Exploring the Impact of Trade and Investment on Income Inequality: A Cross-National Sectoral Analysis of the Developed Market Economy Countries

The central aim of this paper is to explore the relationship between international integration and domestic inequality in the developed market economy countries in the mid-1980s and early 1990s. The analysis examines two major modes of integration trade and direct foreign investment disaggregating each by economic sector and distinguishing between imports and exports, and inbound and outbound investment flows and stocks. The study finds few significant relationships between either trade or investment and any indicators of sectoral income distribution. The overall conclusion is that economic globalization is not a critically important factor explaining recent trends in income inequality in the Western world

Big sugar in southern Africa : rural development and the perverted potential of sugar/ethanol exports

This paper asks how investment in large-scale sugar cane production has contributed, and will contribute, to rural development in southern Africa. Taking a case study of the South African company Illovo in Zambia, the argument is made that the potential for greater tax revenue, domestic competition, access to resources and wealth distribution from sugar/ethanol production have all been perverted and with relatively little payoff in wage labour opportunities in return. If the benefits of agro-exports cannot be so easily assumed, then the prospective 'balance sheet' of biofuels needs to be re-examined. In this light, the paper advocates smaller-scale agrarian initiatives

Don't tax me? : Determinants of individual attitudes toward progressive taxation

This contribution empirically analyses the individual determinants of tax rate preferences. For that purpose we make use of the representative German General Social Survey (ALLBUS) that offers data on the individual attitudes toward progressive, proportional, and regressive taxation. Our theoretical considerations suggest that beyond self-interest, information, fairness considerations, economic beliefs and several other individual factors drive individual preferences for tax rate structures. Our empirical results indicate that the self-interest view does not offer the sole explanation for the heterogeneity in attitudes toward progressive taxation. Rather, we show that the choice of the favoured tax rate is also driven by fairness considerations

Moral economy from above and below: contesting contraction of migrant rights in austerity Britain

In 2010, Britain’s newly elected Coalition government ushered in a ‘moral mission’ of welfare reform. This paper considers its extension to the management of non-EEA migration and asylum, viewed here in the context of Fassin’s conception of moral economy and related debate. The paper argues that the ensuing policy regime can be analysed as a moral economy ‘from above’, in terms of its underlying objectives and rationale, which is then challenged and contested ‘from below’ through the intervention of civic activists. Such contestation is framed in terms of a three-pronged critique of the welfare/migration complex, based on rationality, legality and morality, and examined in three key areas of welfare-related policy change – family life, maintenance provision for asylum seekers, and support for those without status. Policy in each area is considered alongside corresponding critique and with summary comment on key points for moral economy analysis. A fourth section sets these developments in the context of an emergent system of total control, and the conclusion reflects on broader implications for our understanding and usage of the notion of moral economy