earlier work of mine which explored the determinants of population migration in Colombia. As before, the basic proposition is that areas' economic opportunities play a central role in determining the spatial allocation of the population. My earlier paper used published data from the 1973 Colombian Census of Population to establish that the rates of net lifetime migration into Colombia's 23 provinces (or, as they are known in Colombia, "departments") are associated with those areas' labor market conditions. The present paper uses unpublished data for 12 zones (six regions, rural and urban segments of each) to …
Growth And Distribution In The Market Economies Of East Asia, Gary S. Fields
Growth And Distribution In The Market Economies Of East Asia, Gary S. Fields
Gary S Fields
This is a review and comparison of seven books dealing with income distribution and economic development focusing on the countries of East Asia. The books reviewed are: Irma Adelman and Sherman Robinson, Income Distribution Policy in Developing Countries. New York: Oxford University Press, 1979. Edward K. Y. Chen, Hyper-Growth in Asian Economies: A Comparative Study of Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1979. John C. H. Fei, Gustav Ranis, and Shirley W. Y. Kuo, Growth with Equity: The Taiwan Case. New York: Oxford University Press, 1980. Walter Galenson, ed., Economic Growth and Structural Change …
Regional Inequality And Other Sources Of Income Variation In Colombia, Gary S. Fields, T. Paul Schultz
Regional Inequality And Other Sources Of Income Variation In Colombia, Gary S. Fields, T. Paul Schultz
Gary S Fields
[Excerpt] Regional inequality is of interest for a variety of reasons: planning development policies aimed at alleviating poverty and reducing personal inequality, gauging the degree of a country's labor market integration, understanding patterns of population movement in general and labor force migration in particular, predicting future urbanization, and characterizing the poor. Policymakers often aim development programs at particular target groups such as those living in certain regions of a country. In this paper we analyze the determinants of incomes and income inequality in one less developed country, Colombia, examining both personal and regional aspects. The results help clarify the potential …
Poverty Changes In Developing Countries, Gary S. Fields
Poverty Changes In Developing Countries, Gary S. Fields
Gary S Fields
[Excerpt] This chapter is concerned with measuring how the extent of poverty changes in a country over time. 'Poverty', as the term is used here, denotes the inability of an individual or a family to command sufficient resources to satisfy basic needs. The poverty line is a constant real amount below which people are said to be poor. The extent of poverty in a country is then based on variables such as the number who are poor and the extent of their resource shortfall. This chapter treats three topics: how poverty is defined, how much poverty there is, and how …
Poverty Measures And Anti-Poverty Policy, Francois Bourguignon, Gary S. Fields
Poverty Measures And Anti-Poverty Policy, Francois Bourguignon, Gary S. Fields
Gary S Fields
[Excerpt] Amartya Sen has made fundamental contributions to the study of distributional aspects of economic growth and decline. Among his pathbreaking works are his lectures on the economics of inequality (Sen, 1973), his article on the axiomatics of poverty measurement (Sen, 1976), and his book on anti-poverty policy in the context of famines (Sen, 1981). This paper is concerned with one of these areas, namely, the measurement of poverty and the implications for anti-poverty policy. In the 1960's and 1970's those who were working in the poverty field held a number of somewhat incompletely articulated views as to the extent …
Industrialization And Employment In Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore, And Taiwan, Gary S. Fields
Industrialization And Employment In Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore, And Taiwan, Gary S. Fields
Gary S Fields
[Excerpt] What are the links between macroeconomic growth and microeconomic development objectives? The initial view held by many economists, especially Latin America specialists, was that the goals of growth, employment, and income distribution are mutually incompatible and that the pursuit of all these objectives at once is bound to be futile. But in the last few years, studies of the economies of the Asian Newly Industrializing Countries (NICs), Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan—the so-called "Group of Four"—have emerged, and they point to very rapid aggregate growth and marked improvements in labor market conditions and in income distribution. This chapter …
Living Standards, Labor Markets And Human Resources In Taiwan, Gary S. Fields
Living Standards, Labor Markets And Human Resources In Taiwan, Gary S. Fields
Gary S Fields
[Excerpt] This paper has three general aims: to demonstrate that standards of living have continued to improve during Taiwan's recent economic growth, to analyze the causes of improvements in the 1980s and before, and to discuss some specific issues which are likely to arise and which will need to be resolved in the years ahead.
Trade Strategies And The Poor: Adjusting To New Realities, Gary S. Fields
Trade Strategies And The Poor: Adjusting To New Realities, Gary S. Fields
Gary S Fields
[Excerpt] The major policy issue examined in this paper is that of a country's choice of a trade strategy in the context of helping the poor. As the end of the 1980s approaches, developing countries face a much more difficult economic situation than that which they confronted at the end of the 1970s. The paper begins by reviewing these new realities and the need for adjusting to them. After mentioning some non-policies, I proceed to consider both successful and unsuccessful country experiences and draw lessons from them. One policy singled out for special attention is wage policy and its interaction …
Taiwan’S Changing Employment And Earnings Structure, Gary S. Fields
Taiwan’S Changing Employment And Earnings Structure, Gary S. Fields
Gary S Fields
[Excerpt] In its determined pursuit of economic development throughout the latter part of the twentieth century, Taiwan consistently succeeded in achieving growth rates that were amongst the highest in the world; however, in tandem with such growth, a number of significant changes also took place in the island's labour market. This chapter begins by highlighting some of the most important of these aggregate changes, as follows: (i) the achievement, and subsequent maintenance of, essentially full employment; (ii) improvements in the overall mix of jobs, in particular, a steady reduction in the share of agricultural employment to total employment, a very …
Taiwan’S Private Sector Labour Market Prior To 1996, Gary S. Fields
Taiwan’S Private Sector Labour Market Prior To 1996, Gary S. Fields
Gary S Fields
[Excerpt] Analysis of the inter-industry earnings differentials revealed that these differentials were quite small by international standards, and indeed, that earnings were rising at roughly the same rate in every sector of the labour market in Taiwan. Wage differentials in Taiwan's private sector are generally in line with the economy as a whole; quite small by international standards, with real wages rising at very similar rates throughout all of the major private sector industries, whilst also demonstrating similar growth and decline patterns. For example, the agricultural sector in Taiwan is a declining sector of the economy, relative to non-agriculture, whilst …
The Migration Transition In Asia, Gary S. Fields
The Migration Transition In Asia, Gary S. Fields
Gary S Fields
[Excerpt] This theoretical discussion of the migration transition is Asia develops a framework to understand the turning point from labor exporter to labor importer experienced by the Asian NIEs (Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore and Taiwan). The author concludes that the NIEs' demand for labor curve shifted rapidly, primarily due to export-led growth of a labor-intensive character. Because these economies are well integrated, improvements in labor market conditions in individual sectors are transmitted to all workers, discouraging emigration. Despite industry's efforts to mitigate wage increases through labor import, new technology or relocation overseas, the rapidly improving domestic earnings opportunities induced the …
Economic And Demographic Aspects Of Taiwan's Rising Family Income Inequality, Gary S. Fields
Economic And Demographic Aspects Of Taiwan's Rising Family Income Inequality, Gary S. Fields
Gary S Fields
[Excerpt] Since 1980, however, family income inequality in Taiwan has risen slowly but steadily. In this chapter, we apply decomposition methodologies devised by Fei and co-authors and by Shorrocks to Taiwan's Family Income and Expenditure Surveys to quantify the sources of Taiwan's rising family income inequality. Our principal finding is that labor income inequality accounts for more than 100 percent of the observed change— that is, household income inequality would have increased even more had not business income, property income and transfer income contributed to an equalization of incomes. However, the reason for this is not that individual earnings became …
Education And Taiwan’S Changing Employment And Earnings Structure, Gary S. Fields, Amanda Newton Kraus
Education And Taiwan’S Changing Employment And Earnings Structure, Gary S. Fields, Amanda Newton Kraus
Gary S Fields
[Excerpt] Between 1980 and 1992, the enormous changes in economic development in Taiwan had significant impacts on the island's labour market. Examples of these changes include the island's almost legendary and meteoric economic growth, the maintenance of essentially full employment, an increase of around 116 per cent in real labour earnings, considerable upgrading of the educational qualifications of the labour force as a whole, a sustained and systematic shift in the composition of the labour force from agriculture into manufacturing and services and occupational upgrading (defined as the expansion of the share of the labour force in the better occupations, …
Labour Institutions And Economic Development: A Conceptual Framework With Reference To Asia, Gary S. Fields
Labour Institutions And Economic Development: A Conceptual Framework With Reference To Asia, Gary S. Fields
Gary S Fields
[Excerpt] In this chapter, I set forth a framework for analysing how labour markets function under existing institutional arrangements and predicting how they would respond to alternative changes and policy interventions. I seek to blend logical rigour with institutional realism in a stylized way. My approach borrows from orthodox neoclassical analysis where relevant, and departs from those characterizations when the standard assumptions are empirically untenable.
Labour Market Modelling And The Urban Informal Sector: Theory And Evidence, Gary S. Fields
Labour Market Modelling And The Urban Informal Sector: Theory And Evidence, Gary S. Fields
Gary S Fields
[Excerpt] The purpose of this paper is to assess the compatibility between theoretical models of the urban informal sector (UIS) and empirical evidence on the workings of that sector in the context of developing countries' labour markets. My major point is that although the UIS is an excellent idea which has served us well in the 1970s and 1980s, we have need in the next round of research to refine our terminology and our models in light of empirical findings which have come to the fore in the interim. I would contend that what empirical researchers label "the informal sector" …
Employment Generation And Poverty Alleviation In Developing Economies, Gary S. Fields
Employment Generation And Poverty Alleviation In Developing Economies, Gary S. Fields
Gary S Fields
[Excerpt] We know well that the East Asian economies have achieved higher economic growth rates than those in any other region of the world and that production for world markets has featured as a hallmark of the East Asian successes. This paper has three purposes: first, to present comparative data showing that the rates at which employment opportunities improve and poverty is reduced mirror countries' differential growth experiences; second, to examine differences in labour market institutions, demonstrating that those in East Asia have similarities more likely to lead to higher output performance and shared improvements in living conditions; and third, …
The Impact Of Government Policies On Urban Employment In Small Economies, Gary S. Fields
The Impact Of Government Policies On Urban Employment In Small Economies, Gary S. Fields
Gary S Fields
[Excerpt] Most of the policies intended to affect urban employment are not specifically employment policies nor are they specifically urban. Rather, the amount of urban employment, the composition of that employment, and the returns from it are determined by a whole host of policies. To review them all in a short paper is an impossible undertaking. The criterion by which I decided which policies to consider is policy-relevance, asking which set of policies is apt to have the largest impact on employment.
Long-Term Economic Mobility And The Private Sector In Developing Countries: New Evidence, Gary S. Fields, Walter S. Bagg
Long-Term Economic Mobility And The Private Sector In Developing Countries: New Evidence, Gary S. Fields, Walter S. Bagg
Gary S Fields
[Excerpt] Consistent with the mainstream view of economic growth as a factor promoting long-term economic mobility, we hypothesize that those economies in which economic growth has been most rapid are precisely the ones that have achieved the greatest progress toward poverty reduction through improved labor market conditions, especially in private employment. We also hypothesize that the positive relationship running from economic growth through the labor market to poverty reduction continued to hold in the 1990s in essentially the same way as in earlier years when globalization was less intense. Both hypotheses are confirmed by our data. Our results therefore cast …
Reducing Poverty: The Overall Framework, Guy Pfeffermann, Gary S. Fields
Reducing Poverty: The Overall Framework, Guy Pfeffermann, Gary S. Fields
Gary S Fields
[Excerpt] How private firms contribute to economic mobility and poverty reduction and what governments can do to enhance their contribution is the theme of this book. We look first at the positive role the private sector plays in economic development, a role that has received less emphasis that that of other players. We then focus on the labor market and how various mechanisms in the economy interact to affect conditions for people as workers and as consumers. The volume examines the links among the business environment, private sector development, economic growth, poverty reduction, and economic mobility. Until recently, development economists …
The Measurement Of Income Mobility: An Introduction To The Literature, Gary S. Fields, Efe A. Ok
The Measurement Of Income Mobility: An Introduction To The Literature, Gary S. Fields, Efe A. Ok
Gary S Fields
[Excerpt] Our main purpose in this survey is, therefore, to provide a somewhat unified setting within which the basic features of the theory of income mobility measurement can be outlined. Our aim is to provide a (subjectively) selective introduction to the literature on income mobility, and thereby shed some light on particular aspects of mobility measurement. Consequently, the present study should not be viewed as an exhaustive survey of the related literature. It is rather a very concise account of some key elements of the theory of income mobility measurement.
Employment In Low-Income Countries: Beyond Labor Market Segmentation?, Gary S. Fields
Employment In Low-Income Countries: Beyond Labor Market Segmentation?, Gary S. Fields
Gary S Fields
[Excerpt] Throughout the world, there are fundamentally two, and only two, ways that people can escape from poverty. One is by earning their way out of poverty. The other is by receiving socially-provided goods and services that lift them out of poverty. Even with multilateral and bilateral assistance, low-income countries are too poor to be able to make a significant dent in poverty by the social services route alone. This means that creating more and better earning opportunities for the poor is the only other option available. In policy discussions, two mistakes are often made. One is to assume that …
Escaping From Poverty: Household Income Dynamics In Indonesia, South Africa, Spain, And Venezuela, Gary S. Fields, Paul L. Cichello, Samuel Freije, Marta Menéndez, David Newhouse
Escaping From Poverty: Household Income Dynamics In Indonesia, South Africa, Spain, And Venezuela, Gary S. Fields, Paul L. Cichello, Samuel Freije, Marta Menéndez, David Newhouse
Gary S Fields
[Excerpt] This study presents the main results of a larger, more technical report (Fields and others 2001) and subsequent work (Fields and others 2002) that analyzes income mobility in Indonesia, South Africa, Spain, and Venezuela. These economies were selected on the basis of the availability of panel data with which to analyze household income dynamics in the 1990s. By following households over time, we are able to investigate how households that were poor initially fared economically, relative to their richer counterparts. We can learn more about how and why households exit—and enter—poverty. To gauge income mobility, this study centers on …
Labor Retrenchment Laws And Their Effect On Wages And Employment: A Theoretical Investigation, Kaushik Basu, Gary S. Fields, Shub Debgupta
Labor Retrenchment Laws And Their Effect On Wages And Employment: A Theoretical Investigation, Kaushik Basu, Gary S. Fields, Shub Debgupta
Gary S Fields
Many countries have legislation which make it costly for firms to dismiss or retrench workers. In the case of India, the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, requires firms that employ 50 or more workers to pay compensation to any worker who is to be retrenched. This paper builds a theoretical model to analyze the effects of such anti-retrenchment laws. Our model reveals that an anti-retrenchment law can cause wages and employment to rise or fall, depending on the parametric conditions prevailing in the market. We then use this simple model to isolate conditions under which an anti-retrenchment law raises wages and …
Do Inequality Measures Measure Inequality?, Gary S. Fields
Do Inequality Measures Measure Inequality?, Gary S. Fields
Gary S Fields
[Excerpt] In the literature, much attention has been paid to a number of aspects of inequality including the distinction between relative and absolute inequality, axiomatization of inequality, the Lorenz criterion for inequality comparisons, properties of various inequality measures, and inequality decomposition. In no way do I wish to argue with the main results derived in these areas. Rather, my purpose here is to add to the theory of inequality measurement by dealing with one aspect of inequality which has been largely ignored by economists and by others. This is the question of how inequality changes - in particular, whether it …
Income Mobility, Gary S. Fields
Income Mobility, Gary S. Fields
Gary S Fields
Income mobility means different things to different people. This article explains the six different mobility concepts used in the literature, reviews the various indices used in the mobility literature to measure these concepts, summarizes the difference the use of different mobility concepts and measures makes in practice, presents the axiomatic approach to income mobility, and discusses a number of other issues that arise in the mobility literature.