The Intervention Paradox: A Study of the Effects of International Monetary Fund Intervention on Ineq
Summary: "This presentation seeks to analyze the impact that International Monetary Fund (IMF) policy prescriptions have had on income inequality after the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis (AFC). The consensus in the academic literature is that the IMF's intervention in crisis-hit countries widens the distribution of income. This theory's validity in the AFC context will be tested using the Difference-in-Difference methodology. According to my empirical results, inequality falls,
The Determinants of Education Loans: Evidence from the 2013 Survey of Consumer Finances
The Point: This empirical analysis explores the household characteristics that predict the presence, magnitude, and deferral of education loans. By conducting regression analyses on the Survey of Consumer Finances, we interpret how education debt relates to a variety of factors in covariate classes of Education; Demographics; Spending Behavior and Accounts; as well as Employment, Income, and Wealth. We find that several household characteristics have significant relationship
Dual-Polarization Box and Economic Regimes
Summary: The present study has the objective to compare different capitalist
systems by focusing on specific distributional features of the latter.
Particularly, the distribution of income sources, notably of profits and wages,
as well as the distribution of total consumption and savings across the
population will be considered. In order to make the analysis possible, the
article hinges on a recent work by Ranaldi (2017a, 2017b) on the distribution
of functional income.
Movements against Economic Inequality under Twenty-First Century Capitalism
Questions: Now that inequality in the U.S. has returned to levels not seen since The Gilded Age and the country has experienced another financial crisis, why have there not been equivalent reforms? What are the issues facing social movements against inequality in the U.S.? The Point: This essay reveals that while there is no shortage of policy reform ideas for addressing inequality, there is not yet a strong enough social movement against economic inequality to elicit their
Party ideology and policies where corruption is widespread: evidence from local governments
The Point: This paper studies the effect of mayors aligned with a centre left presidential
coalition on policy outcomes and corruption. I use Regression Discontinuity Design in
Brazilian municipal elections for two mayoral terms, from 2001 to 2008. Results indicate that municipalities aligned with the president’s coalition
receives more transfers but are not more corrupt and allocate resources differently. Therefore,
even in the context of institutional fragility and corr
Same Education, different labour market?
The Point: This paper analyzes the direct effect of social origin on the labour market outcomes of
graduates in Italy. While there are studies that scrutinize the effect of social origins on the
labour market outcomes of highly educated individuals, a major challenge for these studies
lies in the measurement of education. This paper improves previous studies by using a more
detailed measure of education that considers both the vertical (degree type) and horizontal
(field
Income inequality and income segregation: the case of metropolitan Lima
The Point: Research on inequality should seek to discover the structures that prevent people
from leading the kind of life they ‘have reason to value’, and the problem with inequality is
that many people do not have this option (Sen 2006: 35). One of the most neglected structures that prevent people from leading the kind of life they
‘have reason to value’ is spatial segregation, especially when the average income of one’s
neighbors (in)directly affects one’s own social,
Disentangling women's participation in research and its relation to economic development
Summary: It is generally argued that employment is gendered biased. Women not only are
underrepresented in the paid labour force, but they are also over-represented in certain types
of jobs. Moreover, their proportion tends to be lower in higher positions and they are affected
by gender wage gaps (Rubery and Grimshaw,2015). The literature has also argued about the existence of gender disparities in research. These
inequalities are reflected in that they have less possibil
Beyond Kuznets: Inequality and the size and distribution of cities
The Point: One major characteristic of the process of economic development is the movement of people from rural to urban areas. As a result, the percentage of population living in urban areas (the rate of urbanization) increases, with economic development usually going hand-to-hand with urbanization. According to classical theories (i.e., Lewis 1954; Kuznets 1955), this process is related to economy-wide inequality in a non-linear way: inequality first increases, as countries
The Impact of a Carbon Tax on Inequality in the United States
The Question: Does a carbon tax necessarily exacerbate existing inequality? The Point: Climate change and economic inequality are inextricably linked. Without substantial action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, research finds that climate change will disproportionately harm the poor both within the United States and around the world. Meanwhile, policies to curb greenhouse gas emissions and address climate change can amplify existing inequalities. Despite widespread agreem
