"Croatian Wage Inequality and Wage Differentials, 1970-2008: Measurement and Determinants"

We use newly-available data on income by educational and vocational attainment and grouped income-interval data to examine wage inequality and wage differentials in Croatia between 1970 and 2008. This is a time period during which Croatia experienced enormous institutional and structural change, including the fall of socialism, hyperinflation, the Homeland war and the creation of sovereign Croatia. We construct both Gini and Theil measures of inequality, using grouped data. We find a general compression of earnings differences by educational and vocational attainment, but with a slight increase in the capitalist period post-1990. The income interval data shows a clearer pattern of a secular increase in inequality that is sharper in the capitalist period. We also examine within-industry inequality to see whether industries that experienced stronger structural changes also experienced a greater increase in inequality. Our evidence on this is mixed.Croatia, Transition Economy Labor Markets, Inequality, Gini coefficient, Theil Index

The skewness of computer science

Computer science is a relatively young discipline combining science, engineering, and mathematics. The main flavors of computer science research involve the theoretical development of conceptual models for the different aspects of computing and the more applicative building of software artifacts and assessment of their properties. In the computer science publication culture, conferences are an important vehicle to quickly move ideas, and journals often publish deeper versions of papers already presented at conferences. These peculiarities of the discipline make computer science an original research field within the sciences, and, therefore, the assessment of classical bibliometric laws is particularly important for this field. In this paper, we study the skewness of the distribution of citations to papers published in computer science publication venues (journals and conferences). We find that the skewness in the distribution of mean citedness of different venues combines with the asymmetry in citedness of articles in each venue, resulting in a highly asymmetric citation distribution with a power law tail. Furthermore, the skewness of conference publications is more pronounced than the asymmetry of journal papers. Finally, the impact of journal papers, as measured with bibliometric indicators, largely dominates that of proceeding papers.Comment: I applied the goodness-of-fit methodology proposed in: A. Clauset, C. R. Shalizi, M. E. J. Newman. Power-law distributions in empirical data. SIAM Review 51, 661-703 (2009

A note on poverty, inequality and growth

How inequality is generated and how it reproduces over time? This has been a major concern of social scientists for more than a century. The changes in aggregate or average income is a good measure for economic growth but is far from being the only one. There is an increasing “inequality” throughout the world. Over the period 1960-2000, the richest 5 % of the world’s nations averaged a per-capita income that was about twenty-nine times the corresponding figure for the poorest 5 %. Poverty also affects other forms of economic and social functioning. The measurement of poverty is based on the notion of poverty line, which is constructed from monetary estimates of minimum needs. Poverty is highly correlated with the lack of education, and there is an intimate connection between nutrition and poverty. The measurement of inequality is a highly controversial one. It is a field in which there are large differences in social judgments, which translate themselves into differences in social judgments, such as the measure of inequality or the choice of equivalence scale. Social and Economic indicators demonstrate the data for the population based measures on economic, social and health outcomes and answer the question about inequality and well being. This article attempts to examine the relationship between inequality and the process of socio-economic development and also to overview the theories of income inequality and to measure the income distribution and moreover to investigate the role and the effects on socio-economic growth. Keywords: Income distribution, inequality, poverty, convergence, growth.

Remittances and Inequality

The impact of remittances on inequality is uncertain a priori. However, at the margin, remittances are likely to be more inequality increasing (or less inequality decreasing) in poorer as opposed to richer areas. This is suggested with a simple theoretical model, and tested empirically using survey-based estimates of the Gini income elasticity of remittances in Honduras. The results are robust to alternative distribution weights used for measuring inequality.Migration, Remittances, Income Distribution.

The Experience of Rising Inequality in Russia and China during the Transition

This paper examines the changes in regional and sectoral inequality that accompanied economic transformation in Russia and China throughout the 1990s. The experiences of the two countries are widely viewed as having been polar opposites. While the Soviet collapse had adverse consequences for many parts of the post-Soviet population, the Chinese experience produced a continuing rise of average living standards. Nevertheless, both countries experienced a drastic increase in economic inequality. In both cases, regional inequalities rose more sharply than inequalities across sectors but within regions. In particular, major urban centers gained dramatically relative to the hinterlands. Also, in Russia as in China, those sectors exercising the largest degrees of monopoly power gained the most (or lost the least) in relative terms. In both countries, the respective position of finance improved greatly, while that of agriculture declined. The decline of agriculture in China, however, was not as precipitous as in Russia, and certain sectors, such as education and science, maintained their position in China in a way that was not possible for them in Russia.Inequality; Russia; China; Provinces; Sectors

Remittances, Inequality and Poverty: Evidence from Rural Mexico

Economic research has produced conflicting findings on the distributional impacts of migrant remittances, and there has been little research on the effects of changes in remittances on poverty. This paper utilizes new data from the Mexico National Rural Household Survey, together with inequality and poverty decomposition techniques, to explore the impacts of remittances on rural inequality and poverty. Our findings suggest that remittances from international migrants become more equalizing (or less unequalizing), as well as more effective at reducing poverty, as the prevalence of migration increases.Labor and Human Capital,

Millennium Development Goal 7: An Assessment of Progress With Respect to Water and Sanitation: Legacy, Synergy, Complacency or Policy?

MDGs, water, sanitation, access

Inequality and Unemployment in a Global Economy

This paper develops a new framework for examining the distributional consequences of international trade that incorporates firm and worker heterogeneity, search and matching frictions in the labor market, and screening of workers by firms. Larger firms pay higher wages and exporters pay higher wages than non-exporters. The opening of trade enhances wage inequality and raises unemployment, but expected welfare gains are ensured if workers are risk neutral. And while wage inequality is larger in a trade equilibrium than in autarky, reductions of trade impediments can either raise or reduce wage inequality.Wage Inequality, International Trade, Risk, Unemployment