The inequality curse: constraints and political discretion

We live in an unjust world characterized by economic inequality. No liberal theory of justice is able to justify it. Inequality is not “solved” with equality of opportunity or meritocracy. Nor by the socialist and republican critique. The poor will have to count with them and with democracy to make social progress reality. In their political struggle, they will face one economic constraint: the expected profit rate must remain attractive to business investors. Yet, giving that technological progress in increasingly capital-saving, this economic constraint does not obstruct that wages grow above the productivity rate and inequality is reduced. What really is an obstacle to social justice in the rich countries is, on one hand, the power that capitalist rentiers retain and financists acquired, and, on the other, the competition originated in low wage countries.

The effects of the minimum wage on earnings and employment in Brazil

This paper analyzes the effects of the mlmmum wage on both, eammgs and employment, using a Brazilian rotating panel data (Pesquisa Mensal do Emprego - PME) which has a similar design to the US Current Population Survey (CPS). First an intuitive description of the data is done by graphical analysis. In particular, Kemel densities are used to show that an increase in the minimum wage compresses the eamings distribution. This graphical analysis is then forrnalized by descriptive models. This is followed by a discussion on identification and endogeneity that leads to the respecification of the model. Second, models for employment are estimated, using an interesting decomposition that makes it possible to separate out the effects of an increase in the minimum wage on number of hours and on posts of jobs. The main result is that an increase in the minimum wage was found to compress the eamings distribution, with a moderately small effect on the leveI of employment, contributing to alleviate inequality.

Financial frictions, informality and income inequality

We studied the effects of changes in banking spreads on distributions of income, wealth and consumption as well as the welfare of the economy. This analysis was based on a model of heterogeneous agents with incomplete markets and occupational choice, in which the informality of firms and workers is a relevant transmission channel. The main finding is that reductions in spreads for firms increase the proportion of entrepreneurs and formal workers in the economy, thereby decreasing the size of the informal sector. The effects on inequality, however, are ambiguous and depend on wage dynamics and government transfers. Reductions in spreads for individuals lead to a reduction in inequality indicators at the expense of consumption and aggregate welfare. By calibrating the model to Brazil for the 2003-2012 period, it is possible to find results in line with the recent drop in informality and the wage gap between formal and informal workers

Inequality in Central America in the 1990s

Includes bibliography

Determinants of unfair inequality in Brazil, 1995 and 2009

This article analyses the trend of unfair inequality in Brazil (1995-2009) using a nonparametric approach to estimate the income function. The entropy metrics introduced by Li, Maasoumi and Racine (2009) are used to quantify income differences separately for each effort variable. A Gini coefficient of unfair inequality is calculated, based on the fitted values of the non-parametric estimation; and the robustness of the estimations, including circumstantial variables, is analysed. The trend of the entropies demonstrated a reduction in the income differential caused by education. The variables “hours worked” and “labour-market status” contribute significantly to explaining wage differences imputed to individual effort; but the migratory variable had little explanatory power. Lastly, the robustness analysis demonstrated the plausibility of the results obtained at each stage of the empirical work.

Economic Reforms and Income Inequality in Urban China

This paper reports the results of an analysis of changes in income inequality, and in its determinants, in urban China since the economic reforms that began in 1978. The intention is to identify new characteristics of economic inequality. It first shows that income differentials acrossand in provinces widened and that their economic rankings were becoming fixed during the period from 1988 to 1995. Second, age was the major factor in inequality in 1988, while education became the important factor in 1995. Third, education significantly contributed to increasing inequality during the period. Fourth, the higher education-level groups had less within-group inequality. These changes reflect the penetration of the market mechanism into China after the reforms. However, this will be problematic without equality of opportunity.

Changes in the causes of earnings inequality in urban China from 1988 to 2002

This paper analyzes the causes of earnings inequality in urban China from 1988 to 2002. Earnings inequality in urban China continuously increased, even when adjusting for regional price differences. This paper reveals how the causes of earnings inequality changed between the periods 1988-1995 and 1995-2002 by reflecting labor-related institutional reform in China. Contrary to the situation from 1988 to 1995, between 1995 and 2002, employment status became the largest disequalizer, and the decline of inter-provincial inequality contributed to a reduction in entire earnings inequality. Individual ability, represented by education and occupation, received much greater rewards. Throughout the period from 1988 to 2002, a large part of the explained inequality increase was due to change in price (valuation of each individual's attributes) and not due to change in quantity (composition of individual attributes).

The contribution of supply and demand shifts to earnings inequality in urban China

This paper examines the degree to which supply and demand shift across skill groups contributed to the earnings inequality increase in urban China from 1988 to 2002. Product demand shift contributed to an equalizing of earnings distribution in urban China from 1988 to 1995 by increasing the relative product for the low educated. However, it contributed to enlarging inequality from 1995 to 2002 by increasing the relative demand for the highly educated. Relative demand was continuously higher for workers in the coastal region and contributed to a raising of interregional inequality. Supply shift contributed essentially nothing or contributed only slightly to a reduction in inequality. Remaining factors, the largest disequalizer, may contain skill-biased technological and institutional changes, and unobserved supply shift effects due to increasing numbers of migrant workers.

The evolution of gender inequality in tourism employment in Spain

Evolución de la desigualdad por género del empleo turístico en España. Si bien la inversión en capital laboral femenino en la industria turística ha aumentado en los últimos años y parece que la discriminación en el acceso a puestos directivos ha descendido, se siguen produciendo diferentes situaciones de desigualdad. La mujer mantiene un salario por debajo del hombre y han aparecido nuevas formas de segregación ocupacional entre hombres y mujeres e incluso entre las propias mujeres: la división entre trabajo a tiempo parcial y completo es un buen ejemplo de este proceso. La hipótesis que se plantea este trabajo es que esa combinación entre tiempo de trabajo remunerado (ámbito público) y no remunerado (ámbito privado, doméstico) es un obstáculo que provoca el acceso de los varones a empleos hasta ahora "femeninos"; así mismo, se observará la calidad del empleo turístico desde la perspectiva de género.

Industry-specific human capital, knowledge labour, and industry wage structure in Taiwan

This paper investigates the role of industry-specific human capital (ISHC) in determining industry wage structure. The model presented in this paper distinguishes between knowledge labour and physical labour. Knowledge labour is physical labour embodied with ISHC. It is postulated that more ISHC-intensive industries, such as high-tech industries, pay higher wages and the wage premiums increase with workers' experience. The hypothesis is tested using a merged sample of 1997 - 1999 manpower utilization survey data from a newly industrialized economy - Taiwan. The findings show support for the effect of ISHC.

Documenting reproduction and inequality : revisiting Jean Anyon’s “Social class and school knowledge”

Jean Anyon’s (1981) “Social class and school knowledge” was a landmark work in North American educational research. It provided a richly detailed qualitative description of differential, social-class-based constructions of knowledge and epistemological stance. This essay situates Anyon’s work in two parallel traditions of critical educational research: the sociology of the curriculum and classroom interaction and discourse analysis. It argues for the renewed importance of both quantitative and qualitative research on social reproduction and equity in the current policy context.

Action research for contexts of change and inequality

Undoubtedly, the past half-century has witnessed an escalation of changes in the social, political, economic and educational structures in many societies around the world. Some have seen change as a challenge and hope while, for many others, it is a source of concern and worry. Some have adopted change with gusto, while for many it is something to be resisted. Some say we live in a world and times with an increasing awareness that “times are changing”, while for some “the more things change, the more they stay the same”.