Income, inequality, and criteria air pollutants in the CAMA counties

Socioeconomic factors have long been incorporated into environmental research to examine the effects of human dimensions on coastal natural resources. Boyce (1994) proposed that inequality is a cause of environmental degradation and the Environmental Kuznets Curve is a proposed relationship that income or GDP per capita is related with initial increases in pollution followed by subsequent decreases (Torras and Boyce, 1998). To further examine this relationship within the CAMA counties, the emission of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, as measured by the EPA in terms of tons emitted, the Gini Coefficient, and income per capita were examined for the year of 1999. A quadratic regression was utilized and the results did not indicate that inequality, as measured by the Gini Coefficient, was significantly related to the level of criteria air pollutants within each county. Additionally, the results did not indicate the existence of the Environmental Kuznets Curve. Further analysis of spatial autocorrelation using ArcMap 9.2, found a high level of spatial autocorrelation among pollution emissions indicating that relation to other counties may be more important to the level of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions than income per capita and inequality. Lastly, the paper concludes that further Environmental Kuznets Curve and income inequality analyses in regards to air pollutant levels incorporate spatial patterns as well as other explanatory variables. (PDF contains 4 pages)

Análisis de la desigualdad económica en los municipios del País Vasco agrupados por tamaño de la población. Economic Inequality in the municipalities of the Basque Country aggregated by population size.

This paper analyses the economic inequality in the municipalities of the Basque Country during the period 1996 and 2010. We have used dates from the Udalmap database mainly the GDP per capita. We have drawn Lorenz Curves and also we have computed Gini indexes to analyse the evolution of inequality during this period. Therefore, we have concluded that there has been an increase of the economic inequality in the municipalities of the Basque Country during this period of time.

Income tax progressivity, growth, income inequality and welfare

This paper analyzes the effects of personal income tax progressivity on long-run economic growth, income inequality and social welfare. The quantitative implications of income tax progressivity increments are illustrated for the US economy under three main headings: individual effects (reduced labor supply and savings, and increased dispersion of tax rates); aggregate effects (lower GDP growth and lower income inequality); and welfare effects (lower dispersion of consumption across individuals and higher leisure levels, but also lower growth of future consumption). The social discount factor proves to be crucial for this third effect: a higher valuation of future generations' well-being requires a lower level of progressivity. Additionally, if tax revenues are used to provide a public good rather than just being discarded, a higher private valuation of such public goods will also call for a lower level of progressivity.

International evidence on the payout ratio, earnings, dividends and returns

ap Gwilym, Owain, et al., 'International evidence on the payout ratio, earnings, dividends and returns', Financial Analysts Journal (2006) 62(1) pp.36-53 RAE2008

Initial losses, corporate governance and earnings management

This thesis examines the relationship between initial loss events and the corporate governance and earnings management behaviour of these firms. This is done using four years of corporate governance information spanning the report of an initial loss for companies listed on the UK Stock Exchange. An industry- and sizematched control sample is used in a difference-in-difference analysis to isolate the impact of the initial loss event during the period. It is reported that, in general, an initial loss motivates an improvement in corporate governance in those loss firms where a relative weakness existed prior to the loss and that these changes mainly occur before the initial loss is announced. Firms with stronger (i.e. better quality) corporate governance have less need to alter it in response to the loss. It is also reported that initial loss firms use positive abnormal accruals in the year before the loss in an attempt to defer/avoid the loss — the weaker corporate governance the more likely is it that loss firms manage earnings in this manner. Abnormal accruals are also found to be predictive of an initial loss and when used as a conditioning variable, the quality of corporate governance is an important mitigating factor in this regard. Once the loss is reported, loss firms unwind these abnormal accruals although no evidence of big-bath behaviour is found. The extent to which these abnormal accruals are subsequently unwound are also found to be a function of both the quality of corporate governance as well as the severity of the initial loss.

Between respectability and disgrace: schismogenesis and the regeneration of inequality, stigma and social exclusion in Limerick

The thesis examines cultural processes underpinning the emergence, institutionalisation and reproduction of class boundaries in Limerick city. The research aims to bring a new understanding to the contemporary context of the city’s urban regeneration programme. Acknowledging and recognising other contemporary studies of division and exclusion, the thesis creates a distinctive approach which focuses on uncovering the cultural roots of inequality, educational disadvantage, stigma and social exclusion and the dynamics of their social reproduction. Using Bateson’s concept of schismogenesis (1953), the thesis looks to the persistent, but fragmented culture of community and develops a heuristic ‘symbolic order of the city’. This is defined as “…a cultural structure, the meaning making aspect of hierarchy, the categorical structures of world understanding, the way Limerick people understand themselves, their local and larger world” (p. 37). This provides a very different departure point for exploring the basis for urban regeneration in Limerick (and everywhere). The central argument is that if we want to understand the present (multiple) crises in Limerick we need to understand the historical, anthropological and recursive processes underpinning ‘generalised patterns of rivalry and conflict’. In addition to exploring the historical roots of status and stigma in Limerick, the thesis explores the mythopoesis of persistent, recurrent narratives and labels that mark the boundaries of the city’s identities. The thesis examines the cultural and social function of ‘slagging’ as a vernacular and highly particularised form of ironic, ritualised and, often, ‘cruel’ medium of communication (often exclusion). This is combined with an etymology of the vocabulary of Limerick slang and its mythological base. By tracing the origins of many normalised patterns of Limerick speech ‘sayings’, which have long since forgotten their roots, the thesis demonstrates how they perform a significant contemporary function in maintaining and reinforcing symbolic mechanisms of inclusion/exclusion. The thesis combines historical and archival data with biographical interviews, ethnographic data married to a deep historical hermeneutic analysis of this political community.

Nations' income inequality predicts ambivalence in stereotype content: How societies mind the gap

Income inequality undermines societies: The more inequality, the more health problems, social tensions, and the lower social mobility, trust, life expectancy. Given people's tendency to legitimate existing social arrangements, the stereotype content model (SCM) argues that ambivalence-perceiving many groups as either warm or competent, but not both-may help maintain socio-economic disparities. The association between stereotype ambivalence and income inequality in 37 cross-national samples from Europe, the Americas, Oceania, Asia, and Africa investigates how groups' overall warmth-competence, status-competence, and competition-warmth correlations vary across societies, and whether these variations associate with income inequality (Gini index). More unequal societies report more ambivalent stereotypes, whereas more equal ones dislike competitive groups and do not necessarily respect them as competent. Unequal societies may need ambivalence for system stability: Income inequality compensates groups with partially positive social images. © 2012 The British Psychological Society.

Private equity, productivity and earnings

A detailed study in the USA shows that workers experience a relative fall in earnings after a takeover by private equity. Also, companies bought by private equity are at great risk of defaulting on their debts in the next 2 years.

Ambitious mothers – successful daughters: Mothers’ early expectations for children’s education and children’s earnings and sense of control in adult life

Background. Mothers' expectations for their children's educational attainment are related to children's educational and occupational attainment. Studies have yet to establish, however, the long-term links between maternal expectations and offspring earnings, which are not always related to occupational attainment especially in women, or between maternal expectations and offspring sense of control and self-efficacy, which are pivotal factors in career choice and development. Aims. To explore the role of mothers' expectations for their children's educational attainment in children's earnings attainment and sense of control later in life. Method. Data from sweeps of the 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70) were used. The study sample was those cohort members with complete information on all the variables of interest. The study sample (N = 3,285) was more educated and less disadvantaged than the whole sample. If cohort members of this type are more likely to have a mother who has high expectations, then our results are biased downwards, which suggests that we underestimate the effect of expectations on our two outcome variables. Results. Mothers' expectations at the age of 10 were positively related to daughters' sense of control at the age of 30 even after controlling for ethnicity, educational attainment, and concurrent partner, parent, and labour market participation status, as well as the following confounding variables (measured at the ages of 0–10): general ability and general ability squared, locus of control, emotional and behavioural problems and emotional and behavioural problems squared, socio-economic disadvantage, parental social class, parental family structure, and mothers' education, child-rearing attitudes, and mental health. Mothers' expectations had no effect on sons' adult outcomes. Conclusions. Given that women are particularly at risk for poor psychological and economic outcomes in adulthood, and that this study likely underestimated the effect of expectations on these two outcomes, this is an important conclusion.