Income Distribution Commons^™

On Income Inequality And Poverty In Egypt: Is Prosperity Immoral?, Mohamed Karim Lotfy Abdelkhalek

Theses and Dissertations

There are varying perspectives on, and divergent solutions to, the phenomena of income inequality and poverty. There seems to be polarizing views on both of these sensitive topics. One side of the argument believes income inequality should in itself be mitigated through redistribution measures, while the other argues that this should not be the focus of policy makers, as it deters them from facing the more pressing issue facing society – which is absolute poverty. The relationship between income inequality, poverty, and citizen well-being in Egypt is one that warrants further research, and this paper aims to fill this lacuna. …

Backfire: How The Rise Of Neoliberalism Facilitated The Rise Of The Far Right, Jacob Fuller

Capstone Showcase

The U.S. far right has become increasingly mainstream in contemporary American politics. In this paper, I analyze the theory that the far right has gained ground due to a backlash from neoliberal policies beginning in the 1980s under Ronald Reagan. Using Process tracing, I operationalize claims made by those arguing that the white working class has moved towards the far right due to their loss of status, as well as the theory that specific wealthy actors have mobilized these groups and altered the movement against neoliberalism to suit their interests. I find that these arguments have merit, and further the …

Investigating The Role Of Income Inequality In The Impact Of Natural Disasters In Lower Middle-Income Countries, Madison L. Graham

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

The Distributional And Countercyclical Effects Of Public Capital Investment In Transportation Infrastructure, Matthijs B. Schendstok

Theses and Dissertations--Economics

While the long run productivity of federal highway infrastructure spending has been well researched, their short run effects and effects on income inequality. This dissertation explores those under-researched unconventional effects.

In the first chapter, I investigate the effects of federal infrastructure grants on income inequality. I find that grants reduce inequality in both recipient and neighboring states. The reduction is driven by greater income among the bottom three income quintiles. I explore two mechanisms using person level data and find that the reduction in inequality is attributable to higher income for low-skilled workers and workers working in low-skilled industries.

In …

Living With Robots: Automation And Income Inequality In The 21st Century, Michael Dickson

Global Honors Theses

The increasingly automated nature of manufacturing and service industries poses difficulties a majority of the world’s employed population. This creates an automative industrial revolution driven by advanced computing systems and increasingly independent robotic technologies. Losing employment in industrial revolutions such as this one poses threats to the established population. The replacement of obsolete work with new, more valuable work has not been observed in this case, presenting the problem of extreme unemployment to the nations of the world that was not a problem in past industrial revolutions. In order to counter the effects of mass unemployment, several groups have proposed …

An Analysis Of Income Inequality Reduction In Brazil Under President Lula Da Silva, Victoria Rose Belcher

Senior Theses

This thesis analyzes trends in income inequality reduction across different regions of Brazil from 2000 to 2010. This period was selected because it was a period of consistent economic growth and national inequality reduction, as measured by the GINI Index, as well as a period that witnessed the introduction of new government policies by President Lula da Silva. This thesis provides extensive background information about Lula’s presidency and income inequality in Brazil before conducting an economic analysis of the trends in income inequality reduction through the country. This thesis concludes that the trend of inequality reduction favored certain regions of …

Worker Cooperatives As An Innovative Strategy To Address Income Inequality?, Bryan Titzler

Stevenson Center for Community and Economic Development—Student Research

This project explores the relation between the magnitude of the cooperative sector and the degree of income inequality in a country. After a somewhat selective consideration of the possible linkages between the size of the cooperative sector and income inequality, and using Gini as the primary measure for income inequality and two proxies for the size of the cooperative sector, an empirical exploration is done in three ways. First, simple plots are used to judge the gross relation between Gini and each of the two proxies for the size of the cooperative sector. Both plots show a perceptible negative relation. …

Determining The Effect Of The Minimum Wage On Income Inequality, Benjamin S. Litwin

Student Publications

Many recent studies have shown a significant increase to income inequality since the 1980s. One of the proposed methods for fixing this trend is to increase the minimum wage, since this policy would help those at the low end of the income spectrum to see economic growth. To analyze the effectiveness of this policy, we studied data from countries that are part of the Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation. By forming an econometric model to account for many factors that affect income inequality in nations around the world, including the real value of the minimum wage, we can determine …

Do Living Wages Alter The Effect Of The Minimum Wage On Income Inequality?, Benjamin S. Litwin

Gettysburg Economic Review

Anker (2006) proposed a new methodology for calculating the living wage in countries around the world. By looking at OECD nations between 2000-2010, we look to see if countries with a national minimum wage higher than this living wage value see a notable difference in the effect of the minimum wage on income inequality. Our results show that countries with the minimum wage higher than the living wage value do see lower inequality, although there is a key value of the minimum wage, at which countries start to see disemployment effects that increase inequality.

An Examination Of The Correlation Between Educational Attainment And Upward Economic Mobility Within And Without ‘High Tech Clusters’ In The Us In 2012, Hannah Cecilia Oakley

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Three Essays On The Economics Of Defense Contracting, Output And Income Inequality, Edward M. Decambra

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation analyzes both the economics of the defense contracting process and the impact of total dollar obligations on the economies of U.S. states. Using various econometric techniques, I will estimate relationships across individual contracts, state level output, and income inequality. I will achieve this primarily through the use of a dataset on individual contract obligations.

The first essay will catalog the distribution of contracts and isolate aspects of the process that contribute to contract dollar obligations. Accordingly, this study describes several characteristics about individual defense contracts, from 1966-2006: (i) the distribution of contract dollar obligations is extremely rightward skewed, …

Distribution And Debt: How Consumption And Household Debt Can Affect Economic Growth, Jeremy Rees

Senior Theses and Projects

Over the past 30-40 years, consumer debt has grown substantially faster than income in the United States. As a result, consumption has grown fast relative to national income. The economic growth that we have experienced in the US economy has shown to be unreliable as demonstrated by the Great Recession in 2007-2008. By creating unstable growth, consumer behavior could be an explanation behind the recession as well as the cause of future economic downturns. This paper implements a new theory of consumption practices and tests for the stability of economic growth and sustainability of consumer debt by using a neo-Kaleckian …