Income Distribution Commons^™

The Chinese Housing Registration System (Hukou): Bridge Or Wall?, Andrew Kryshak

Political Science Theses and Capstones

In 1958 the Chinese government created the hukou housing registration system to control the migration of Chinese citizens from rural to urban areas. A person’s hukou has major implications on their lives; it controls food rations, medical benefits, quality of education, as well as movement within the country. I look to answer the question of whether the hukou can be seen as a bridge with which individuals achieve socially, or is it better seen as a wall that prevents social advancement. This has been a question that researchers have been looking into for many years but there has been no …

Economic Freedom And Quality Of Life Impacts: A Comparison, Rachel S. Bauer

Senior Honors Theses

The “invisible hand” is a concept foundational to the argument for free market economics, and so is hotly debated. One measure of whether or not the free market is a successful economic model is the quality of life of a country’s residents. Quality of life can be assessed through the areas of housing, labor, health, and education. Economic indicators and quality of life statistics for Hong Kong, the United States, China, and Venezuela appear to prove that there is a correlation between quality of life and economic freedom, as defined by the Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom. Even …

Globalization Of The Food Industry: Transnational Food Corporations, The Spread Of Processed Food, And Their Implications For Food Security And Nutrition, Elizabeth Black

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

We are currently experiencing a significant shift in our world’s food systems and dietary patterns. Access, availability, and the quality of food are changing and the need for proper nutrition and food security has come to the forefront of the global health agenda. While globalization has fostered greater variety and access to food in many places; access to healthy, affordable food is not universal, leaving many populations buying cheaper food that has poor nutritional value. My purpose for this paper is to determine how the forces of globalization, the business practices of transnational food companies, and the prevalence of processed …

Economic Growth, Poverty And Income Inequality Matrix In Nigeria: A Further Investigation, H.O. Okafor

Economic and Financial Review

This paper examined the existing relationship among economic growth, poverty and income inequality in Nigeria. Using the Vector Auto-regressive (VAR) model and the Engle-Granger technique to test for the causality existing among the variables, the results revealed that economic growth had no impact on poverty reduction and income distribution in Nigeria due its non-inclusive nature. There was, however, evidence of a unidirectional causality, running from income inequality to increased poverty. This implied that inequality would lead to increase in poverty in Nigeria. Therefore, the paper recommended that govemment should develop stronger economic institutions that ore capable of reorganising the productive …

James Livingston Interview, Jennifer Thomson

Bucknell: Occupied

Jennifer Thomson, assistant professor of History at Bucknell University, interviews James Livingston, professor at Rutgers University in the department of History about his new book tentatively entitled F--- Work. Thomson and Livingston discuss cultural ideas about work and full employment. Livingston describes the cultural changes necessary for the adoption of ideas related to transfer payments.

Wage Insurance As A Policy Option In The United States, Stephen A. Wandner

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

Wage insurance is a program that attempts to help permanently displaced workers transition to employment rapidly, effectively, and equitably. Because displaced workers have been found to suffer substantial earnings losses when they become reemployed, a wage insurance program provides a temporary wage supplement that partially reduces the wage loss experienced by targeted, newly reemployed workers. While participating workers receive a “wage supplement,” the program is called “wage insurance” because of its design as a social insurance program rather than an income transfer program. This paper provides a discussion of the development of wage insurance as a policy option in the …

Food Store Choice Of Poor Households: A Discrete Choice Analysis Of The National Household Food Acquisition And Purchase Survey, Sofia B. Villas-Boas, Rebecca Taylor

University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research Discussion Paper Series

Policymakers are pursing initiatives to increase food access for low-income households. However, due in part to previous data deficiencies, there is still little evidence supporting the assumption that improved food store access will alter dietary habits, especially for the poorest of U.S. households. This article uses the new National Household Food Acquisition and Purchase Survey (FoodAPS) to estimate consumer food outlet choices as a function of outlet type and household attributes in a multinomial mixed logit. In particular, we allow for the composition of the local retail food environment to play a role in explaining household store choice decisions and …

The Effect Of Food Price On Food Insecurity And Diet Quality: Exploring Potential Moderating Roles Of Snap And Consumer Competency, Yunhee Chang, Jinhee Kim, Swarn Chatterjee

University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research Discussion Paper Series

Higher food prices may aggravate household food insecurity and hurt diet quality. Using a sample of low-income households from the National Household Food Acquisition and Purchase Survey (FoodAPS), this study examines whether local food prices affect food insecurity and nutritional quality of foods acquired, and how households use competent consumer behaviors to mitigate any adverse effects of price. Financial management practices, nutrition literacy, and conscientious food shopping practices were considered for consumer competency. Our findings indicate that low-income households in higher-cost areas, regardless of whether they participate in SNAP or not, are more likely to adopt loyalty or other store …

The Effects Of Benefit Timing And Income Fungibility On Food Purchasing Decisions Among Snap Households, Joshua P. Berning, Gregory Colson, Jeffery H. Dorfman, Travis A. Smith, Xiaosi Yang

University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research Discussion Paper Series

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is the largest nutritional safety net in the United States. Prior research has found that participants have higher consumption shortly after receiving their benefits, followed by lower consumption towards the end of the benefit month. This “SNAP benefit cycle” has been found to have negative effects on beneficiaries. We examine two behavioral responses of SNAP participants that may work in tandem to drive much of the cycle: short-run impatience – a higher preference to consume today; and fungibility of income – the degree of substitutability between a SNAP dollar and a cash dollar. Using …

Variation In Food Prices And Snap Adequacy For Purchasing The Thrifty Food Plan, Erin Bronchetti, Garret Christensen, Benjamin Hansen

University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research Discussion Paper Series

Whether Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits are adequate to provide food security for eligible households is an important and timely policy question. While the nominal value of SNAP benefits is fixed across states (except for Hawaii and Alaska), variation in food prices across geographic areas is dramatic, and the real value of SNAP benefits varies widely across the U.S. Our research provides new evidence on geographic variation in the adequacy of SNAP benefits to purchase the Thrifty Food Plan (TFP).

Using multiple methods to estimate the cost of the Thrifty Food Plan (TFP) faced by households across the nation, …

The Gettysburg Economic Review, Volume 9, Spring 2016

Gettysburg Economic Review

No abstract provided.

Food Security And Geographic Factors In Food Purchase And Acquisition Decisions: A Compilation Of Research Conducted Under Usda Cooperative Agreements 58-5000-1-0050 And 58-5000-3-0066, James P. Ziliak, Craig Gundersen

University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research Discussion Paper Series

No abstract provided.

Supermarket Proximity And Price: Food Insecurity And Obesity In The United States, Janelle Downing, Barbara Laraia

University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research Discussion Paper Series

Where we live matters for our health. The social, economic, and physical features of neighborhoods can play a powerful role in health and longevity. Neighborhood concentration of poverty and poor health have been shown to be linked. Residing in low-income neighborhoods has been associated with diet related chronic diseases such as obesity and diabetes.

The Relationship Between Neighborhood Food Environment And Food Store Choice On Purchasing Habits Among Snap And Lower Income Households, Usda Foodaps Data, Alison A. Gustafson, James E. Allen Iv, Nancy E. Schoenberg, Mark Swanson

University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research Discussion Paper Series

The objective of the study was to determine relationship between neighborhood food store availability, store choice and food purchasing habits among Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) participating households. The study sample consisted of SNAP households (n=1581) and low income households participating in the USDA's National Household Food Acquisition and Purchase Survey (FoodAPS) a nationally representative cross-sectional survey of American households with household food purchases and acquisitions data. Main Outcomes: 1) Food purchasing choices (sugar-sweetened beverages, fruits and vegetables, snacks, water, and milk) obtained from store receipts over a one-week period; 2) food shopping activities was obtained from a log book …

Influence Of Snap Participation And Food Environment On Nutritional Quality Of Food At Home Purchases, Amy Hillier, Benjamin Chrisinger, Tony E. Smith, Eliza Whiteman, Michael Kallan

University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research Discussion Paper Series

A growing body of research describes how individuals make food shopping decisions in both time and space. The FoodAPS dataset provides a unique opportunity for understanding these patterns among a large sample across income, SNAP status, and settings. We addressed three questions in our research: (1) Where do participants shop for food at home (FAH) and how do individual characteristics interact with store characteristics and distance? (2) How does the nutritional content of foods purchased change as time from SNAP distribution increases? and (3) How does store choice influence the nutritional quality of FAH purchases? We used a conditional logit …

Do Snap Recipients Get The Best Prices?, Conrad Lyford, Raymond J. March, Carlos E. Carpio, Tullaya Boonsaeng

University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research Discussion Paper Series

This paper examines the relationship between SNAP participation and prices paid for food items. To test this relationship, we develop an expensiveness index following the method of Aguiar and Hurst (2007) and use the FoodAPS data set. Using both the ordinary least squares method and controlling for endogeneity using an instrumental variables approach, we found SNAP participation did not hold a statistically significant relationship with the prices paid for food items when we controlled for consumer behavior and food market variables. This suggests that SNAP participants are not systematically disadvantaged in their food purchases. Additional efforts to further educate SNAP …

Causes And Consequences Of The Calorie Crunch, Michael A. Kuhn

University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research Discussion Paper Series

Monthly welfare programs such as the Supplementary Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) produce consistent cycles of expenditure and consumption amongst recipients. Food insecurity and negative behavioral outcomes track these cycles. This paper leverages new data from the USDA, the FoodAPS survey, and to answer a variety of questions related to these phenomena: Are consumption and expenditure cycles correlated? Who bears the burden of food shortages at the end of each benefit month? Does diet quality track food expenditure? I find robust expenditure and consumption cycles in the FoodAPS data, but contrary to popular belief, they are only weakly correlated. The youngest …

Contextualizing Family Food Decisions: The Role Of Household Characteristics, Neighborhood Deprivation, And Local Food Environments, Sarah Bowen, Richelle Winkler, J. Dara Bloom, Lillian Macnell

University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research Discussion Paper Series

We employ multilevel models with neighborhood and state effects (fixed effects and random effects) to analyze the associations between household characteristics, neighborhood characteristics, regional attributes and dietary quality. We use data from the USDA National Household Food Acquisition and Purchase Survey. Our dependent variable is a Healthy Eating Index that incorporates dollars spent and amount of food in several categories. Key explanatory variables at the household level include variables household financial condition, housing burden, home ownership, car access, household size. We include a variable for the number of large food stores in the neighborhood, a neighborhood deprivation index, and a …

An Overview Of Snap, Food Security, And Geographic Factors In Food Purchase And Acquisition Decisions, James P. Ziliak, Craig Gundersen

University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research Discussion Paper Series

In April 2012 the Economic Research Service (ERS) and the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) in the U.S. Department of Agriculture embarked on an ambitious new data collection enterprise known as the National Household Food Acquisition and Purchase Survey (FoodAPS). FoodAPS is innovative in that it is the first nationally representative household survey to collect comprehensive data on household food expenditures and acquisitions, including those obtained using benefits from food assistance programs. The survey includes data from 4,826 households, including Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) households, low-income eligible households not participating in SNAP, and higher income households. FoodAPS is specifically …

Impact Of A Higher Minimum Wage On Enrollment Of Snap, Victoria Perez-Zetune

Gettysburg Economic Review

This paper investigates the effect that minimum wage policy has on enrollment in public assistance programs, specifically the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, SNAP. If raising the minimum wage decreases enrollment in SNAP, this could uncover a method to reduce spending without eliminating programs. Using a time-demeaned model to account for fixed effects, I take advantage of the variation in the minimum wage in the 50 states between 1998 and 2014. I estimated that on average an increase in minimum wage in a prior year results in a decrease in SNAP participation by 3.95%.

Cost Of Living, Healthy Food Acquisition, And The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, Sanjay Basu, Christopher Wimer, Hilary K. Seligman

University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research Discussion Paper Series

We tested the hypothesis that high costs of living, such as from high housing rents, reduce the healthfulness of food acquisitions. Using the National Household Food Acquisition and Purchase Survey (2012-13), we examined the relationships between cost of living and food acquisition patterns among both SNAP participants and non-participants (N = 5,414 individuals from households participating in SNAP, 3,863 individuals from non-participating households <185% of the federal poverty threshold, and 5,036 individuals from non-participating households >185% of the federal poverty threshold). Indices for cost of living included county-level Regional Price Parities for major classes of expenditures and the geographic adjustment to the Supplemental Poverty Measure, which is based on rent prices. We …

Trashé Designs: A Social Enterprise, Cara Walden

MA IDS Thesis Projects

During my years in graduate school, my understanding of economic inequality has further expanded. While my experience in the Peace Corps and Nepal allowed me to see it in real life, my time in school has allowed me to ground these experiences in academic literature. By means of an action research project, my goal is to create economic opportunity for the HIV/AIDS community in Chiang Mai, Thailand, through the creation of the social enterprise Trashé Designs. A social enterprise is a way to address a social challenge with a market-based solution. My social enterprise, Trashé Designs, uses recycled materials to …

Akhuwat: Potential For A Sustainable Islamic Interest Free Microfinance Model, Juliana S. Beall

Scripps Senior Theses

This study will examine if Akhuwat provides a sustainable Islamic interest-free Microfinance model for potential poverty alleviation. This question is particularly complicated for an organization that relies so heavily on subsidies. Theoretical debates of sustainability and the recognition of donations, cross-market comparisons, and data from audit reports will validate Akhuwat’s potential for long term sustainability. Analysis also highlights the discrepancies that plague this opaque industry.

My Two Factor Model Of Income Distribution, Anwar Shaikh Phd

Archives of Anwar Shaikh

This collection includes:

• Distribution of labor income in Turkey: Gender, urbanization and geographical region differences by Anwar Shaikh and Hale Kirer (unpublished work).
• Shaikh, A. (2016, April 12). Folder label notation NA-24-22. (Unpublished manuscript note).
• Shaikh, A. (2016, April 12). An probability. (Unpublished manuscript note).
• Shaikh, A. (2016, April 12). Even though men have higher average incomes than women, & whites have higher average incomes than African Americans, the distribution of income within groups are all essentially exponential. (Unpublished manuscript note).
• Shaikh, A. (2016, April 12). Gender differences in income levels are much greater. (Unpublished manuscript …

Distribution Of Labor Income In Turkey, Anwar Shaikh Phd

Archives of Anwar Shaikh

This collection includes:

• Distribution of labor income in Turkey: Gender, urbanization and geographical region differences by Anwar Shaikh and Hale Kirer (unpublished work).
• Shaikh, A. (2016, April 12). Folder label notation NA-24-22. (Unpublished manuscript note).
• Shaikh, A. (2016, April 12). An probability. (Unpublished manuscript note).
• Shaikh, A. (2016, April 12). Even though men have higher average incomes than women, & whites have higher average incomes than African Americans, the distribution of income within groups are all essentially exponential. (Unpublished manuscript note).
• Shaikh, A. (2016, April 12). Gender differences in income levels are much greater. (Unpublished manuscript …

Physics Colloquium, University Of Maryland, Anwar Shaikh Phd

Archives of Anwar Shaikh

This collection includes:

• University of Maryland physics colloquium folder notes by Anwar Shaikh, PhD (23-25_Univ... p. 1)
• Taxi receipt from College Park Marriott Hotel to New Carrollton train station by Taxi-Taxi Inc. (23-25_Univ... p. 2)
• Hotel guest folio by College Park Marriott Hotel & Conference Center (23-25_Univ... p. 4)
• Amtrak electronic ticket by Amtrak (23-25_Univ... p. 6)
• University of Maryland physics colloquium presentation notes by Anwar Shaikh, PhD (23-25_Univ... p. 7)
• Correspondence regarding Amtrak ticket printing by Anwar Shaikh, PhD (23-25_Univ... p. 8)
• Correspondence regarding itinerary for visit to University of Maryland by Victor Yakovenko (23-25_Univ... p. 11)
• Spring 2016 …

An Examination Of Gender Income Gaps In And Out Of Government, Elisha Comer

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

No executive summary.

A Dynamic Model Of The Choice Of Technology In Economic Development, Haiwen Zhou, Ruhai Zhou

Economics Faculty Publications

In this overlapping-generations model, there is unemployment in the manufacturing sector. Manufacturing firms engage in oligopolistic competition and choose technologies to maximize profits. With capital as a fixed cost of production, increasing returns in the manufacturing sector exist. In the unique steady state, first, when individuals become more patient, the savings rate increases while the level of an individual’s income decreases. Second, an increase in population or percentage of income spent on manufactured goods does not change steady-state technology while the level of an individual’s income decreases. Third, an increase in the wage rate leads manufacturing firms to choose more …

Citizen Wellbeing And Gdp: Towards More Appropriate Measures Of Namibia's Success And Progress, Justine Braby Dr, Jessica-Jane Lavelle, Johannes Mulunga, Newman Nekwaya, Fikameni Mathias, Angula Angula

Journal of Sustainable Social Impact

Developing nations like Namibia are aiming to industrialize much like developed nations and use the gross domestic product to measure their progress. However, this development path has been largely unsustainable. For Namibia to develop into a sustainable society, a different approach is needed. This study aimed to find entry points toward such an approach. Surveys were conducted in Windhoek, Namibia's capital, to measure human well-being. Generally, as is expected in a developing country, well-being correlated positively along the income line. However, the indicators did illustrate that a more holistic measure would go a long way toward more effective development planning …

Conditional Cash Transfers And Their Effect On Poverty, Inequality, And School Enrollment: The Case Of Mexico And Latin America, Maria Romano

CMC Senior Theses

Over the past two decades, conditional cash transfer (CCT) has become one of the most widespread approaches to social development in Latin America. Spurred in large part by the evident and immediate success of Mexico’s CCT initiative, a multitude of countries began to invest heavily in this strategy hoping to reduce poverty and inequality in the short and long run. This paper examines the relationship between CCT program breadth and poverty, inequality, and secondary school enrollment over a thirteen year span in order to determine whether or not programs with the largest coverage were the most efficient. This question is …