Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Inequality distribution model'

Income inequality has been showing a steady increase for past decades and will be worsened in the future (Piketty, 2014). One of the most important factors to explain the worsening income inequality can be aging. Previous studies on aging focus on its impact on traditional issues such as health, retirement, and economic growth. This study finds the direct relationship between aging and income inequality using the vector autoregressive (VAR) model (Blanchard and Quah, 1989). The VAR model is useful to analyze the long-run response of aging on income inequality. The empirical results will verify the negative impact of aging on income inequality in the U.S. The governmental efforts to reduce the negative impact of aging on health care and pensions could delay the worsening income inequality.

This paper tests the relationship between income inequality and trade flows. The model is based upon Helena Bohman and Désirée Nilsson (2007) and Mitra Trindade and Dalgin (2008). This paper will set up gravity model for 50 countries which includes, income distribution, population, average individual income level and GINI variable as distribution of disposable income as an explanatory variables. Results confirm that when income inequality increases in the exporting country, export of necessities increase and export of luxuries decrease. Income distribution also shows expected effect on trade flows in the importing country. When income inequality increases in the importing country, import of necessities decrease and import of luxuries increase.

This paper explores the relationship between household income inequality and macroeconomic uncertainty in the United States. Using a novel large-scale macroeconometric model, we shed light on regional disparities of inequality responses to a national uncertainty shock. The results suggest that income inequality decreases in most states, with a pronounced degree of heterogeneity in terms of the dynamic responses. By contrast, some few states, mostly located in the Midwest, display increasing levels of income inequality over time. Forecast error variance and historical decompositions highlight the importance of uncertainty shocks in explaining income inequality in most regions considered. Finally, we explain differences in the responses of income inequality by means of a simple regression analysis. These regressions reveal that the income composition as well as labor market fundamentals determine the directional pattern of the dynamic responses.
Series: Working Papers in Regional Science

Investigating how lending programs of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) affect poverty and inequality, we explicitly address model uncertainty. We control for endogenous selection into IMF programs using data on 86 low- and middle income countries for the 1982-2009 period and analyze program effects on various poverty and inequality measures. The results rely on averaging over 90 specifications of treatment effect models and indicate adverse short-run effects of IMF agreements on poverty and inequality for the whole sample, while for a 2000-2009 subsample the results are reversed. There is evidence that significant short-run effects might disappear in the long-run. (author's abstract)

Thesis (M.A.)--West Virginia University, 2001.
Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains iv, 61 p. : ill. (some col.). Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 45-50).

In this paper, we explore the relationship between state-level household income inequality and macroeconomic uncertainty in the United States. Using a novel large-scale macroeconometric model, we shed light on regional disparities of inequality responses to a national uncertainty shock. The results suggest that income inequality decreases in most states, with a pronounced degree of heterogeneity in terms of shapes and magnitudes of the dynamic responses. By contrast, some few states, mostly located in the West and South census region, display increasing levels of income inequality over time. We find that this directional pattern in responses is mainly driven by the income composition and labor market fundamentals. In addition, forecast error variance decompositions allow for a quantitative assessment of the importance of uncertainty shocks in explaining income inequality. The findings highlight that volatility shocks account for a considerable fraction of forecast error variance for most states considered. Finally, a regression-based analysis sheds light on the driving forces behind differences in state-specific inequality responses.
Series: Working Papers in Regional Science

Investigating how lending programs of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) affect poverty and inequality, we explicitly address model uncertainty. We control for endogenous selection into IMF programs using data on 86 low- and middle income countries for the 1982-2009 period and analyze program effects on various poverty and inequality measures. The results rely on averaging over 90 specifications of treatment effect models and indicate adverse short-run effects of IMF agreements on poverty and inequality for the whole sample, while for a 2000-2009 subsample the results are reversed. There is evidence that significant short-run effects might disappear in the long-run. (author's abstract)
Series: Department of Economics Working Paper Series

The dissertation focuses on the different determinants of education, their effects on the educational outcome, and the overall effect of education on the lifetime consequences. The first chapter focuses on the inequality of educational opportunity across different demographic factors. This chapter employs a broader set of social factors to provide fresh insights into the inequality situation in the USA relative to those of the extant literature. The chapter employs polynomial trends for the effects of social factors to identify long-term trends in the determinants of the differences in attainment of each of four achievements (high school graduation, some college, college graduation, and post-college work) across different endogenous social groups. Using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) data for the years of 1968-2013, we show how inequality of educational opportunity and its determinants have evolved over the years. The chapter utilizes the machine-learning process and logistic regression model to identify inequality of opportunity. The second chapter examines the age demographic distribution of graduates across cohorts from 1940 until 1990. Using the PSID data, the paper explored the first and second moment of the age of graduating from high school and college across the US. To deal with the data deficiencies, a large part of the chapter dealt with data preparation. The chapter provides a unique method of extracting information on the graduating age of the individuals both from high school and from college. The results show a large dispersion across the full sample. The data truncated to a standard length, however, provides a much smaller dispersion and much smaller moments. The chapter concludes that as the time passes, people tend to attain education at a younger age. The third chapter investigates the trends of the contribution of different factors of income starting from 1910 cohort. Following Mincer (1974), a wave of papers studied how various factors contribute to the earnings of individuals. This paper contributes to that literature in three ways: (i) using the PSID data, it computes the actual working experience of the individuals, (ii) it studies the cohorts who were born in 1910 or afterwards, unlike the existing papers, and (iii) it adds two variables�"technological progress and the occupation with which individuals start their careers�"to an extended Mincerian equation. The results re-emphasize the importance of education in lifetime earnings. The results also show that while some of the determinants of income have become more important over the years, other factors have not changed much in importance.
PHD

The existing inequality indexes in the economics literature (including the more sophisticated indexes of Muellbauer (1974) and Jorgenson-Slesnick (1984)), are found to be insensitive to relative price changes or are unjustifiable in terms of social evaluation ethics or both. The present research fills this gap in the literature by proposing a new index, named the Individual Equivalent Income (IEI) index. A household indirect utility function is hypothesized which incorporates certain attribute parameters in the form of equivalence scales. These attributes are demographic and environmental characteristics specific to a given household. This indirect utility function gives a number which represents the utility of each member of the household. A particular level of interpersonal comparison of utilities is assumed which gives rise to an exact individual utility indicator named equivalent income. A distribution of these equivalent incomes forms the basis of a price-sensitive relative inequality index. This index can be implemented in the Canadian context. Preferences are assumed to be nonhomothetic translog and demand data are derived from cross-section surveys and time-series aggregates. Based on demand data, the translog equivalent income function can be estimated and equivalent incomes imputed to all individuals in society. An Atkinson index of equivalent incomes is then computed to indicate the actual degree of inequality in Canada. The new IEI index is compared with other indexes based on a common data set. The main findings are: conventional indexes give bad estimates of the true extent of inequality and the IEI index, while providing a more accurate estimate, indicates distributive price impact in a predictable manner, i.e., food price inflation aggravates while transportation price inflation ameliorates the inequality problem.
Arts, Faculty of
Vancouver School of Economics
Graduate

The degree of inequality present in the distribution of income may be measured with a gini coefficient. If the distribution is found to empirically fit a particular distribution function, then the gini coefficient may be derived from the mean value of income and the variation from the mean. For the purpose of this study, the Beta II distribution was used as the function which most closely approximates the actual distribution of income. The Beta II function provides the skewness which is normally found in an income distribution as well as fulfilling other required characteristics. The degree of inequality was approximated for the distribution of income from all sources and from ten separate components of income sources in constant (1973) dollars. Next, permanent income from all sources and from the ten component sources was estimated based upon actual income using the double exponential smoothing forecasting technique. The estimations of permanent income, which can be thought of as expected income, were used to derive measures of permanent income inequality. The degree of actual income inequality and the degree of permanent income inequality, both being represented by the hypothetical gini coefficient , were compared and tested for statistical differences. For the entire period under investigation, 1952 to 1979, the net effect was no statistically significant difference between permanent and actual income inequality, as was expected. However, significant differences were found in comparing year by year. Relating permanent income inequality to the underlying, structural inequality present in a given distribution, conclusions were drawn regarding the role of mobility in its ability to alter the actual distribution of income. The impact of business fluctuations on the distribution of permanent income relative to the distribution of actual income was studied in an effort to reach general conclusions. In general, cyclical upswings tend to reduce permanent inequality relative to actual inequality. Thus, despite the empirically supported relationship between income inequality and economic growth, it would appear that unexpected growth tends to favor a more equal distribution of income.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the cross-country relationship between income inequality and selected socioeconomic variables reflecting the level of economic development. The first chapter introduces some theoretical approaches to income distribution and poses problems regarding income inequalities across countries. The second chapter surveys cross-country studies of income inequalities conducted by previous researchers. The third chapter covers statistical methodology. Chapter four analyzes statistical results of multiple regression. The final chapter is intended for summary, conclusion, and recommendations.

Останнім часом, в умовах розгортання та поглиблення світової фінансово- економічної кризи, питання соціальної спрямованості національної економіки набувають особливої ваги. Річ в тім, що соціальна спрямованість економічної діяльності в масштабах економіки є ознакою прогресивності та успішності національної економічної моделі, критерієм віднесення економік до розвинених.

Les crises globales entraînent souvent d'énormes perturbations économiques, qui peuvent durer de nombreuses années. Il est donc important de comprendre leurs conséquences et comment élaborer des politiques efficaces dans la réduction de leurs impacts. Il existe une littérature abondante sur les effets d’une crise au niveau agrégé et le rôle stabilisateur des politiques macroéconomiques. Toutefois, on a accordé beaucoup moins d'attention aux effets distributifs des crises et encore moins aux interactions entre ces effets et l'évolution de l’activité macroéconomique post crise. Si une aggravation des inégalités peut contribuer à une reprise faible de l'activité, alors le système d’impôts et prestations sociales peut être un stabilisateur macroéconomique en sus de son rôle redistributif. Il est donc essentiel de comprendre comment le système peut influer tant sur les effets agrégés, que sur les inégalités en temps de crise. Cette thèse vise à apporter un éclairage neuf sur ces questions, en utilisant de multiples méthodologies et ensembles de données, au niveau micro et macro, dans une approche empirique et théorique.Le premier article fait une évaluation détaillée de l'évolution des inégalités de revenus et des effets redistributifs du système d’impôts et prestations sociales après la crise de 2007-08 aux États-Unis. Utilisant un large éventail d'indicateurs, il examine plusieurs sections de la distribution de revenus et analyse la contribution des différentes composantes du système d’impôts et prestations sociales. Le second article développe une nouvelle méthode pour modéliser la distribution de revenus disponibles et décomposer l’évolution de celle-ci dans le temps, utilisant une double approche microéconométrique et de microsimulation. Il l’applique à l'étude de l'évolution de la distribution de revenus au Portugal après la crise de 2007-08 en tenant compte des effets de la crise et des politiques de relance et de consolidation budgétaire. Le troisième article développe un modèle théorique DSGE à agents hétérogènes, avec une hétérogénéité à la fois ex-ante et ex-post des ménages et assurance chômage. Il présente les résultats d'une première expérience quantitative, étudiant les effets distributifs et agrégés d'une crise et le rôle de l'assurance chômage pour ces effets, sous plusieurs scénarios hypothétiques de crise.Plusieurs conclusions émergent des résultats obtenus dans cette thèse. Premièrement, les crises globales peuvent avoir des effets très hétérogènes et persistants sur la répartition de revenus, particulièrement pénalisants pour les ménages à faible revenu. Deuxièmement, le système d’impôts et prestations sociales peut jouer un rôle crucial dans l'évolution de la distribution de revenus à la suite d'une crise. Un système fort peut amortir une augmentation des inégalités induite par la crise, tandis qu'un système faible peut les aggraver. Troisièmement, non seulement la magnitude, mais aussi la conception du système affecte son rôle en temps de crise. En particulier, un instrument plus progressif aura un effet stabilisateur plus important qu'un instrument uniforme. Quatrièmement, les politiques de stabilisation des agrégats économiques en temps de crise peuvent avoir des effets importants sur la répartition de revenus. En particulier, la mise en œuvre de mesures de consolidation peut renforcer les pertes de revenus induites par la crise et augmenter l'hétérogénéité des effets d'une crise. Enfin, l'hétérogénéité des ménages et de l’assurance sociale jouent un rôle important dans la transmission d'une crise globale à l’activité économique. La contraction de la consommation agrégée suite à une crise sera plus accentuée dans un monde où les ménages sont hétérogènes à la fois ex ante et ex post que dans un monde où l'hétérogénéité est uniquement ex post. De plus, une crise impliquera une contraction de la consommation agrégée plus faible dans un monde avec assurance sociale que dans un monde sans assurance sociale
Aggregate crises often bring tremendous economic disruptions, which may persist for many years. Understanding their consequences and how to effectively design crisis-coping policies is therefore of capital importance. The aggregate effects of crises and the stabilising role of macroeconomic policies have been significantly studied in the literature. Much less attention, however, has been given to the distributional effects of crises and even less to the possible interactions between these effects and the post-crisis evolution of aggregate outcomes. If a crisis-led increase in inequality can feedback into an anemic recovery of economic activity, then the tax and transfer system may have a role in stabilising not only the income distribution but also the macroeconomy. Understanding how the system may affect both distributional and aggregate developments in a crisis aftermath is therefore key. This thesis aims at shedding new light on these issues, using multiple methodologies and datasets both at the micro and macro level, applying both an empirical and theoretical approach.The first paper provides a detailed assessment of the evolution of income inequality and the redistributive effects of the tax and transfer system following the 2007-2008 crisis, in the US. Using a wide range of indicators, it looks at several sections of the income distribution and analyses the contribution of different components of the tax and transfer system. The second paper develops a new method to model the household disposable income distribution and decompose changes in this distribution over time, integrating both a microeconometric and microsimulation approach. It applies the method to the study of changes in the income distribution in Portugal following the 2007-2008 crisis, accounting for the effects of the crisis and of the aftermath fiscal stimulus and consolidation policies. The third paper develops a theoretical heterogeneous agents DSGE model, with both ex-ante and ex-post household heterogeneity and unemployment insurance. It presents the results of a first quantitative experiment, studying the distributional and aggregate effects of a crisis and the role of unemployment insurance in shaping these effects, under several hypothetical crisis scenarios.Several conclusions can be drawn from the results obtained in this thesis. First, aggregate crises may have substantial heterogeneous effects across the income distribution, being particularly penalising for lower income groups, and these effects may be highly persistent. Second, the tax and transfer system can crucially shape distributional developments following a crisis. A strong tax and transfer system may fully cushion a crisis-led increase in inequality, while a weak one may deepen it. Beyond the effects of automatic stabilisers, discretionary policy choices may have substantial effects. Third, not only the size but also the design of the tax and transfer system matters for its role in times of crisis. In particular, a more progressive instrument will have a higher stabilising effect than a flat one, both at the distributional and aggregate level. Fourth, policies aimed at stabilising aggregate outcomes in times of crisis may have significant "collateral" effects on the income distribution. In particular, the implementation of consolidation measures may reinforce income losses induced by the contractionary effects of the crisis and increase the heterogeneity of the effects of a crisis on households' incomes. Finally, household heterogeneity and social insurance matter for the transmission of an aggregate crisis to aggregate outcomes. A crisis will lead to a higher contraction of aggregate consumption in a world where there are both ex-ante and ex-post sources of household heterogeneity than in a world where there is only ex-post heterogeneity. Furthermore, a crisis will imply a smaller contraction of aggregate consumption in a world with social insurance than in a world without

Cette thèse couvre plusieurs sujets sur la répartition des revenus et des richesses. Dans le premier chapitre, nous développons une nouvelle méthode pour exploiter les tabulations de revenu et de richesse, telle que celle publiée par les autorités fiscales. Nous y définissons les courbes de Pareto généralisées comme la courbe des coefficients de Pareto inversés b(p), où b(p) est le rapport entre le revenu moyen ou la richesse au-dessus du rang p et le p-ième quantile Q(p) (c'est-à-dire b(p)=E[X|X>Q(p)]/Q(p)). Nous les utilisons pour caractériser des distributions entières, y compris les endroits comme le sommet où la lois de Pareto est une bonne description, et les endroits plus bas où elles ne le sont pas. Nous développons une méthode pour reconstruire de manière flexible l'ensemble de la distribution sur la base de données tabulées sur le revenu ou le patrimoine, qui produit courbes de Pareto généralisées lisses et réalistes.Dans le deuxième chapitre, nous présentons une nouvelle approche pour combiner les données d'enquête et les tabulations fiscales afin de corriger la sous-représentation des plus riches au sommet. Elle détermine de façon endogène un "point de fusion'' entre les données avant de modifier les poids tout au long de la distribution et de remplacer les nouvelles observations au-delà du support original de l'enquête. Nous fournissons des simulations de la méthode et des applications aux données réelles. Les premières démontrent que notre méthode améliore la précision et la stabilité des estimations de la distribution, par rapport à d'autres méthodes de correction d'enquêtes utilisant des données externes, et même en présence d'hypothèses extrêmes. Les applications empiriques montrent que non seulement les niveaux d'inégalité des revenus peuvent changer, mais aussi les tendances.Dans le troisième chapitre, nous estimons la distribution du revenu national dans 38 pays européens entre 1980 et 2017 en combinant enquêtes, données fiscales et comptes nationaux. Nous développons une méthodologie cohérente combinant des méthodes d'apprentissage statistique, de calage non linéaire des enquêtes et la théorie des valeurs extrêmes afin de produire des estimations de l'inégalité des revenus avant et après impôt, comparables d'un pays à l'autre et conformes aux taux de croissance macroéconomiques. Nous constatons que les inégalités se sont creusées dans une majorité de pays européens, en particulier entre 1980 et 2000. Le 1% les plus riches en Europe a augmenté plus de deux fois plus vite que les 50% les plus pauvres et a capturé 18% de la croissance des revenus régionaux.Dans le quatrième chapitre, je décompose la dynamique de la distribution de la richesse à l'aide d'un modèle stochastique dynamique simple qui sépare les effets de la consommation, du revenu du travail, des taux de rendement, de la croissance, de la démographie et du patrimoine. À partir de deux théorèmes de calcul stochastique, je montre que ce modèle est identifié de manière non paramétrique et qu'il peut être estimé à partir de données en coupes répétées. Je l'estime à l'aide des comptes nationaux distributifs des États-Unis depuis 1962. Je trouve que, de l'augmentation de 15pp. de la part de la richesse détenue par les 1% les plus riches observée depuis 1980, environ 7pp. peut être attribuée à l'inégalité croissante des revenus du travail, 6pp. à la hausse des rendements sur le capital (principalement sous forme de plus-values), et 2pp. à la baisse de la croissance. En suivant les paramètres actuels, la part de la richesse des 1% les plus riches atteindrait sa valeur stationnaire d'environ 45% d'ici les années 2040, un niveau similaire à celui du début du XXe siècle. J'utilise ensuite le modèle pour analyser l'effet d'un impôt progressif sur les patrimoines au sommet de la distribution
This thesis covers several topics on the distribution of income and wealth. In the first chapter, we develop a new methodology to exploit tabulations of income and wealth such as the one published by tax authorities. In it, we define generalized Pareto curves as the curve of inverted Pareto coefficients b(p), where b(p) is the ratio between average income or wealth above rank p and the p-th quantile Q(p) (i.e. b(p)=E[X|X>Q(p)]/Q(p)). We use them to characterize entire distributions, including places like the top where power laws are a good description, and places further down where they are not. We develop a method to flexibly recover the entire distribution based on tabulated income or wealth data which produces smooth and realistic shapes of generalized Pareto curves.In the second chapter, we present a new approach to combine survey data with tax tabulations to correct for the underrepresentation of the rich at the top. It endogenously determines a "merging point'' between the datasets before modifying weights along the entire distribution and replacing new observations beyond the survey's original support. We provide simulations of the method and applications to real data. The former demonstrate that our method improves the accuracy and precision of distributional estimates, even under extreme assumptions, and in comparison to other survey correction methods using external data. The empirical applications show that not only can income inequality levels change, but also trends.In the third chapter, we estimate the distribution of national income in thirty-eight European countries between 1980 and 2017 by combining surveys, tax data and national accounts. We develop a unified methodology combining machine learning, nonlinear survey calibration and extreme value theory in order to produce estimates of pre-tax and post-tax income inequality, comparable across countries and consistent with macroeconomic growth rates. We find that inequality has increased in a majority of European countries, especially between 1980 and 2000. The European top 1% grew more than two times faster than the bottom 50% and captured 18% of regional income growth.In the fourth chapter, I decompose the dynamics of the wealth distribution using a simple dynamic stochastic model that separates the effects of consumption, labor income, rates of return, growth, demographics and inheritance. Based on two results of stochastic calculus, I show that this model is nonparametrically identified and can be estimated using only repeated cross-sections of the data. I estimate it using distributional national accounts for the United States since 1962. I find that, out of the 15pp. increase in the top 1% wealth share observed since 1980, about 7pp. can be attributed to rising labor income inequality, 6pp. to rising returns on wealth (mostly in the form of capital gains), and 2pp. to lower growth. Under current parameters, the top 1% wealth share would reach its steady-state value of roughly 45% by the 2040s, a level similar to that of the beginning of the 20th century. I then use the model to analyze the effect of progressive wealth taxation at the top of the distribution

STRESZCZENIE Niniejsza rozprawa doktorska stanowi oryginalne zastosowanie wybranych kanonicznych modeli używanych w ramach fizyki statystycznej do badania własności układów leżących poza zainteresowaniem tradycyjnie rozumianej fizyki. Mam tu na myśli obszary badawcze będące tradycyjnie domeną ekonomii oraz socjologii a dzisiaj stanowiące już przedmiot intensywnych i ekstensywnych badań ekono- i socjofizyki. Dokładniej rzecz biorąc, tematyka niniejszej rozprawy doktorskiej dotyczy dynamiki dochodów gospodarstw domowych społeczeństw Polski oraz Unii Europejskiej w okresach kryzysów i poza nimi. Badania przeprowadziłem zarówno w ramach dynamiki stochastycznej Langevina i równania Fokkera–Plancka, jak też wybranych modeli błądzeń losowych, gdzie dochód gospodarstw domowych jest traktowany jak zależna od czasu zmienna losowa. W rozprawie uzyskałem wartościowe wyniki dotyczące analizy zamożności i dochodowości zarówno polskich gospodarstw domowych jak też gospodarstw domowych społeczeństw należących do Unii Europejskiej traktowanej jako całość. Analizę tą poprowadziłem w oparciu z jednej strony o dane empiryczne (z lat 2004–2010), z drugiej strony o wybrane modele rozwijane w ramach fizyki statystycznej, matematyki finansowej i ekonometrii dotyczące np. funkcji potęgowych, wykładniczych i logarytmiczno–normalnych, czyli (mówiąc ogólniej) w ramach prawa Pareto, modelu zderzeń , Prawa Efektów Proporcjonalnych jak też w ramach uogólnionego modelu Lotka–Volterra. Należy podkreślić, że wspomniane modele mają charakter wielociałowy i dynamiczny w sensie dynamiki stochastycznej, której szczególnym przypadkiem jest liniowa i nieliniowa dynamika Langevina. Celem merytorycznym mojej rozprawy doktorskiej jest pogłębione zrozumienie, a w tym opis ilościowy (sparametryzowany niewielką liczbą wielkości możliwych do wyznaczenia z danych empirycznych) mechanizmów uzyskiwania dochodów i bogacenia się lub ubożenia zarówno ludności Polski jak i Unii Europejskiej. Jest to niezwykle ważny cel, którego osiągnięcie pociąga za sobą możliwość określenia ścieżek rozwojowych Unii Europejskiej a w tym Polski. Głównym wynikiem moich badań jest uogólnienie znanego modelu Yakovenko a co za tym idzie zasadniczego wzoru Yakovenko. Umożliwiło to zbadanie dochodowości wszystkich klas społecznych a nie tylko dwóch jak w oryginalnym modelu Yakovenko. Innymi słowy, otrzymana przeze mnie formuła jest w stanie opisać dochodowość wszystkich gospodarstw domowych w Unii Europejskiej, poczynając od najbiedniejszych na najbogatszych kończąc. Należy podkreślić, że pomimo wielu prób mających na celu teoretyczny opis empirycznych rozkładów dochodów jednostek bądź gospodarstw domowych, jak dotąd zaproponowany przeze mnie model jest pierwszym dającym efektywny, spójny i kompleksowy opis dochodów gospodarstw domowych wszystkich klas społecznych. Jest on ukoronowaniem obecnego stanu wiedzy dotyczącej analizy dochodów gospodarstw domowych. Przedstawione przeze mnie badania naukowe maja˛ ważny aspekt pragmatyczny, gdyż mogą wspomóc np. konstruowanie optymalnego systemu podatkowego, a także emerytalnego. Ponadto, mogą pomóc określić strukturę popytową rynków. Niniejsza rozprawa doktorska składa się z czterech wzajemnie uzupełniających się rozdziałów: • w pierwszym rozdziale przedstawiłem krytyczne omówienie stosowanych dotychczas modeli teoretycznych, mających na celu analityczny opis dochodów społeczeństw; • w drugim rozdziale zaproponowałem własne modele, mające na celu efektywny, spójny i kompleksowy opis dochodów społeczeństw; • w trzecim rozdziale dokonałem opracowania danych empirycznych dotyczących rocznych dochodów rozporządzalnych gospodarstw domowych w Polsce w latach 2004–2010, przede wszystkim poprzez porównanie ich z modelami teoretycznymi. Skupiłem się także na analizie własności wykorzystywanych modeli; • w czwartym rozdziale szczegółowo przedstawiłem moją procedurę dotyczącą łączenia różnych baz zawierających dane o dochodach. Następnie, mając pełne dane o dochodach wszystkich klas społecznych w Unii Europejskiej, przeprowadziłem analogiczne analizy jak w rozdziale 3 dla lat 2005–2010. Dokonałem również weryfikacji i obszernego omówienia własności skonstruowanego przeze mnie modelu. Pracę uzupełniłem o niezbędne rozważania dotyczące rozkładu Pareto (dodatek A i B) oraz uogólnionego modelu Lotka–Volterra (dodatek C). Dla ułatwienia zamieściłem także opis metody Weibulla (dodatek D). W dodatkach E i F zawarłem uzupełniające informacje na temat analizy danych empirycznych dotyczących dochodów gospodarstw domowych w Unii Europejskiej. Z kolei, w dodatku G przeprowadziłem poszerzoną dyskusję na temat procedury łączenia baz danych. Natomiast, dodatek H zawiera omówienie współczynnika Giniego.
ABSTRACT My phd thesis is an original selection, reformulation and extension of the canonical models of statistical physics dedicated for study the properties of systems beyond the traditional physics. Although, the research areas covered by my thesis are traditionally the domain of economy and sociology, these areas belongs today to the research mainstream of econo- and sociophysics. More precisely, the subject of my thesis concerns the dynamics of household incomes in Poland and the European Union during the time of crisis and beyond. I conducted my main analysis both within the Langevin stochastic dynamics and Fokker–Planck equation. In addition, I considered selected models of random walks where household income is treated as a time-dependent random variable. In my thesis I obtained valuable results by analysing the wealth and income of Polish households as well as households of societies belonging to the European Union. This analysis was based both on empirical data (from the years 2004–2010) and on selected models developed within the statistical physics, financial mathematics and econometrics concerning for example, power-law, exponential and log-normal distributions that is, the Pareto law, collision models, the Rules of Proportionate Growth and Generalised Lotka–Volterra model. It should be emphasised that these models are multivariable and dynamic (in the sense of stochastic dynamics) – the linear and nonlinear Langevin dynamics are their prominent examples. The main aim of my thesis is a deeper understanding, including quantitative description (parametrised by a small number of values possible to determine from the empirical data) of the mechanisms of gaining income and enrichment or impoverishment of the societies both Poland and the European Union. This is an extremely important goal, the achievement of which can specify the pathways of development of the European Union and Poland. The main result of my research is a generalisation of the well known Yakovenko model and thus the principal formula of Yakovenko. The formula is based directly on the equilibrium solution of the corresponding Fokker–Planck equation. This allowed us to study the income of all three society classes and not only two ones as the original Yakovenko model made. In other words, I have obtained the formula which is able to describe the income of all European Union households belonging to the low-, medium- and high-income society classes. It should be emphasised that, despite many attempts aimed for theoretical description of the empirical income distributions of individuals or households, so far I have proposed model which is the first that gives an effective, consistent and comprehensive description of the household incomes of all society classes. My low-parameter model is a culmination of the current knowledge regarding the analysis of household incomes. My research has some significant pragmatic aspect, as it can support, for instance, the construction of the appropriate tax and retirement systems. Furthermore, my research can estimate the structure of the market demands. My dissertation consists of four complementary chapters: • the first chapter, where I presented a critical overview of theoretical models used so far to analytical description of society incomes; • the second chapter, where I developed efficient, consistent and comprehensive formalism describing the society incomes; • the third chapter, where I analysed empirical data on the annual disposable income of Polish households in the years 2004–2010, in particular by comparison of the empirical data with theoretical models. In this chapter I also focused on the analysis of properties of commonly used models; • the fourth chapter, where I presented the detailed procedure for joining different databases containing empirical income data. Then, with a complete income dataset of all society classes in the European Union, I have carried out an extended (in comparison with that shown in Section 3) analysis for the years 2005–2010. To perform this analysis I used my models, having well motivated opportunity to make their thorough review and discuss their useful properties. In seven appendices I discussed the Pareto distribution (Appendix A and B) and the Generalised Lotka–Volterra model (Appendix C). I also enclosed a description of the Weibull method (Appendix D). In the appendices E and F I included additional information on the analysis of empirical data on household incomes in the European Union. Furthermore, in the Appendix G I carried out a thorough discussion concerning the procedure of joining the databases. Moreover, Appendix H contains an overview of the Gini coefficient.

This research analyses the statistical relationship between income distribution and seven taxation and government expenditure components in Namibia using data from 1996-2016. The research is aimed at creating new knowledge on the research topic because no literature exists for Namibia. The Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) cointegration technique was employed to assess the long-run relationship between the dependent and independent variables in Eviews. The research findings indicated that there is no long-run relationship between the dependent variable and independent variables. In the short-run, the research findings indicate that government expenditure on social pensions and government expenditure on education have a balancing effect on income distribution, while tax on products, corporate income tax and customs and excise duties have an unbalancing and/or worsening effect on income distribution. Based on these findings, tertiary education loans are recommended as opposed to grants to ensure sustainability of Namibia Students Financial Assistance Fund (NASFAF). In adjusting corporate and value added taxes, the government is cautioned to avoid overburdening consumers and employees through tax shifting in the form of high prices of goods and services and low wages and benefits. A tax mix, tax discrimination and a hybrid of taxation and government expenditure components are strongly recommended to achieve a balance.
Economics
M. Com. (Economics)

This thesis first presents a general procedure for decomposing income inequality measures by income source. The first method draws on the literature of ethical social index numbers to construct a decomposition based on a weighted sum of the inequality indices for the respective component distributions. The second method is based on the Shap- ley value of transferable utility cooperative games. The ethical and technical properties of the decompositions are examined, showing that the interactive technique has some previously known decompositions as special cases. In the third chapter I examine the contribution of differences in educational attain- ment to earnings inequality using the interactive decomposition by factor sources, intro- duced in chapter two, of the Atkinson-Kolm-Sen inequality index. I first use an estimated sample-selection model to decompose predicted labour earnings of a random sample of Canadians into a base level and a part due to returns to education. I do this decomposi- tion once ignoring the effect education has on the probability of being employed and once accounting for this fact. I then calculate the contribution of these two sources of earnings to inequality measured by a S-Gini index of relative inequality for the full sample as well as two separate age cohorts. The results indicate that approximately one half to two thirds of measured inequality can be directly attributed to returns to education while the interaction between the two sources post-secondary. The fourth chapter uses the earnings model from the third chapter to conduct policy simulations for broadly based policies, low targeted policies, and high targeted policies. I demonstrate that the policies targeting low education individuals produce a larger increase in social welfare than do the other two types of policy.

How important are the distributional effects of international trade? This has been one of the most central questions pursued by international economists, particularly because much of the public opposition towards increased openness is due to the belief that welfare changes are unevenly distributed. In this dissertation, I rely on counterfactual analysis and natural experiments to study topics of international trade, welfare and inequality in the context of both developing and developed economies. In particular, I combine theoretical modeling and empirical analysis to examine the effects of international trade on (1) real wages of individuals within and across countries; (2) within-sector wage dispersion caused by heterogeneous responses of firms with different productivity levels to cheaper imported inputs. In each of the three chapters, I contribute to the existing literature by relaxing simplifying assumptions that have proved to be inconsistent with data and exploring new mechanisms that link international trade to inequality. Chapter 1, “Trade and Real Wages with Demand and Productivity Heterogeneity,” presents a general equilibrium model that incorporates the effects of trade liberalization on both an individual’s nominal wage and consumer price index. A vast majority of the literature focuses on the income channel, which is its effect on the distribution of nominal wages across workers. A small number of studies consider the expenditure channel, which is its differential impact on consumer price indices. It is well known that the consumption baskets of high-income and low-income consumers look very different. To our knowledge, there are only three case studies that have looked at these two channels jointly for individual countries, Argentina, Mexico and India. We provide a unified framework incorporating both channels by allowing for non-homothetic preferences and worker heterogeneity across jobs. In spite of its many dimensions of heterogeneity at the individual level, the model remains tractable enough that allows us to estimate its key parameters and perform counterfactuals. Chapter 2, “Trade and Real Wage Inequality: Cross-Country Evidence,” addresses the following question: what is the impact of trade liberalization on the distribution of real wages in a large cross-section of countries? Trade liberalization affects real-wage inequality through two channels: the distribution of nominal wages across workers and, if the rich and the poor consume different bundles of goods, the distribution of price indices across consumers. Prior work has focused mostly on one or the other of these channels, but no paper has studied both jointly for a large set of countries. Based on the theoretical framework in Chapter 1, I measure the distributional effects of trade liberalization incorporating both channels for a sample of 40 countries. More specifically, I parametrize the model using sector-level trade and production data. Because skill-intensive goods are also high-income elastic in the data, I find an intuitive, previously unexplored, and strong interaction between the two channels. According to my counterfactual analysis, trade cost reductions generate dramatically different results for both nominal wage inequality and price index inequality than what previous research has obtained by focusing on either channel alone. I find that trade cost reductions decrease the relative nominal wage of the poor and the relative price index for the poor in all countries. On net, real-wage inequality falls everywhere. Chapter 3, “Imported Inputs and Within-Sector Wage Dispersion,” proposes a new mechanism through which trade liberalization affects income inequality within a country: the use of imported inputs. Intuitively, a firm with higher initial productivity is better at using higher quality foreign inputs. This justifies paying the fixed costs for a larger set of imported inputs when input tariff liberalization decreases their relative price. The firm becomes more import intensive, which enhances its productivity advantage. As a result, the firm hires higher quality workers, produces higher quality products and pays higher wages to its workers, increasing within-sector wage dispersion. We find that both the mean and the dispersion of the distribution of firm productivity, markup and size went up during a period when China reduced its tariffs on imported inputs. More importantly, these results still hold when we consider the subset of firms that survived throughout the sample period, from 1998 to 2007. In addition, we develop a partial-equilibrium, heterogeneous-firm model with endogenous imported inputs and labor quality choice that is consistent with these observations. Finally, we provide empirical evidence that supports the model’s prediction that the differential change in the import intensity of firms with different productivity levels explains these patterns.

本文主要研究實際匯率出口彈性對中國貧富懸殊的影響。我們使用了二十八個省份從1995年至2008年的數據。結果顯示實際匯率出口彈性愈高的省份其城鄉收入差距就會愈廣。另外，我們使用了各省的加工出口比例作為實際匯率出口彈性的工具變量。
本文主要的貢獻在於分別地考慮出口數量和出口的商品種類來研究開放度對貧富懸殊的關係。在分開了出口數量和出口商品的種類對貧富懸殊的影響後，我們發現數據中呈現的中國對外開放度和貧富懸殊的正向關係，是基於出口商品的種類改變，而非如以前的文獻所說，是基於出口量的增長。因此，要決定一個省份的城鄉收入差距，該省份生產甚麼比其生產數量更重要。
This paper investigates the effect of export elasticity to real exchange rate and on urban-rural income disparity in China. We use annual data from 28 provinces from 1995 to 2008. The main finding is that provinces producing more elastic exported goods would have a higher urban-rural income inequality. We also construct the processing export ratio as an instrumental variable for the elasticity terms.
One main contribution of this paper is to consider separately the effect of export value and the composition of exports when we examine the relationship between openness and income inequality. After separating the effect of export value and the composition of exports, we find that the positive relationship between openness and income inequality mentioned in previous literature is caused by a change in export composition, rather than in export value. Hence, what the provinces produce matters much more than how much they produce when we determine urban-rural income inequality.
Detailed summary in vernacular field only.
Detailed summary in vernacular field only.
Chan, Ying Tung.
Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2012.
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 32-34).
Abstracts also in Chinese.
ABSTRACT --- p.II
摘要 --- p.III
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS --- p.IV
Chapter 1 --- INTRODUCTION --- p.1
Chapter 1.1 --- OPENNESS AND INEQUALITY --- p.1
Chapter 1.2 --- COMPOSITION OF INCOME INEQUALITY IN CHINA --- p.2
Chapter 2 --- LITERATURE REVIEWS --- p.4
Chapter 2.1 --- LITERATURE ON THE CAUSE OF INCOME INEQUALITY IN CHINA --- p.4
Chapter 2.2 --- LITERATURE ON THE EFFECT OF OPENNESS ON INCOME INEQUALITY IN CHINA --- p.6
Chapter 2.3 --- LITERATURE ON THE COMPOSITION OF EXPORTS AND ECONOMIC GROWTH IN CHINA --- p.9
Chapter 3 --- DATA --- p.11
Chapter 4 --- REGRESSION MODEL --- p.12
Chapter 4.1 --- REGRESSION RESULT (WITHOUT THE ELASTICITY TERM) --- p.15
Chapter 4.2 --- ROLLING REGRESSION FOR ESTIMATING THE ELASTICITY TERMS --- p.17
Chapter 4.3 --- REGRESSION RESULT OF REGRESSION (1) --- p.19
Chapter 4.4 --- INSTRUMENTAL VARIABLE FOR THE ELASTICITY TERM --- p.20
Chapter 4.5 --- REGRESSION RESULT AFTER USING TWO-STAGE LEAST SQUARE (2SLS) --- p.23
Chapter 5 --- DISCUSSION --- p.24
Chapter 6 --- CONCLUSION --- p.29
REFERENCES --- p.32

Since the beginning of the 21st century, service-oriented architecture (SOA) has emerged as an advancement of distributed computing. SOA is a framework where software modules are developed using straightforward interfaces, and each module serves a specific array of functions. It delivers enterprise applications individually or integrated into a more significant composite Web services. However, SOA implementation faces several challenges, hindering its broader adaptation. This thesis aims to highlight three significant challenges in the implementation of SOA. The abundance of functionally similar Web services and the lack of integrity with non-functional features such as Quality of Service (QoS) leads to the difficulties in the prediction of QoS. Thus, the first challenge to be addressed is to find an efficient scheme for the prediction of QoS. The use of software source code metrics is a widely accepted alternative solution. Source code metrics are measured at a micro level and aggregated at the macro level to represent the software adequately. However, the effect of aggregation schemes on QoS prediction using source code metrics remains unexplored. The inequality distribution model, the Theil index, is proposed in this research to aggregate micro level source code metrics for three different datasets and compare the quality of QoS prediction. The experiment results show that the Theil index is a practical solution for effective QoS prediction. The second challenge is to search and compose suitable Web services with- out the need for expertise in composition tools. Currently, the existing approaches need system engineers with extensive knowledge of SOA techniques. A keyword-based search is a common approach for information retrieval which does not require an understanding of a query language or the underlying data structure. The proposed framework uses a schema-based keyword search over the relational database for an efficient Web service search and composition. Experiments are conducted with the WS-Dream data set to evaluate Web service search and composition framework using adequate performance parameters. The results of a quality constraints experiments show that the schema-based keyword search can achieve a better success rate than the existing approaches. Building an efficient data architecture for SOA applications is the third challenge as real-world SOA applications are required to process a vast quantity of data to produce a valuable service on demand. Contemporary SOA data processing systems such as the Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW) lack scalability. A data lake, a productive data environment, is proposed to improve data ingestion for SOA systems. The data lake architecture stores both structured and unstructured data using the Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS). Experiment results compare the data ingestion time of data lake and EDW. In the evaluation, the data lake-based architecture is implemented for personalized medication suggestion system. The data lake shows that it can generate patient clusters more concisely than the current EDW-based approaches. In summary, this research can effectively address three significant challenges for the broader adaptation of SOAs. The Theil index-based data aggregation model helps QoS prediction without the dependence on the Web service registry. Service engineers with less knowledge of SOA techniques can exploit a schema-based keyword search for a Web service search and composition. The data lake shows its potential to act as a data architecture for SOA applications.

It is twenty-one years since South Africa’s democracy and the majority of South African households can still be classified as poor, despite the various interventions by Government to reduce poverty and inequality. The measurement used to determine the financial status of a household at a given point in time is its net equity in accordance with its Statement of Financial Position, calculated as its assets owned less liabilities owed. This study aimed to identify the selected significant factors that affect a South African household’s net equity value. In order to achieve the aim of this study, a heuristic model consisting of two components was developed. The first component considered which assets and liabilities should be included in determining a household’s net equity and how these assets and liabilities should be valued. The second component identified the selected factors that influence a household’s net equity. The heuristic model was applied to the empirical data using three phases. Firstly, the net equity value was calculated for each household. This was followed by an analysis of the selected factors that significantly influence household net equity. The last phase was performed to determine the effect of the identified selected factors in explaining the difference between households that have above average net equity values and those having below average values. The results of the study indicated that 11 selected factors significantly influence the net equity value in the South African household’s Statement of Financial Position. Seven of those factors significantly explain between 28,3 percent and 38,1 percent of the differences in the net equity value of a household when comparing the households with above average net equity value with those with below average values. This is useful information for policy makers in identifying the selected factors that will most significantly increase the net equity value of a household with a net equity value below the South African average.
Centre for Accounting Studies
M. Com. (Accounting Science)