Income Distribution Commons^™

Three Essays On The Macroeconomic Impacts Of Rent Seeking, Kurt Von Seekamm

Doctoral Dissertations

Chapter 1 of this dissertation focuses on the political economy of rent seeking. Using trading in financial markets, patent litigation and managerial privilege as descriptive examples from the modern economy, it identifies situations where rent seeking opportunities occur. The challenge of correctly distinguishing between productive activities and rent seeking activities demonstrate the empirical challenges of examining rent seeking. This chapter also suggests that in addition to the opportunity cost of physical capital, modern rent seeking has a significant opportunity cost in the form of the misallocation of human capital. Chapter 2 explores the relationship between increased rent seeking, aggregate demand, …

Natural Disasters In Latin America: The Role Of Disaster Type And Productive Sector On The Urban-Rural Income Gap And Rural To Urban Migration, Madeline Alice Messick

Dissertations

This research provides insight into the impact of natural disasters as drivers of rural to urban migration in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). Disasters of varying types are predicted to have differing impacts on the productive sectors of agriculture, industry, and services; which due to the concentration of the various productive sectors in either urban or rural areas, subsequently changes the urban-rural wage differential. Changes to the wage differential (as measured by the urban-rural income gap) are predicted to lead to movement between urban and rural areas until a new equilibrium wage is reached.

This dissertation first identifies a …

Contesting Austerity: The Potential And Pitfalls Of Socioeconomic Rights Discourse, Joe Wills, Ben Warwick

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

This article argues that, while socioeconomic rights have the potential to contribute to the contestation of austerity measures and the reimagining of a "postneoliberal" order, there are a number of features of socioeconomic rights as currently constructed under international law that limit these possibilities. We identify these limitations as falling into two categories: "contingent" and "structural". Contingent limitations are shortcomings in the current constitution of socioeconomic rights law that undermine its effectiveness for challenging austerity measures. By contrast, the structural limitations of socioeconomic rights law are those that pertain to the more basic presuppositions and axioms that provide the foundations …

Exchange Patterns And Relations In Collaborative Governance., Charles Wharton Kaye-Essien

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Collaborative governance has received considerable attention in recent years. From environmental resource management to public safety, collaborative governance continues to play a vital role in regional problem solving. In spite of this increasing popularity previous attempts to model the political, economic, and demographic determinants of collaboration have in most cases produced inconsistent results, thereby undermining the ability to generalize from such findings. Additionally, our understanding of the relational patterns that emanate from collaborative agreements remains fairly rudimentary. The main objective of this research is to address some of the gaps in the literature and improve our understanding of collaborative governance …

The Golden Straightjacket Is Out Of Style, Lacey Germana

Best Integrated Writing

Germana’s review of Thomas Friedman’s The Lexus and the Olive Tree provides careful summary and critique of Friedman’s argument and passionately calls for a balance between increased standards of living and careful stewardship of the earth.

The Distribution Of Globalized Power, Rachel Canter

Best Integrated Writing

Canter reviews Thomas Friedman’s The Lexus and the Olive Tree and observes the dissonance between our notions of globalization and global society; she offers an alternate worldview that pays respect to regional cultures and values.

The Labor Share Question In China, Hao Qi

Doctoral Dissertations

In this study I explore why China’s labor share measured by the conventional approach experienced a major decline over the period from the mid-1990s to the outbreak of the global financial and economic crisis in 2008. I adopt a Marxian approach to address this question. Following the Marxian approach, I focus on how the power relation in the sphere of production affects labor’s share. I argue that major changes in the power relation that took place during the transition of China’s economic system have played a crucial role in the changes of distribution. To this end, I build homogenous series …

Wealthy, But Unequal: The Anomaly Of Inequality In The United States, Joseph Puleo

Political Analysis

No abstract provided.

Economic Wealth And Social Welfare: A Longitudinal Analysis Of Transnational Well-Being, Kelly Brooke Martin

Doctoral Dissertations

Macro changes in the financial arena have prompted ongoing research focused on global economic trends. As America emerges from an era of stagnant wages, rising unemployment, and growing class stratification it is necessary to explore differences in cross-national socioeconomic behavior to address the changing needs of our country. Many studies attempt to describe statistical correlations between economic wealth and social well-being domestically and abroad by utilizing methodological perspectives that do not account for longitudinal change. To address the gap in existing research, this study seeks to measure variations in econometric indicators between the U.S. and Nordic countries to further explicate …

Public Actors In Private Markets: Toward A Developmental Finance State, Robert Hockett, Saule Omarova

Saule T. Omarova

The recent financial crisis brought into sharp relief fundamental questions about the social function and purpose of the financial system, including its relation to the “real” economy. This Article argues that, to answer these questions, we must recapture a distinctively American view of the proper relations among state, financial market, and development. This programmatic vision – captured in what we call a “developmental finance state” – is based on three key propositions: (1) that economic and social development is not an “end-state” but a continuing national policy priority; (2) that the modalities of finance are the most potent means of …

A New Approach To Measuring Poverty In The United States: A Household's Ability To Consume, David Ashelman

Applied Economics Theses

The definition of poverty is a social construct. As such, quantitatively measuring poverty is problematic, and creates ineffective poverty-alleviation policy. This thesis examines the historical measure of poverty in the United States, compares U.S. poverty measurements to Great Britain and Canada, and then proposes a new way to measure poverty. Instead of measuring income as the defining factor of poverty, the new poverty measurement suggested eliminates income factors and focuses on a household’s ability to consume in a non-comparative manner. When quantifying a household’s ability to consume, implications arise in economic policy for anti-poverty programs, defining the middle class, minimum …

The Gettysburg Economic Review, Volume 8, Spring 2015

Gettysburg Economic Review

No abstract provided.

Antitrust, Competition Policy, And Inequality, Jonathan B. Baker, Steven C. Salop

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Economic inequality recently has entered the political discourse in a highly visible way. This political impact is not a surprise. As the U.S. economy has begun to recover from the Great Recession since mid-2009, economic growth has effectively been appropriated by those already well off, leaving the median household less well off. The serious economic, political and moral issues raised by inequality can be addressed through a panoply of public policies including competition policy, the focus of this article. The article describes the channels through which market power contributes to inequality, and sets forth a range of possible antitrust policy …

The Macroeconomics Of The Declining U.S. Labor Share: A Debt-Led Explanation, Alex Jianan Xu

Senior Projects Spring 2015

This paper aims to answer two major conundrums in macroeconomic theory with regards to the U.S. economy. First, standard macroeconomic models such as Harrod-Domar and Solow theoryze that factor shares are constant; however, actual measures of the U.S. labor share have been on a downward trend since the early 1980s. The second conundrum relates to the Post-Kaleckian wage-led or profit-led view of economic growth. It indicates that a fall in the labor share in a wage-led economy will result in a fall in aggregate demand (due to deceases in consumption), and an increase in aggregate demand in a profit-led economy …

The Political Economy Of Environmental Justice: A Comparative Study Of New Delhi And Los Angeles, Ratik Asokan

CMC Senior Theses

Though mainstream environmentalism, both in the U.S. and India, was initially rooted in social justice, it has, over time, moved away from this focus. The Environmental Justice Movement consequently arose to reunite social and environmental activism. In this thesis, I trace the historical relationship between the mainstream environmentalism, the Environmental Justice Movement, and marginalized communities. After providing this general overview, I examine two case studies – in Los Angeles and New Delhi respectively – where marginalized communities have been involved in Environmental Justice activities. My analysis reveals that marginalized communities often act in an ‘environmentalist’ or ‘environmentally friendly’ manner, without …

"Microfinance As A Determinant Of Domestic Violence In Bangladesh: Who Is At Risk?", Alvin Christian

Dissertations and Theses

This paper examines the impact that microfinance participation has on reported domestic violence rates among women in Bangladesh. While microfinance programs are aimed at reducing poverty, they may have unintended consequence and contribute to domestic violence or Intimate Partner Violence (IPV). Using nationally representative data from the Urban Health Survey (2006), I study the association between microfinance participation and domestic violence among currently married women. The outcome variable is domestic violence, which is coded as a dummy variable, where a women either has experienced domestic violence episodes or she hasn’t. Predictor variables include microfinance participation, community attitudes, liberal views, labor …

Political Choice And Economic Crisis In Brazil: A Case Of Mismanagement Of Public Money, Evellyn Brasil Monteiro

Dissertations and Theses

A few years ago, Brazil was the country where everybody would like to invest. Because it was one of the members of the BRIC, group of emergent countries with fast-growing economies including also Russia, India and China that gave the investors warranties that those investments would be successful. The current situation is very different from the one pictured not too long ago. High interest rates, high inflation, undervalued currency, and international political scandals describe the very serious economic crisis the country has been facing recently, making the economic growth forecast decrease. In 2013, the variation of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) …

Curbing Corporate Inversions: A Study Of National And International Efforts To Establish Corporate Tax Equity, Scott Novak

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

In recent years, the number of U.S. companies trying to merge with a foreign company and thereby reincorporate themselves in countries with a lower corporate tax rate – a practice known as corporate inversion – has skyrocketed. The public outcry in 2014 against corporate inversions led the U.S. Treasury to release a series of new anti-inversion regulations, and more policy changes are in the process of being debated. At the same time as this national discussion on the harmful effects corporate inversions have on the U.S. tax base is progressing, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is in …

Productive Stagnation And Unproductive Accumulation In The United States, 1947-2011., Tomas N. Rotta

Doctoral Dissertations

My doctoral research addresses the question of how productive and unproductive forms of capital accumulation interact in the United States. My contribution is to first develop a new understanding of the labor theory of value in order to better explain how financial and rentier forms of revenues relate to the wealth created in productive activities. Second, I offer an innovative analysis of historical trends regarding unproductive accumulation in the postwar United States economy. For that purpose, I propose a new methodology to estimate Marxist categories from conventional input-output matrices, national income accounts, and employment data. A core feature of my …

Essays On The Evolution Of Inequality, Cem Oyvat

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines the evolution of inequality during the development process. Specifically, the study will focus on two factors that crucially in influence the evolution of distribution: 1) industrialization and urbanization, and 2) agrarian structures and land inequality. The dissertation consists of three essays: The first essay examines the impact of the initial conditions of agrarian structures on income inequality over the long run. It develops a model showing that at the same level of national income, countries with more unequal land distribution can be expected to experience greater agglomeration in the urban sector. The excess labor in the urban …

The Critical Difference Between Republicans/Conservatives And Democrats/Liberals, Philip E. Graves

PHILIP E GRAVES

There are, of course, a great many specific differences between the political positions of the two dominant political parties in America. After an introductory section characterizing those, section two suggests that the demarcation of critical importance between the parties relates to how they view the income distribution. Those self-identifying as Republican/Conservative tend to view the income distribution as an artifact of a host of individual work/leisure decisions with little policy relevance; those characterizing themselves as Democrat/Liberal tend to view the income distribution as a pure public good—in this view, private sector outcomes are expected to provide a non-optimally small amount …

Food Imports Under Foreign Exchange Constraints In The Cfa’S Franc Zone Of Sub-Saharan Africa (Ssa), Seydina Ousmane Sene

Theses and Dissertations--Agricultural Economics

To respond to the high imported food prices in their domestic markets, net food importing countries in the Communauté Financière Africaine (CFA) zone^[1] are adjusting their import tariffs and homologate domestic prices of imported commodities such as rice, wheat, maize, and sugar. This research uses a multivariate specification of error correction model (VECM) of estimation to investigate the link between food imports, world price index of rice, wheat, maize and sugar, real effective exchange rates, domestic food production, GDP, and trade openness in the short and long run. The data are on each homogenous commodity from 1969 to 2012. …

The Youth Unemployment Crisis Facing Welfare Regimes: How States Develop New Social Policy, Andrew C. Campbell

Senior Independent Study Theses

No abstract provided.

The Plight Of Kenyan Domestic Workers In Gulf Countries, Caroline Muthoni Gikuru

Master's Theses

Kenya’s economy remains the regional leader within the East African Community (EAC) and among East African countries at large. However, political instability such as the 2007 post-election violence and the region’s social and political instability trickling into Kenya, have negatively affected the country’s economic growth. To bridge the economic gap, Kenyan women are seeking employment in the domestic service sector in the Gulf Countries, with Saudi Arabia being the most popular destination. At their destination countries, some domestic workers are subjected to various forms of abuse by their employers, leaving the worker without recourse due to the lack of legal …

The Gettysburg Economic Review, Volume 7, Spring 2013

Gettysburg Economic Review

No abstract provided.

How Do Latino Groups Fare In A Changing Economy? Occupation In Latino Groups In The Greater New York City Area, 1980-2009, Stephen Ruszczyk

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction: This study examines demographic and socioeconomic factors of racial/ethnic groups in New York City between 1980 and 2009 – particularly the Latino population.

Methods: Data on Latinos and other racial/ethnic groups were obtained from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey, reorganized for public use by the Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota, IPUMSusa. Cases in the dataset were weighted and analyzed to produce population estimates.

Results: Trends from 1990 continued in 2000, with numbers of Puerto Ricans in production dropping to only 14% of that group. More than a fifth of Puerto Ricans worked in management and professional …

The Economic Role Of The English Poor Law, 1780-1834, George R. Boyer

George R. Boyer

[Excerpt] Over the 85-year period from 1748/50 to 1832/34, real per capita expenditures on poor relief increased at an average rate of approximately 1 percent per year. There were also important changes in the administration of relief with respect to able-bodied laborers during the period. Policies providing relief outside of workhouses to unemployed and under-employed able-bodied laborers became widespread during the 1770s and 1780s in the grain-producing South and East of England. The so-called Speenhamland system of outdoor relief flourished until 1834, when it was abolished by the Poor Law Amendment Act. The aim of the thesis is to provide …

The Gettysburg Economic Review, Volume 6, Spring 2012

Gettysburg Economic Review

No abstract provided.

The Gettysburg Economic Review, Volume 4, Spring 2010

Gettysburg Economic Review

No abstract provided.

Bonds, Stocks Or Dollars? Do Voters Care About Capital Markets In Brazil And Mexico, Anthony Petros Spanakos, Lucio Remuzat Renno Junior

Department of Political Science and Law Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

How does vote intention in presidential elections vary according to the economic conditions of a country, especially indicators of the financial market? Does the state of the economy, both its fundamentals as well as capital market, affect variation in candidates’ percentage of vote intention in national polls? This paper tests how economic indicators influence vote intention in presidential elections in two emerging markets: Brazil and Mexico. The presidential elections of 1994, 1998, 2002, and 2006 in Brazil and 2000 and 2006 in Mexico are analyzed using all poll returns for each electoral period and corresponding economic data. The paper finds …