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on Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty |
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Issue of 2008‒09‒05
five papers chosen by |
| By: | Kristin Kleinjans (School of Economics and Management, University of Aarhus, Denmark) |
| Abstract: | Occupational segregation by gender is prevalent and can explain some of the gender wage gap. I empirically investigate a possible explanation for this segregation: the gender difference in preferences for competition, which in recent experimental studies has been found to affect economic outcomes. I find that women’s greater distaste for competition decreases educational achievement. It can also explain part of the gender segregation in occupational fields. Specifically, accounting for distaste for competition reduces gender segregation in the fields of Law, Business & Management, Health, and Education. |
| Keywords: | competition, gender differences, occupational choice, expectations |
| JEL: | D84 J24 J16 I21 |
| Date: | 2008–09–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aah:aarhec:2008-09&r=ltv |
| By: | Olympia Bover (Banco de España) |
| Abstract: | La EFF recoge información detallada sobre las rentas, los activos, las deudas, el consumo y algunas variables demográficas de los hogares. Una característica importante de esta encuesta es que incorpora un sobremuestreo de los hogares con mayor nivel de riqueza. Otro aspecto importante de la EFF es que la segunda ola tiene un componente de panel completo que proporciona información estadística sobre transiciones entre estados y cambios individuales en las variables. El objetivo de este trabajo es utilizar los datos del panel de la EFF2002-2005 para describir los cambios en la renta, la tenencia de activos y la riqueza de los hogares entre finales de 2002 y 2005. |
| Keywords: | riqueza, renta, distribución de cambios, probabilidades de transición, desigualdad, movilidad |
| JEL: | C81 D31 |
| Date: | 2008–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bde:opaper:0810&r=ltv |
| By: | Chen, Shaohua; Ravallion, Martin |
| Abstract: | The paper presents a major overhaul to the World Bank's past estimates of global poverty, incorporating new and better data. Extreme poverty-as judged by what "poverty" means in the world's poorest countries-is found to be more pervasive than we thought. Yet the data also provide robust evidence of continually declining poverty incidence and depth since the early 1980s. For 2005 we estimate that 1.4 billion people, or one quarter of the population of the developing world, lived below our international line of $1.25 a day in 2005 prices; 25 years earlier there were 1.9 billion poor, or one half of the population. Progress was uneven across regions. The poverty rate in East Asia fell from 80% to under 20 percent over this period. By contrast it stayed at around 50 percent in Sub-Saharan Africa, though with signs of progress since the mid 1990s. Because of lags in survey data availability, these estimates do not yet reflect the sharp rise in food prices since 2005. |
| Keywords: | Achieving Shared Growth; Rural Poverty Reduction; Population Policies; Services & Transfers to Poor |
| Date: | 2008–08–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4703&r=ltv |
| By: | Paul Allanson; Ulf-G Gerdtham; Dennis Petrie |
| Abstract: | This paper considers the characterisation and measurement of income-related health inequality using longitudinal data. The paper elucidates the nature of the Jones and Lopez Nicholas (2004) index of “health-related income mobility” and explains the negative values of the index that have been reported in all the empirical applications to date. The paper further questions the value of their index to health policymakers and proposes an alternative index of “income-related health mobility” that measures whether the pattern of health changes is biased in favour of those with initially high or low incomes. We illustrate our work by investigating mobility in the General Health Questionnaire measure of psychological well-being over the first nine waves of the British Household Panel Survey from 1991 to 1999. |
| Keywords: | income-related health inequality, mobility analysis, longitudinal data |
| JEL: | D39 D63 I18 |
| Date: | 2008–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dun:dpaper:214&r=ltv |
| By: | Betsey Stevenson; Justin Wolfers |
| Abstract: | The "Easterlin paradox" suggests that there is no link between a society's economic development and its average level of happiness. We re-assess this paradox analyzing multiple rich datasets spanning many decades. Using recent data on a broader array of countries, we establish a clear positive link between average levels of subjective well-being and GDP per capita across countries, and find no evidence of a satiation point beyond which wealthier countries have no further increases in subjective well-being. We show that the estimated relationship is consistent across many datasets and is similar to the relationship between subject well-being and income observed within countries. Finally, examining the relationship between changes in subjective well-being and income over time within countries we find economic growth associated with rising happiness. Together these findings indicate a clear role for absolute income and a more limited role for relative income comparisons in determining happiness. |
| JEL: | D6 I3 J1 |
| Date: | 2008–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14282&r=ltv |