The impact of migration on regional wage inequality : a semiparametric approach

Peer reviewed

Estimation of Inequality Indices of the Cumulative Distribution Function

Date of Acceptance: 02/03/2015

Joint hypothesis tests for multidimensional inequality indices

Acknowledgments This work has been undertaken with the support of the A*MIDEX project (n ∘ ANR-11-IDEX-0001-02) funded by the “Investissements d’Avenir” French Government program, managed by the French National Research Agency (ANR). We are grateful to Julian Williams, Editor Badi H. Baltagi and an anonymous referee for helpful comments. We are responsible for any errors.

Inequality, the Welfare State, and Demographic Change

This dissertation is a three-part analysis examining how the welfare state in advanced Western democracies has responded to recent demographic changes. Specifically, this dissertation investigates two primary relationships, beginning with the influence of government spending on poverty. I analyze two at-risk populations in particular: immigrants and children of single mothers. Next, attention is turned to the influence of individual and environmental traits on preferences for social spending. I focus specifically on religiosity, religious beliefs and religious identity. I pool data from a number of international macro- and micro-data sources including the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS), International Social Survey Program (ISSP), the World Bank Databank, and the OECD Databank. Analyses highlight the power of the welfare state to reduce poverty, but also the effectiveness of specific areas of spending focused on addressing new social risks. While previous research has touted the strength of the welfare state, my analyses highlight the need to consider new social risks and encourage closer attention to how social position affects preferences for the welfare state.

Three Essays on the Economics of Defense Contracting, Output and Income Inequality

This dissertation analyzes both the economics of the defense contracting process and the impact of total dollar obligations on the economies of U.S. states. Using various econometric techniques, I will estimate relationships across individual contracts, state level output, and income inequality. I will achieve this primarily through the use of a dataset on individual contract obligations. The first essay will catalog the distribution of contracts and isolate aspects of the process that contribute to contract dollar obligations. Accordingly, this study describes several characteristics about individual defense contracts, from 1966-2006: (i) the distribution of contract dollar obligations is extremely rightward skewed, (ii) contracts are unevenly distributed in a geographic sense across the United States, (iii) increased duration of a contract by 10 percent is associated with an increase in costs by 4 percent, (iv) competition does not seem to affect dollar obligations in a substantial way, (v) contract pre-payment financing increases the obligation of contracts from anywhere from 62 to 380 percent over non-financed contracts. The second essay will turn to an aggregate focus, and look the impact of defense spending on state economic output. The analysis in chapter two attempts to estimate the state level fiscal multiplier, deploying Difference-in-Differences estimation as an attempt to filter out potential endogeneity bias. Interstate variation in procurement spending facilitates utilization of a natural experiment scenario, focusing on the spike in relative spending in 1982. The state level relative multiplier estimate here is 1.19, and captures the short run, impact effect of the 1982 spending spike. Finally I will look at the relationship between defense contracting and income inequality. Military spending has typically been observed to have a negative relationship with income inequality. The third chapter examines the existence of this relationship, combining data on defense procurement with data on income inequality at the state level, in a longitudinal analysis across the United States. While the estimates do not suggest a significant relationship exists for the income share of the top ten percent of households, there is a significant positive relationship for the income share of top one percent households for an increase in defense procurement.

Inequality, Poverty, Two Invariance Conditions, and a Product Rule

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Situated Intersectionality and Social Inequality

In this article1 I introduce and discuss some of the ways situated intersectional analysis can help to describe – and even explain – different kinds of social, economic, political and personal inequalities. As I have been working on intersectionality for many years – both before and after the issues discussed under this term were to be so labelled, I shall focus primarily on my own version rather than conduct a review of the literature. The paper starts by discussing the ways sociological studies traditionally describe inequality focusing on issues of class. It then introduces intersectionality as a theoretical framework that can encompass different kinds of inequalities, simultaneously (ontologically), but enmeshed (concretely). The latter part of the article examines the ways different kinds of systemic domains provide multiple grounds for the production and reproduction of these inequalities. (1An earlier version of this paper was presented at an ISA plenary in Yokohama, Summer 2014.)

Forests as landscapes of social inequality: tropical forest cover and land distribution among shifting cultivators

Can social inequality be seen imprinted in a forest landscape? We studied the relationship between land holding, land use, and inequality in a peasant community in the Peruvian Amazon where farmers practice swidden-fallow cultivation. Longitudinal data on land holding, land use, and land cover were gathered through field-level surveys (n = 316) and household interviews (n = 51) in 1994/1995 and 2007. Forest cover change between 1965 and 2007 was documented through interpretation of air photos and satellite imagery. We introduce the concept of “land use inequality” to capture differences across households in the distribution of forest fallowing and orchard raising as key land uses that affect household welfare and the sustainability of swidden-fallow agriculture. We find that land holding, land use, and forest cover distribution are correlated and that the forest today reflects social inequality a decade prior. Although initially land-poor households may catch up in terms of land holdings, their use and land cover remain impoverished. Differential land use investment through time links social inequality and forest cover. Implications are discussed for the study of forests as landscapes of inequality, the relationship between social inequality and forest composition, and the forest-poverty nexus.

Vom Zusatzbeitrag über die Gesundheitsprämie zur Abschaffung der gesetzlichen Krankenversicherung – Das zentrale gesundheitspolitische Projekt der schwarz-gelben Regierungskoalition

Zunächst wird der Koalitionsvertrag daraufhin analysiert, welche Aussagen zur Zukunft der gesetzlichen Krankenversicherung darin enthalten sind und welche Vorhaben sich an den betreffenden Aussagen ablesen lassen. Daran schließt sich eine Darstellung des ‚Gesundheitsprämienmodells’ von CDU und FDP an, das darauf folgend einer systematischen Kritik unterzogen wird. Wegen seiner besonderen Stellung in der gegenwärtigen gesundheitspolitischen Diskussion wird im Anschluss daran der so genannte ‚Sozialausgleich’ näher betrachtet. Dieser Begriff erweist sich bei näherer Betrachtung als irreführende ‚Fehletikettierung’, denn geplant ist nicht ein umfassender ‚sozialer Ausgleich’, wie ihn die gesetzliche Krankenversicherung gegenwärtig gewährleistet, sondern lediglich ein staatlicher Beitragszuschuss für hilfebedürftige Geringverdiener. Im Rahmen der Erörterung werden auch die zentralen Begründungsmuster für die Einführung eines steuerfinanzierten ‚Sozialausgleichs’ einer systematischen Kritik unterzogen. Dabei wird auch herausgearbeitet, dass die Umstellung auf eine Steuerfinanzierung der gesetzlichen Krankenversicherung keineswegs zwangsläufig zu einer sozial gerechten Verteilung von Finanzierungslasten führt, wie dies von führenden Vertretern der Regierungskoalition behauptet wird.

Michael Schratz / Johanna F. Schwarz / Tanja Westfall-Greiter: Lernen als bildende Erfahrung, Vignetten in der Praxisforschung, Mit einem Vorwort von Käte Meyer-Drawe und Beiträgen von Horst Rumpf, Carol Ann Tomlinson, Mike Rose u.a. Innsbruck: Studienverlag 2012 [Rezension]

Rezension von: Michael Schratz / Johanna F. Schwarz / Tanja Westfall-Greiter: Lernen als bildende Erfahrung, Vignetten in der Praxisforschung, Mit einem Vorwort von Käte Meyer-Drawe und Beiträgen von Horst Rumpf, Carol Ann Tomlinson, Mike Rose u.a., Innsbruck: Studienverlag 2012 (161 S.; ISBN 978-3706551182)