Has the relation between income inequality and life expectancy disappeared? Evidence from Italy and top industrialised countries

Objective: To investigate the relation between income inequality and life expectancy in Italy and across wealthy nations.Design and setting: Measure correlation between income inequality and life expectancy at birth within Italy and across the top 21 wealthy countries. Pearson correlation coefficients were calculated to study these relations. Multivariate linear regression was used to measure the association between income inequality and life expectancy at birth adjusting for per capita income, education, and/or per capita gross domestic product.Data sources: Data on the Gini coefficient ( income inequality), life expectancy at birth, per capita income, and educational attainment for Italy came from the surveys on Italian household on income and wealth 1995-2000 and the National Institute of Statistics information system. Data for industrialised nations were taken from the United Nations Development Program's human development indicators database 2003.Results: In Italy, income inequality (beta = -0.433; p 0.05). In cross national analyses, income inequality had a strong negative correlation with life expectancy at birth (r =-0.864; p < 0.001).Conclusions: In Italy, a country where health care and education are universally available, and with a strong social safety net, income inequality had an independent and more powerful effect on life expectancy at birth than did per capita income and educational attainment. Italy had a moderately high degree of income inequality and an average life expectancy compared with other wealthy countries. The cross national analyses showed that the relation between income inequality and population health has not disappeared

Danish Aid Policy:Theory and Empirical Evidence

This paper is a study of Danish aid policy from the early 1960s to 1995. It includes (i) a review of officially stated aims and criteria, (ii) a descriptive analysis of actual behaviour in international comparative perspective, (iii) a review of the theoretical and empirical aid allocation literature, and (iv) a series of panel data regressions to further explore how Danish bilateral aid was, in actual fact, distributed country-by-country. A theoretical model explaining how the allocation process took place is also formulated. It underpins the empirical analysis from which it transpires that a two step model is a useful way of analysing Danish aid allocations. The first step is whether to select a country or not, and the second involves the decision of how much aid to commit. The empirical analysis demonstrates that Danish aid has been guided in both steps by officially stated aims and criteria in an expected and statistically significant manner although a clear Eastern and Southern Africa bias was found. Another general result is that the relative weights of the explanatory variables have varied both from year-to-year and between sub-periods

Analysis service on student satisfaction with motivation as moderating variable

Purpose: The main aim of this study is to examine the influence of service quality (HEdPERF Model) on student satisfaction with motivation as moderating variable. Design/Methodology/Approach: The sample consists of 210 non-traditional students from the post graduate program of Mercu Buana University Jakarta, from 6 Master's degree programs. The technique of data analysis used to test the hypotheses models were Structural Equation Model (SEM) with Linear Structural Model (LISREL) version 8.80. Findings: The result of all hypotheses testing showed the empirical data to be fitted quite well. The structural relationship between the variables may be summarized as follows: (1) There is a positive and significant influence of academic aspect on student satisfaction with motivation as moderating variable; (2) There is no influence of non-academic aspect on student satisfaction with motivation as moderating variable; (3) There is a positive and significant influence of access on student satisfaction with motivation as moderating variable; (4) There is a positive and significant influence of program issue on student satisfaction with motivation as moderating variable; (5) There is no influence of reputation on student satisfaction with motivation as moderating variable. Practical implications: Since the academic aspect, non-academic aspect, access, program issue, reputation and motivation simultaneously influence student satisfaction the results of the study can be used accordingly. Originality/Value: The article proposed certain issues for the universities to improve programs such as quality, variability, structure, delivery of teaching and flexibility of time.peer-reviewe

Is Rising Inequality Unavoidable in a Globalizing Economy Characterized by Rapid Technical Change?

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Poor people in rich countries : the roles of global governance

Connections between global governance and poverty are usually made in relation to what are loosely called ‘poor countries’ of the ‘global south’. However, global governance also significantly shapes dynamics of impoverishment in ‘rich countries’ of the ‘global north’. These impacts become the more apparent when global governance is understood to involve not only well-known intergovernmental agencies such as the United Nations and the World Trade Organisation, but also additional institutional forms such as transgovernmental networks and private regulatory mechanisms. This broad complex of global governance has often exacerbated poverty in the global north: e.g., through neglect of the issue; through marginalisation of the people affected; and through the promotion of neoliberal policy frames. At the same time, global governance has in other ways also promoted poverty alleviation in ‘high-income countries’: e.g., with rules that work in their structural favour; with policy learning; with rights discourses; and with some promotion of global-scale social democracy. Thus the challenge for efforts to reduce poverty in the global north is, on the one hand, to counter the negative implications of global governance and, on the other hand, to nurture the positive forces. Global coalitions of anti-poverty campaigners – in particular across north-south lines – could especially serve these politics

Income inequality: should we worry about global trends

Neoclassical economics has long neglected the subject of income inequality, as compared to poverty and economic growth. This neglect has multiple motivations, but the bottom line is well expressed by Willem Buiter (2007), former professor of European Economics at the London School of Economics and currently chief economist of the Citigroup banking conglomerate: ‘Poverty bothers me