scholarly journals Inequality, Bipolarization, and Tax Progressivity

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 492-513
Author(s):  
Oriol Carbonell-Nicolau ◽  
Humberto Llavador

The steady rise in income and wealth inequality in the last four decades, together with the evolution of a vanishing middle class, has raised concerns about potentially pernicious effects of these trends on social stability and economic growth. This paper evaluates the possibility of designing tax systems aimed at reducing income inequality and bipolarization. Using two fundamentally different metrics, we provide a unified foundation of tax progressivity whereby, roughly, taxes are progressive if and only if they are inequality reducing; and taxes are inequality reducing if and only if they are bipolarization reducing. (JEL D31, H22, H24)

Author(s):  
Yue Chim Richard Wong

When nearly a quarter of GDP is redistributed through a rag bag of measures, one should expect poverty to have been considerably alleviated in these societies, if not totally eliminated. But this has not been the case. Income inequality in the West has not improved and, in fact, has worsened in recent decades. Sociologists, economists, and political scientists agree that an underclass exists in Western societies. For decades, this was believed to affect mostly “minorities,” but recent evidence shows that many in the mainstream middle class are descending into the underclass. The ability of income redistribution in alleviating poverty has its limits. Poverty alleviation has to be tackled through another front – economic growth.


Author(s):  
Mo Pak Hung

In this study, the empirical contents of various income inequality measures are compared under an identical framework with a well-tested data set. Our study suggests that long-term income inequality has a strong negative effect on Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth under different measurements. Moreover, governments should investigate further into changes in the income size of the middle class as an indicator for potential changes in social stability, investment, and GDP growth, besides focusing on the Gini coefficient, which they predominantly do now.


2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 60
Author(s):  
Nikolaos Papanikolaou

The paper examines tax progressivity and income inequality using Census Bureau Current Population Survey (CPS) personal income data. The Kakwani index is used to derive tax progressivity for All, Male, Female, White and African American personal wage income of CPS respondents, respectively. The tax progressivity results show a tax system that is partly progressive and mostly regressive. Due to its regressive nature, the tax system did not display tax progressivity for the entire period under analysis for personal wage income respondents as well as when broken-down by race and gender in the United States for years 1996 to 2011.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 1780
Author(s):  
Chima M. Menyelim ◽  
Abiola A. Babajide ◽  
Alexander E. Omankhanlen ◽  
Benjamin I. Ehikioya

This study evaluates the relevance of inclusive financial access in moderating the effect of income inequality on economic growth in 48 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) for the period 1995 to 2017. The findings using the Generalised Method of Moments (sys-GMM) technique show that inclusive financial access contributes to reducing inequality in the short run, contrary to the Kuznets curve. The result reveals a negative effect of financial access on the relationship between income inequality and economic growth. There is a positive net effect of inclusive financial access in moderating the impact of income inequality on economic growth. Given the need to achieve the Sustainable Development Targets in the sub-region, policymakers and other stakeholders of the economy must design policies and programmes that would enhance access to financial services as an essential mechanism to reduce income disparity and enhance sustainable economic growth.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 1038
Author(s):  
Atta Ullah ◽  
Zhao Kui ◽  
Saif Ullah ◽  
Chen Pinglu ◽  
Saba Khan

This study aims to determine the role of globalization, electronic government, financial development, concerning the moderation of institutional quality in reducing income inequality and poverty in One Belt One Road countries. The electronic government and regional integration of the economies of the One Belt One Road countries has increased globalization and can play a vital role in reducing income inequality and poverty. However, this globalization and digital transformation of government systems can only be beneficial in the presence of good institutional quality. The sample includes 64 One Belt One Road countries from 2003 to 2018. We employed a two-step system generalized method of moment (Sys-GMM) and a robustness check through Driscoll–Kraay standard errors regression. Our findings show that globalization, economic growth, e-government development, government expenditure, and inflation have a statistically significant and negative impact on income inequality and are key to eradicating income inequality and poverty. On the other hand, financial development, gross capital formation, and population size positively influence income inequality, which causes an increase in poverty and income inequality as financial development and population levels increase. Moderating variable institutional quality also positively impacts income inequality, which means that institutional quality in Belt and Road Countries is weak, as they are mostly developing countries that need to improve their systems. Moreover, the marginal effect also revealed that institutional quality has a corrective effect on the factors’ relationship with income inequality. Our findings endorse and conclude that globalization and e-government development improve economic growth and eradicate poverty and income inequality by boosting digitalization, investments, job creation, and wage increases for semi-skilled and unskilled human capital in Belt and Road countries. The sustainable utilization of financial and institutional resources plays a vital role in reducing income inequality and poverty in Belt and Road countries.


2011 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
GILLES LE GARREC

AbstractIn most industrial countries, public pension systems redistribute from workers to retired people, not from high-income to low-income earners. They are close actuarial fairness. However, they are not all equivalent. In particular, some pension benefits are linked to full lifetime average earnings, while others are only linked to partial earnings history. In the latter case, we then show in this article that an actuarially fair pay-as-you-go pension system can both reduce lifetime income inequality and enhance economic growth. We also shed light on the dilemma between inequality and economic growth in retirement systems: greater progressivity results in less lifetime inequlity but also less growth.


2009 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 138-147 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yi Jin

This paper develops a monetary endogenous growth model with capital and skill heterogeneity to analyze the relationship among inflation, growth, and income inequality. In the model inflation, growth, and inequality are jointly determined. We show that an increase in the long-run money growth rate raises inflation and reduces growth, but its effect on income inequality depends on the relative importance of the two types of heterogeneity. Inequality shrinks with the rise of inflation when capital heterogeneity dominates and enlarges when skill heterogeneity dominates. Therefore, our model supports a negative (positive) inflation–inequality relationship and a positive (negative) growth–inequality relationship when capital (skill) heterogeneity dominates. In any event, inflation and growth are negatively related.


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