Sources of Regional Income Disparity in Rural Vietnam: Oaxaca-Blinder Decomposition

This paper investigates determinants of regional income disparity in rural Vietnam, with special emphasis placed on the roles of human capital and land. We apply a decomposition method, suggested by Oaxaca and Blinder. We found that returns to assets rather than endowments, especially those of human capital, are one of the leading factors to account for income differences across regions. We also found that substantial improvements of returns to human capital in the Red River delta region are a driving force to catch up with Mekong River delta region. Unexpectedly, differences in land endowment do not strongly correlate with regional income disparity because better access to land in a region was partially offset by lower returns.

Income disparity among persons with disabilities assessed by education and sex : findings from a field survey conducted in Metro Manila, the Philippines

How do persons with disabilities (PWDs) earn a living? From the view point of poverty reduction, this question is quite critical in developing countries. This paper presents an investigation of economic activities of PWDs in the Philippines where, among developing countries, disability-related legislation is relatively progressive. In 2008, a field survey was conducted in cooperation with Disability People’s Organizations (DPOs) using a tailor-made questionnaire in four representative cities of Metro Manila. The level and determinants of income of PWDs were examined with Mincer regression. Conclusions are as follows: (1) The incidence and depth of poverty are greater among sample PWDs than that of the total population in Metro Manila. (2) There is remarkable income disparity among PWDs which is associated with education and sex. (3) After controlling individual, parental, and environmental characteristics, it was found that female PWDs are likely to earn less than male PWDs due to fewer opportunities to participate in economic activities. It is suggested that female PWDs are doubly handicapped in earning income.

Factor decomposition of income inequality change : Japan's regional income disparity from 1955 to 1998

We propose a method for the decomposition of inequality changes based on panel data regression. The method is an efficient way to quantify the contributions of variables to changes of the Theil T index while satisfying the property of uniform addition. We illustrate the method using prefectural data from Japan for the period 1955 to 1998. Japan experienced a diminishing of regional income disparity during the years of high economic growth from 1955 to 1973. After estimating production functions using panel data for prefectures in Japan, we apply the new decomposition approach to identify each production factor’s contributions to the changes of per capita income inequality among prefectures. The decomposition results show that total factor productivity (residual) growth, population change (migration), and public capital stock growth contributed to the diminishing of per capita income disparity.