"A Note on the Hicksian Concept of Income"

Empirical studies of intertemporal dynamics of individual income, distribution of personal income, and growth and distribution of national income are all based on statistics that rely on some concept of income. The dominant one today appears to be the so-called Haig-Simons-Hicks (HSH) concept of income. I examine the foundations of this concept in Hicks�s Value and Capital and conclude that there is nothing "Hicksian" about the HSH concept of income. Furthermore, I argue that Hicks�s failure to distinguish between definition and calculation, and the consequent lack of adequate ex post concepts, make it impossible for his income definitions to serve as a basis for income accounting.

"The Levy Institute Measure of Economic Well-Being, Great Britain, 1995 and 2005"

Forty-five years ago, the A. Philip Randolph Institute issued "The Freedom Budget," in which a program for economic transformation was proposed that included a job guarantee for everyone ready and willing to work, a guaranteed income for those unable to work or those who should not be working, and a living wage to lift the working poor out of poverty. Such policies were supported by a host of scholars, civic leaders, and institutions, including the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; indeed, they provided the cornerstones for King's "Poor Peoples' Campaign" and "economic bill of rights." This paper proposes a "New Freedom Budget" for full employment based on the principles of functional finance. To counter a major obstacle to such a policy program, the paper includes a "primer" on three paradigms for understanding government budget deficits and the national debt: the deficit hawk, deficit dove, and functional finance perspectives. Finally, some of the benefits of the job guarantee are outlined, including the ways in which the program may serve as a vehicle for a variety of social policies.Unemployment; Full Employment; Budget Deficits; National Debt; Public Policy

"Testing Profit Rate Equalization in the U.S. Manufacturing Sector: 1947-1998"

Long-run differentials in interindustrial profitability are relevant for several areas of theoretical and applied economics because they characterize the overall nature of competition in a capitalist economy. This paper argues that the existing empirical models of competition in the industrial organization literature suffer from serious flaws. An alternative framework, based on recent advances in the econometric modeling of the long run, is developed for estimating the size of long-run profit rate differentials. It is shown that this framework generates separate, industry-specific estimates of two potential components of long-run profit rate differentials identified in economic theory. One component, the noncompetitive differential, stems from factors that do not depend directly on the state of competition; these factors are generally characterized as risk and other premia. The other component, the competitive differential, is due to factors that depend directly on the state of competition (factors such as degree of concentration and economies of scale). Estimates provided here show that during the period under study, the group of industries with statistically insignificant competitive differentials accounted for 72 percent of manufacturing profits and 75 percent of manufacturing capital stock, which is interpreted as lending support to the theories of competition advanced by the classical economists and their modern followers.

"The Measurement of Time and Income Poverty"

Official poverty thresholds are based on the implicit assumption that the household with poverty-level income possesses sufficient time for household production to enable it to reproduce itself as a unit. Several authors have questioned the validity of the assumption and explored alternative methods to account for time deficits in the measurement of poverty. I critically review the alternative approaches within a unified framework to highlight the commonalities and relative merits of individual approaches. I also propose a two-dimensional, time-income poverty measure that accounts for intrahousehold disparities in the division of household labor and briefly discuss its uses in thinking about antipoverty policies.Time Poverty; Household Production; Gender Disparities

"Gender Disparities in Employment and Aggregate Profitability in the United States"

This paper explores the relationships between aggregate profitability and women's labor market participation in the United States during the 1980s and 1990s. We investigate, using decomposition analysis, whether the contribution of the stagnant or declining share of wages in national income to the upswing in profitability was aided by the growing incorporation of women into employment. Comparisons are made between counterfactual and actual wage shares to assess the relative contributions of gender wage disparity and female share of employment to the changes in the wage share. Additionally, we decompose the change in wage share into distributional changes within sectors and changes in the sectoral composition of aggregate value added to examine whether the effects of gender wage disparity and female share of employment on the aggregate wage share were dominated by the effects of compositional changes.

"Caste and Wealth Inequality in India"

In this paper, we conduct the novel exercise of analyzing the relationship between overall wealth inequality and caste divisions in India using nationally representative surveys on household wealth conducted during 1991–92 and 2002–03. According to our findings, the groups in India that are generally considered disadvantaged (known as Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes) have, as one would expect, substantially lower wealth than the "forward" caste groups, while the Other Backward Classes and non-Hindus occupy positions in the middle. Using the ANOGI decomposition technique, we estimate that between-caste inequality accounted for about 13 percent of overall wealth inequality in 2002–03, in part due to the considerable heterogeneity within the broadly defined caste groups. The stratification parameters indicate that the forward caste Hindus overlap little with the other caste groups, while the latter have significantly higher degrees of overlap with one another and with the overall population. Using this method, we are also able to comment on the emergence and strengthening of a "creamy layer," or relatively well-off group, among the disadvantaged castes, especially the Scheduled Tribes.

"Household Wealth and the Measurement of Economic Well-Being in the United States"

The standard official measure of household economic well-being in the United States is gross money income. The general consensus is that such measures are limited because they ignore other crucial determinants of well-being. We modify the standard measure to account for one such determinant: household wealth. We then analyze the level and distribution of economic well-being in the United States during the 1980s and 1990s, using the standard measure and a measure that differs from the standard in that income from wealth is calculated as the sum of lifetime annuity from nonhome wealth and imputed rental-equivalent for owner-occupied homes. Our findings indicate that the level and distribution of economic well-being is substantially altered when money income is adjusted for wealth. Over the 1989Ð2000 period, median well-being appears to increase faster when these adjustments are made than when standard money income is used. This adjustment also widens the income gap between African Americans and whites, but increases the relative well-being of the elderly. Adding imputed rent and annuities from household wealth to household income considerably increases measured inequality and the share of income from wealth in inequality. However, both measures show about the same rise in inequality over the period. Our results contradict the assertion that the Òworking richÓ have replaced the rentiers at the top of the economic ladder.

"The Social Wage, Welfare Policy, and the Phases of Capital Accumulation"

This paper addresses two broad questions. The first one relates to the economic rationale for the existence of the welfare state. To address this question, we review the marginalist arguments and then counterpose a historical and institutional analysis of the rise of the U.S. welfare state. The second question concerns the macroeconomic impacts of welfare spending. We examine the standard neoclassical macroeconomic arguments for and against welfare cutbacks and then propose an alternative growth framework, rooted in the classical and Harrodian traditions, to evaluate social policy. We argue that the alternative framework provides both demand-side and supply-side mechanisms whereby social spending can be supported without harmful long-run macroeconomic effects. Our analysis suggests that, in general, because growth and crises are endogenous, there may be no tension between social policy and economic performance. Specifically, the recent cutbacks in the U.S. are hard to justify on purely economic grounds.

"The Levy Institute Measure of Economic Well-Being"

Our measure of economic well-being is motivated by the conviction that there is substantial room for improving existing official measures of the level and distribution of household economic well-being. The definition of the scope of our measure is guided by an extended concept of income that fundamentally reflects the resources that a household can command for facilitating current consumption or acquiring financial and physical assets. In the contemporary United States, three main institutions--markets, the government, and the household--mediate such command. The measure therefore attempts to integrate the following components: money income, wealth, noncash transfers from the business and government sectors, some forms of public consumption, and household production. We discuss conceptual issues relevant to each of the components and outline an approach for combining them.

The Levy Institute Measure of Economic Well-Being United States, 1989-2001

The picture of economic well-being depends crucially on how it is measured. We introduce a new measure of economic well-being that includes public consumption, income from wealth, and household production. The differences in scope and method between our measure and standard income lead to substantially different findings regarding economic well-being. The average U.S. household appears to be much better off in 2001 relative to 1989 according to our measure in comparison to money income. In contrast to official measures, our measure shows that racial disparity increased. The increase in measured inequality was higher than indicated by the official measures.