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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Economic Writing On The Pressing Problems Of The Day: The Roles Of Moral Intuition And Methodological Confusion, Julie A. Nelson Dec 2010

Economic Writing On The Pressing Problems Of The Day: The Roles Of Moral Intuition And Methodological Confusion, Julie A. Nelson

Economics Faculty Publication Series

Economists are often called on to help address pressing problems of the day, yet many economists are uncomfortable about disclosing the values that they bring to this work. This essay explores how an inadequate understanding of the role of methodology, as related to ethics and human emotions of concern, underlies this reluctance and compromises the quality of economic advice. The tension between caring about the problems, on the one hand, and writing within the existing culture of the discipline, on the other, are illustrated with examples from U.S. policymaking, behavioral economics, and the economics of climate change and global poverty. …


Economic Writing On The Pressing Problems Of The Day: The Roles Of Moral Intuition And Methodological Confusion, Julie A. Nelson Nov 2010

Economic Writing On The Pressing Problems Of The Day: The Roles Of Moral Intuition And Methodological Confusion, Julie A. Nelson

Julie A. Nelson

Economists are often called on to help address pressing problems of the day, yet many economists are uncomfortable about disclosing the values that they bring to this work. This essay explores how an inadequate understanding of the role of methodology, as related to ethics and human emotions of concern, underlies this reluctance and compromises the quality of economic advice. The tension between caring about the problems, on the one hand, and writing within the existing culture of the discipline, on the other, are illustrated with examples from U.S. policymaking, behavioral economics, and the economics of climate change and global poverty. …


Gendered Vulnerabilities After Genocide: Three Essays On Post-Conflict Rwanda, Catherine Ruth Finnoff Sep 2010

Gendered Vulnerabilities After Genocide: Three Essays On Post-Conflict Rwanda, Catherine Ruth Finnoff

Open Access Dissertations

This dissertation addresses gendered vulnerabilities after the genocide of 1994 in Rwanda. It consists of three essays, each focusing on the experience of women in a particular aspect of post-conflict development. The first essay analyzes trends in poverty and inequality in Rwanda from 2000 to 2005. The chapter identifies four important correlates of consumption income: gender, human capital, assets, and geography, and examines their salience in determining the poverty of a household and its position in the income distribution. The second essay is an econometric examination of an important health insurance scheme initiated in post-conflict Rwanda. Employing logistic regression techniques, …


Racial Inequality And Affirmative Action In Malaysia And South Africa, Hwok-Aun Lee Sep 2010

Racial Inequality And Affirmative Action In Malaysia And South Africa, Hwok-Aun Lee

Open Access Dissertations

This dissertation examines racial inequality and affirmative action in Malaysia and South Africa, two countries with a politically dominant but economically disadvantaged majority group - the Bumiputera in Malaysia, and blacks in post-Apartheid South Africa. We aim to contribute comparative perspectives and current empirical research on affirmative action regimes and dimensions of inequality directly pertinent to affirmative action, chiefly, racial representation and earnings inequality among tertiary educated workers and in upper-level occupations. We discuss theoretical approaches to inequality and affirmative action, with attention to particular circumstances of majority-favoring regimes, then survey, compare and contrast affirmative action programs and their political …


(Wp 2010-06) How Do Structural And Policy Factors Affect A Country’S Probability To Achieve The Most (Or The Least) Favorable Growth Path?, Fabrizio Carmignani, Abdur Chowdhury Sep 2010

(Wp 2010-06) How Do Structural And Policy Factors Affect A Country’S Probability To Achieve The Most (Or The Least) Favorable Growth Path?, Fabrizio Carmignani, Abdur Chowdhury

Economics Working Papers

We ask which economic policies can help a country create the most favourable conditions for development. We observe that the dynamics of several development indicators can be grouped into four clusters, each cluster corresponding to a different combination of growth and changes in inequality. Based on this observation, we define four different development scenarios and use limited dependent variable regressions to study how structural and policy factors affect a country’s probability to achieve the most (or the least) favourable of these scenarios. Our results point to a comforting picture: through the choice of appropriate policies countries can effectively increase their …


Labor Heterogeneity, Inequality And Institutional Change, Peter Skott Sep 2010

Labor Heterogeneity, Inequality And Institutional Change, Peter Skott

Economics Department Working Paper Series

US earnings inequality has increased dramatically since the 1970s, and the prospect of a reversal depends on what caused the trend. The standard explanation emphasizes skill-biased technical change. This paper briefly considers some aggregation issues and then proceeds to outline two alternative perspectives .power biased technical change and the effects of induced mismatch in the labor market .and their implications.


Poverty, Inequality And Cost Of Living Differences, Enrico Moretti Aug 2010

Poverty, Inequality And Cost Of Living Differences, Enrico Moretti

University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research Discussion Paper Series

Metropolitan areas in the US are characterized by enormous differences in average income, earnings, and factor productivity. The income of individuals located in metropolitan areas at the top of the income distribution is more than double the income of observationally similar individuals located in metropolitan areas at the bottom of the distribution. These differences reflect, at least in part, variation in local productivity.


Economics Versus Politics In Trade Policy, Daron Djerdjian May 2010

Economics Versus Politics In Trade Policy, Daron Djerdjian

Daron Djerdjian

Do economies of scale contribute to our understanding of trade policy or is ideology and inequality sufficient? We develop a unified theoretical framework that encompasses both strategic economic and political variables deemed to be important in explaining trade policy. We predict that an increase in the scale effect leads to restrictive trade policies in labor-abundant countries and liberal trade policies in capital-abundant countries. Using cross-country data on economies of scale, ideology, inequality and various measures of trade barriers we confirm our predictions and establish that a unified framework, which incorporates economies of scale in production, performs better in explaining trade …


Two Essays On Public Economics: The Consequences Of Fiscal Decentralization On Poverty And Inequality, And The Second Best Solution To The Public Expenditures’ Problem, Cristian F. Sepulveda May 2010

Two Essays On Public Economics: The Consequences Of Fiscal Decentralization On Poverty And Inequality, And The Second Best Solution To The Public Expenditures’ Problem, Cristian F. Sepulveda

Economics Dissertations

This dissertation consists of two independent essays on public economics. The first essay studies the consequences of fiscal decentralization on poverty and income inequalities. This essay describes the possible channels through which fiscal decentralization might affect poverty and income inequalities, and carries out an empirical analysis with data of a large number of countries at different stages of development, for the period 1971-2000. Fiscal decentralization is found to have significant effects on poverty and income inequalities. These findings are important because they suggest, contrary to the traditional public finance theory, that sub-national governments can play an important role in the …


Should Poverty And Inequality Measures Be Combined?, Gary S. Fields Mar 2010

Should Poverty And Inequality Measures Be Combined?, Gary S. Fields

Gary S Fields

[Excerpt] As the title of my paper indicates, the purpose of today's presentation is to analyze whether poverty and inequality measures should be blended into a single index. This question was first raised to me by Erik, so it is very fitting that an answer be presented at a conference honoring his distinguished career.


Endogenous Constitutions, Davide Ticchi, Andrea Vindigni Mar 2010

Endogenous Constitutions, Davide Ticchi, Andrea Vindigni

Andrea Vindigni

We present a theory of the choice of alternative democratic constitutions, a majoritarian or a consensual one, in an unequal society. A majoritarian democracy redistributes resources from the collectivity toward relatively few people, and has a relatively small government and low level of taxation. A consensual democracy redistributes resources toward a broader spectrum of social groups but also has a larger government and a higher level of taxation. We show that a consensual system turns out to be preferred by society when ex ante income inequality is relatively low, while a majoritarian system is chosen when income inequality is relatively …


Endogenous Constitutions, Davide Ticchi, Andrea Vindigni Mar 2010

Endogenous Constitutions, Davide Ticchi, Andrea Vindigni

Davide Ticchi

We present a theory of the choice of alternative democratic constitutions, a majoritarian or a consensual one, in an unequal society. A majoritarian democracy redistributes resources from the collectivity toward relatively few people, and has a relatively small government and low level of taxation. A consensual democracy redistributes resources toward a broader spectrum of social groups but also has a larger government and a higher level of taxation. We show that a consensual system turns out to be preferred by society when ex ante income inequality is relatively low, while a majoritarian system is chosen when income inequality is relatively …


A Political Economy Perspective On Persistent Inequality, Inflation, And Redistribution, Radhika Lahiri, Shyama Ratnasiri Feb 2010

A Political Economy Perspective On Persistent Inequality, Inflation, And Redistribution, Radhika Lahiri, Shyama Ratnasiri

Radhika Lahiri

In this paper we examine the dynamics of the link between inequality and inflation from a political economy perspective. We consider a simple dynamic general equilibrium model in which agents vote over the desired inflation rate in each period, and inequality is persistent. Inflation in our model is a mechanism of redistribution, and we find that the link between inequality and inflation within any period or over time depends on institutional and preference related parameters. Furthermore, we find that differences in the initial distributions of wealth can yield a diverse set of patterns for the evolution of the inflation and …


Notes On Poverty Traps And Appalachia, Steven Durlauf Jan 2010

Notes On Poverty Traps And Appalachia, Steven Durlauf

University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research Discussion Paper Series

In these notes, I provide some general ideas on how to conceptualize poverty traps and speculate on their applicability to understanding Appalachian poverty. My goal is to stimulate thinking on Appalachia that exploits contemporary perspectives in economics on the sources of persistent poverty and inequality. To do this, I focus on both the theory of poverty traps as well as issues in the econometric assessment of their empirical salience.


Intra-Provincial Inequalities And Economic Growth In China, Joanna Gravier-Rymaszewska, Joanna Tyrowicz, Jacek Kochanowicz Jan 2010

Intra-Provincial Inequalities And Economic Growth In China, Joanna Gravier-Rymaszewska, Joanna Tyrowicz, Jacek Kochanowicz

Joanna Tyrowicz

This paper approaches the problem of inequalities in China. It is specifically focused on analyzing the effects of intra-provincial disparities on the development of the 28 mainland provinces in China. Intra-provincial inequalities, as measured by Theil index, seem positively related to growth, albeit the results are only convincing for the coastal provinces. A case by case analysis, however, suggests highly diversified patterns, including linear or an inverted u-shape for fastest growing coastal provinces and virtually no relationship for the majority of regions. The results corroborate some earlier raised questions about actual policy-making standards in China.


De La Desigualdad, Sus Determinantes Y Su Efecto En El Crecimiento, Luis A. Villasenor Jan 2010

De La Desigualdad, Sus Determinantes Y Su Efecto En El Crecimiento, Luis A. Villasenor

Adrián Villaseñor

No abstract provided.


Globalization And International Development: Critical Issues Of The 21st Century, Sisay Asefa Editor Jan 2010

Globalization And International Development: Critical Issues Of The 21st Century, Sisay Asefa Editor

Upjohn Press

These papers address globalization issues with a special emphasis on its impact on poverty. Advances in transportation and telecommunications with instantaneous information and communication flows requires new approaches given the wide differences in cultures, political systems, languages, and ethnicities. Extreme variation in the international distributions of wealth, income, and poverty remain as enormous social problems to be addressed. In general, the contributors recommend expanding the flows between countries to accelerate growth and reduce inequalities. These flows include international trade and capital, migration, remittances, and foreign aid. But in addition to these hard commodities and dollars, there are flows of ideas, …


Multiethnic Labor Markets And Socioeconomic Mobility : A Career Trajectory Perspective, Jeremy F. Pais Jan 2010

Multiethnic Labor Markets And Socioeconomic Mobility : A Career Trajectory Perspective, Jeremy F. Pais

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

In the United States, high rates of immigration have once again raised important questions concerning the effect of ethnic diversity on patterns of socioeconomic mobility and levels of inequality between racial and ethnic groups. However, despite the potential effect of immigration and ethnic diversity on racial and ethnic stratification within multiethnic societies, research has yet to provide an examination of the impact of these factors on patterns of social mobility over the life course. While prior research focuses extensively on metropolitan area characteristics related to contemporaneous race and ethnic labor market disparities, the primary contribution of this research is to …


Domestication Alone Does Not Lead To Inequality: Intergenerational Wealth Transmission Among Horticulturalists, Michael Gurven, Monique Borgerhoff Mulder, Paul L. Hooper, Hillard Kaplan, Robert Quinlan, Rebecca Sear, Eric Schniter, Christopher Von Rueden, Samuel Bowles, Tom Hertz, Adrian Bell Jan 2010

Domestication Alone Does Not Lead To Inequality: Intergenerational Wealth Transmission Among Horticulturalists, Michael Gurven, Monique Borgerhoff Mulder, Paul L. Hooper, Hillard Kaplan, Robert Quinlan, Rebecca Sear, Eric Schniter, Christopher Von Rueden, Samuel Bowles, Tom Hertz, Adrian Bell

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

We present empirical measures of wealth inequality and its intergenerational transmission among four horticulturalist populations. Wealth is construed broadly as embodied somatic and neural capital, including body size, fertility and cultural knowledge, material capital such as land and household wealth, and relational capital in the form of coalitional support and field labor. Wealth inequality is moderate for most forms of wealth, and intergenerational wealth transmission is low for material resources and moderate for embodied and relational wealth. Our analysis suggests that domestication alone does not transform social structure; rather, the presence of scarce, defensible resources may be required before inequality …