How Is Convergent Mobility Consistent with Rising Inequality? A Reconciliation in the Case of Argentina

[Excerpt] This is a paper on earnings mobility in Argentina during the macroeconomic growth and contractions that have characterized that nation’s economy from 1996 to the present. Since 1996, real GDP growth has fluctuated widely. For most of the 1990s, Argentina was seen as a model of successful policymaking. Having pegged its exchange rate to the dollar under a currency board type arrangement in 1991, Argentina had succeeded in ending hyperinflation, reducing inflation rates to single-digit levels. Greater economic stability attracted foreign investment inflows, contributing to an acceleration in economic growth; indeed, even as lenders withdrew their financing in East Asia in 1997, capital inflows continued to Argentina. Then, Argentina entered into a prolonged recession. The combination of the hard peg of the local currency to the U.S. dollar and excessive borrowing led to an unsustainable fiscal situation and, ultimately, to the collapse of the economy at the end of 2001 (See Figure 1). Gross Domestic Product fell by 13.5 percent from the second quarter of 2001 to the second quarter of 2002, and the share of the population in poverty reached 58 percent in October 2002, versus 38 percent in October 2001, according to the official moderate poverty line. This paper addresses the distributional consequences of these macroeconomic events. (Note: Here and throughout the paper, “distribution of income” means the entire density or cumulative distribution function; it does not mean “inequality.”) Who benefited the most from Argentine economic growth? Who lost the most in economic decline? Are those who started rich getting richer in growth periods and losing more in recessionary periods, or is it the other way around? Are the answers to these questions the same for all measures of initial advantage

Earnings Mobility in Times of Growth and Decline: Argentina from 1996 to 2003

In recent years, the economy of Argentina has experienced both rapid economic growth and severe economic decline. In this paper, we use a series of one-year long panels to study who gained the most in pesos when the economy grew and who lost the most in pesos when the economy contracted. Various considerations led us to expect that mobility would be divergent—that is, that the individuals who started with the highest initial earnings would enjoy the largest earnings gains in pesos. Contrary to expectations and for a wide range of specifications, mobility is found to be mostly convergent, sometimes neutral, and never divergent. We then demonstrate how generally rising inequality and convergent mobility can be reconciled. Thus, the panel data analysis performed in this paper presents a picture of economic growth that is much more pro-poor than what one gets from cross-sectional inequality comparisons

Earnings Mobility in Times of Growth and Decline: Argentina from 1996 to 2003

In recent years, the economy of Argentina has experienced both rapid economic growth and severe economic decline. In this paper, we use a series of one-year long panels to study who gained the most in pesos when the economy grew and who lost the most in pesos when the economy contracted. To answer these questions, we test two hypotheses both unconditionally and conditionally. The ?divergence of earnings? hypothesis holds that in any given year, the highest earning individuals are those who experienced the largest earnings gains or the smallest earnings losses in pesos. The ?symmetry of gains and losses? hypothesis holds that those groups that gained the most in pesos when the economy grew are those that lost the most in pesos when the economy contracted. Both hypotheses are decisively rejected in the data. Rather, we find that it is the lowest income individuals and groups who gain the most in pesos, whether in good times or in bad. Thus, the panel data analysis performed in this paper presents a picture of economic growth that is much more pro-poor than one gets from cross sectional inequality comparisons.finance, growth, inequality, Argentina, survey, gains, losses

An Analysis of Unsolvable Linear Partial Differential Equations of Order One

It is difficult to underestimate the importance of differential equations in understanding the physical world. These equations, involving not just simple variables like temperature, speed or mass, but also the derivatives, i.e. the rate of change of these variables, are found in nearly every branch of science. Until the mid 20th century, all such equations were thought to be solvable. This was based on the discovery by Leonard Euler that certain differential equations, called ordinary differential equations (ODEs), are indeed always solvable. While ODEs deal with simple conditions, under which some quantity changes with some other quantity and its derivatives, there are more sophisticated differential equations known as Partial Differential Equations (PDEs), which describe how one quantity changes with respect to two or more other quantities and their derivatives. The hopes of an entire generation of mathematicians were dashed when it was discovered that there exist very simple linear PDEs that are unsolvable - and thus the worst objects that a mathematician could possibly face. It is the goal of this research to present one such example in a form accessible to anyone who has a basic knowledge of differential equations. Understanding of such equations is an extremely important step in developing numerical methods for estimating the extent to which PDEs may not be solvable, thus giving scientists valuable tools in unlocking the secrets of the physical world, many of which are hidden in Partial Differential Equations

Effectiveness of the Language! Comprehensive Literacy Curriculum for 6th Graders

The purpose of this evaluation was to determine if the Language! Comprehensive Literacy Curriculum-Fourth Edition would have a positive impact on students’ Lexile scores. The participants included 86 sixth grade students from a rural middle school in the Mid-Atlantic region. A paired samples t-test revealed a significant difference (p \u3c .001) between pre-test mean score 647.52 and post-test mean score 736.22. Further calculation indicated the program had a medium effect size. According to post-test scores, 12.5% more of the students were within the appropriate Lexile range making them on target with the Common Core Standards Initiative. When looking at pre and post test comparisons, students with the lost pre-test scores made the greatest gains while students with the highest pre-test scores made little or no gains

Assessing the Effects of Riverbank Inducement on a Shallow Aquifer in Southeastern Wisconsin

The state of Wisconsin is heavily reliant upon groundwater resources. In order to induce river water, implementation of shallow wells with close proximity to river systems is being used as a method to augment groundwater supplies in portions of southeastern Wisconsin. However, river bank wells (RBI) are vulnerable to contamination due to their close interaction with the surface water. The vulnerability increases when induced surface waters contain municipally treated waste water. The objective of this study was to determine the current and potential influences of riverbank inducement, recharge mechanisms of the well field, and to discriminate the sources of sodium and chloride entering the well field. This was accomplished through the use of tracers and groundwater modeling. The tracer suite included major ions, hydrogen and oxygen stable isotopes, bacteria, and personal care products and pharmaceuticals (PPCPs). Inducement of river water into the RBI wells was calculated to be 44-52%. The flow mechanisms were too complex to be explained by dispersivity alone, so the assumption of plug flow was abandoned. Recharge was found to occur in the spring. Sucralose and acesulfame were found to be the most suitable tracers for this system and proved that waste water effluent enters both RBI wells. Waste water effluent was found to be the major source of salt entering the well field with small contribution from road salt runoff. No pathogenic bacteria were entering the well field

How Demanding Should Equality of Opportunity Be, and How Much Have We Achieved?

[Excerpt] This chapter proposes tests of various notions of equality of opportunity and applies them to intergenerational income data for the United States and Britain. Agreement is widespread that equality of opportunity holds in a society if the chances that individuals have to succeed depend only on their own efforts and not on extraneous circumstances that may inhibit or expand those chances. What is contentious, however, is what constitutes effort and circumstances. Most people, we think, would say that the social connections of an individual\u27s parents would be included among circumstances: equality of opportunity is incomplete if some individuals get ahead because they have well-connected parents. This and other channels through which circumstances affect income opportunities in an intergenerational context are discussed in Section 2. Section 3 then formulates four, increasingly stringent criteria for equality of opportunity. In Section 4, we turn to an empirical implementation of these criteria to test for equality of opportunity in the United States and Britain. The results, presented in Section 5, provide only the weakest of support for equality of opportunity in the United States and no support at all in Britain. Concluding remarks are presented in Section 6

Earnings Mobility in Argentina, Mexico, and Venezuela: Testing the Divergence of Earnings and the Symmetry of Mobility Hypotheses

This paper examines changes in individual earnings during positive and negative growth periods in three Latin American economies: Argentina, Mexico, and Venezuela. We ask whether those individuals who start in the best economic position are those who experience the largest earnings gains or the smallest earnings losses; this is the “divergent mobility” hypothesis. We also compare periods of positive economic growth with those of negative economic growth, asking whether those groups of individuals that experience large positive earnings gains when the economy is growing are the same as those that experience large earnings losses when the economy is contracting; this is the “symmetry of mobility” hypothesis. We find very occasional support for the divergent mobility hypothesis in scattered years in the cases of Mexico and Venezuela, and no support at all in the case of Argentina. Rather, earnings mobility is most frequently convergent or neutral in all three countries. As for the symmetry of mobility hypothesis, we find that it is rejected in most cases; rather, those groups that gain the most when the economy is growing are also the ones that gain the most when the economy is contracting. Furthermore, we explain how the absence of divergence is compatible with rising inequality in the countries under study

Income Mobility in Latin America

[Excerpt] In the last decades Latin American countries have experienced substantial macroeconomic instability. While the region as a whole experienced economic growth during most of the 1990’s and 2000’s, there were also years of stagnation as well as economic decline