Economic Reform And Income Distribution

First Published in 2017. Chapters include Economic Problems and Issues, Distribution of Wages, and Income.

First Published in 2017. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an Informa company.

The authors address the causes and consequences of the recent worsening of income distribution in Latin America.

"Public Policy and the Income Distribution tackles many of the most difficult and intriguing questions about how government intervention - or lack thereof - has affected the incomes of everyday Americans. The twentieth century was remarkable in the extent to which advances in public policy helped improve the economic well being of Americans. Synthesizing existing knowledge on the effectiveness of public policy and contributing valuable new research, Public Policy and the Income Distribution examines public policy's successes, and points out the areas in which progress remains to be made."--BOOK JACKET.

These case studies provide valuable insights into the difficulty of establishing answers to the fundamental question of why nations grow at different rates, with inequitable patterns of wealth and income distribution.

It is arguable that the most important event in the world economy in recent decades has been the rise of China, from being on a par with Sub Sahara Africa at the start of economic reform to being an economic superpower today. That rise remains under-researched. Moreover, the great structural changes which accompanied economic growth require examination. The nationally representative China Household Income Project (CHIP) surveys, conducted for the years 1988, 1995, 2002, 2007, 2013, and 2018, permit a detailed examination of many important aspects of a country's economic development. Much of the analysis of this Element is closely related to, and largely caused by, China's remarkable economic growth and income distribution over the thirty years. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

This is the second volume in the author's ongoing inquiry into the extent of income inequality in the East European socialist countries and the effect of market-oriented reforms on patterns of income distribution. Although there has been remarkably little empirical research on this question (in part because of the problem of obtaining reliable data), both proponents and opponents of reforms voice strong views on this subject, with both sides, however, tending to grant the assumption that decentralization and the increased use of market mechanisms will increase inequality. In this study as in the preceding volume, "Economic Reform and Income Distribution: A Case Study of Hungary and Poland", Henryk Flakierski undertakes a study of the data in order to shed light on this question - this time with reference to the most decentralized of the East European economics and the one in which marketization of the economy has been most advanced.

March 1998 Household survey data show income inequality increasing in post-reform rural China-but this may reflect methods used to process data rather than the real effect of structural changes on China's rural economy. Official tabulations from household survey data suggest rising income inequality in post-reform rural China, a trend of public concern. But the structural changes in China's rural economy have not been properly reflected in the methods used to process raw survey data. Using micro data for four provinces, Ravallion and Chen find that two-thirds of the conventionally measured increase in inequality in 1985-90 vanishes when market-based valuation methods are used and allowances are made for regional cost-of-living differences. The data revisions also suggest somewhat different explanations for rising inequality. Nonfarm income was secondary to grain production. While access to farm land was relatively equal, higher returns to land over time were inequality-increasing. But holding other factors constant, lower returns to physical capital reduced inequality over time, as did private transfers. This paper-a product of the Development Research Group-is part of a larger effort in the group to improve data on poverty and inequality in developing countries. The study was funded by the Bank's Research Support Budget under the research project Dynamics of Poverty in Rural China. Martin Ravallion may be contacted at [email protected].

Over the last forty years, rising national income has helped reduce poverty rates, but this has been accompanied by an increase in economic inequality. While these trends are largely attributed to technological change and demographic shifts, such as changing birth rates, labor force patterns, and immigration, public policies have also exerted a profound affect on the welfare of Americans. In Public Policy and the Income Distribution, editors Alan Auerbach, David Card, and John Quigley assemble a distinguished roster of policy analysts to confront the key questions about the role of government policy in altering the level and distribution of economic well being. Public Policy and the Income Distribution tackles many of the most difficult and intriguing questions about how government intervention—or lack thereof—has affected the incomes of everyday Americans. Rebecca Blank analyzes welfare reform, and presents systematic research on income, poverty rates, and welfare and labor force participation of single mothers. She finds that single mothers worked more and were less dependent on public assistance following welfare reform, and that low-skilled single mothers had no greater difficulty finding work than others. Timothy Smeeding compares poverty reduction programs in the United States with policies in other developed countries. Poverty and inequality are higher in the United States than in other advanced economies, but Smeeding argues that this is largely a result of policy choices. Poverty rates based on market incomes alone are actually lower in the United States than elsewhere, but government interventions in the United States were less than half as effective at reducing poverty as were programs in the other countries. The most dramatic poverty reduction story of twentieth century America was seen among the elderly, who went from being the age group most likely to live in poverty in the 1960s to the group least likely to be poor at the end of the century. Gary Englehardt and Jonathan Gruber examine the role of policy in alleviating old-age poverty by estimating the impact of Social Security benefits on the income of the elderly poor. They find that the growth in Social Security almost completely explains the large decline in elderly poverty in the United States The twentieth century was remarkable in the extent to which advances in public policy helped improve the economic well being of Americans. Synthesizing existing knowledge on the effectiveness of public policy and contributing valuable new research, Public Policy and the Income Distribution examines public policy's successes, and points out the areas in which progress remains to be made.