1,721,248 research outputs found
New directions in the analysis of inequality and poverty
Full text linkOver the last four decades, academic and wider public interest in inequality and poverty has grown substantially. In this paper we address the question: what have been the major new directions in the analysis of inequality and poverty over the last thirty to forty years? We draw attention to developments under seven headings: changes in the extent of inequality and poverty, changes in the policy environment, increased scrutiny of the concepts of ‘poverty’ and inequality’ and the rise of multidimensional approaches, the use of longitudinal perspectives, an increase in availability of and access to data, developments in analytical methods of measurement, and developments in modelling
Indicators of progress: approaches to monitor the government's strategy to tackle poverty and social exclusion
No full textDonations for overseas development: evidence from a panel of UK charities
No full textWe model the determinants of donations made to UK overseas development charities using panel data on charities’ donation income covering a 25 year period. The paper starts by reviewing relevant theory and previous empirical work on donations to UK charities before outlining a framework in which donations are a function of fundraising, government grants, total household income, inequality in household income, disasters, Official Development Assistance, and unobserved fixed characteristics of charities. Models are estimated by the within groups estimator and also by Generalised Method of Moments (GMM). When using the GMM approach, fundraising and government grants are allowed to be endogenous. Fundraising has a powerful effect. Government grants appear to crowd in rather than crowd out donations. No impact is found from ODA. The hypothesis of a unitary income elasticity for donations cannot be rejected. Results are compared with those for non-development charities
Private donations for international development
No full textAs their Millennium Development Goals, world leaders have pledged by 2015 to halve the number of people living in extreme poverty and hunger, to achieve universal primary education, to reduce child mortality, to halt the spread of HIV/AIDS, and to halve the number of people without safe drinking water. Achieving these goals requires a large increase in the flow of financial resources to developing countries - double the present development assistance from abroad.Examining innovative ways to secure these resources, this book sets out a framework for the economic analysis of different sources of funding, applying the tools of modern public economics to identify the key issues. It examines the role of new sources of overseas aid, considers the fiscal architecture and the lessons that can be learned from federal fiscal systems, asks how far increased transfers impose a burden on donors, and investigates how far one can separate raising resources from their use.In turn, the book examines global environmental taxes (such as a carbon tax) the taxation of currency transactions (the Tobin tax), a development-focused allocation of Special Drawing Rights by the IMF, the UK Government proposal for an International Finance Facility, increased private donations for development purposes, a global lottery (or premium bond), and increased remittances by emigrants. In each case, it considers the feasibility of the proposal and the resources that it can realistically raise. In each case, it offers new perspectives and insights into these new and controversial proposals
Income distribution, economic systems, and transition
No full textDistributional issues may not have always been among the main concerns of the economic profession. Today, in the beginning of the 2000s, the position is different. During the last quarter of a century, economic growth proved to be unsteady and rather slow on average. The situation of those at the bottom ceased to improve regularly as in the preceding fast growth and full-employment period. Europe has seen prolonged unemployment and there has been widening wage dispersion in a number of OECD countries. Rising affluence in rich countries coexists, in a number of such countries, with the persistence of poverty. As a consequence, it is difficult nowadays to think of an issue ranking high in the public economic debate without some strong explicit distributive implications. Monetary policy, fiscal policy, taxes, monetary or trade union, privatisation, price and competition regulation, the future of the Welfare State are all issues which are now often perceived as conflictual because of their strong redistributive content.Economists have responded quickly to the renewed general interest in distribution, and the contents of this Handbook are very different from those which would have been included had it been written ten or twenty years ago. It has now become common to have income distribution variables playing a pivotal role in economic models. The recent interest in the relationship between growth and distribution is a good example of this. The surge of political economy in the contemporary literature is also a route by which distribution is coming to re-occupy the place it deserves. Within economics itself, the development of models of imperfect information and informational asymmetries have not only provided a means of resolving the puzzle as to why identical workers get paid different amounts, but have also caused reconsideration of the efficiency of market outcomes. These models indicate that there may not necessarily be an efficiency/equity trade-off; it may be possible to make progress on both fronts. The introduction and subsequent 14 chapters of this Handbook cover in detail all these new developments, insisting at the same time on how they tie with the previous literature on income distribution. The overall perspective is intentionally broad. As with landscapes, adopting various points of view on a given issue may often be the only way of perceiving its essence or reality. Accordingly, income distribution issues in the various chapters of this volume are considered under their theoretical or their empirical side, under a normative or a positive angle, in connection with redistribution policy, in a micro or macro-economic context, in different institutional settings, at various point of space, in a historical or contemporaneous perspective. Specialized readers will go directly to the chapter dealing with the issue or using the approach they are interested in. For them, this Handbook will be a clear and sure reference. To more patient readers who will go through various chapters of this volume, this Handbook should provide the multi-faceted view that seems necessary for a deep understanding of most issues in the field of distribution
Charitable bequests and wealth at death in Great Britain
No full textCharitable bequests are a major source of income for charities. But surprisingly little is known in Britain about them. We review the small British and larger US literatures and then consider how best to model the decision to make a charitable bequest. We identify three stages: making a will, including a charity as a potential beneficiary, and bequeathing unconditionally. We then examine the evidence for Britain on each stage provided by data on individual estates. The data cover the population of estates that passed through probate – about a quarter of a million estates from a 12 month period. We focus on the relationship with wealth at death, on geographic differences, and on the different causes to which people bequeath
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