Inequality Measures, Equivalence Scales and Adjustment for Household Size and Composition

Total household income inequality can be very different from inequality measured at the income per-capita level but only in recent years has the pattern of this divergence been investigated. In this paper, results from Coulter et al. (1992) using a one-parameter equivalence scale are updated using data for Ireland, Italy, the UK and the US. A class of two-parameter equivalence scales, representing relative weights for adults and children, is then analysed. Results are shown to depend on the distribution of household size and composition among deciles of the population. Inequality generally increases with children's weight and decreases with adults' weight. OECD and other two-parameter equivalence scales empirically used show similar results to the one-parameter equivalence scale with elasticity around 0.5.

Multinational companies and wage inequality in the host country: the case of Ireland.

Multinationales Unternehmen; Technologietransfer; Lohntheorie; Neue Wachstumstheorie; Theorie; Schätzung;

Tourism and Growth in a Cross-Section of Countries

We provided an empirical assessment of the relationship between tourism specialisation and economic growth, by updating findings of previous papers written on this issue. We used data for more than 150 countries covering different time spans between 1980 and 2005. Contrary to previous findings (e.g., Brau et al., 2004 and 2007), tourism-based countries did not grow at a higher rate than non-tourism based countries, except for the 1980-1990 period for which, however, data on international tourism are not fully reliable.tourism specialisation, economic growth, developing countries

Multinational Companies and Wage Inequality in the Host Country: The Case of Ireland

In this paper, we analyse the effects of multinational companies on wage inequality in the host country, studying the case of the Irish economy. Based on a model developed by Aghion and Howitt (1998), in which the introduction of new technologies leads to increasing demand for skilled labour and, therefore, to rising inequality, we conduct an econometric study using data for the Irish manufacturing sector between 1979 and 1995. We examine inequality between wages for skilled and unskilled labour within the same manufacturing sector. Our results indicate that there is an inverted-U relationship between wage inequality and the presence of multinationals, i.e., with increasing presence of multinationals, wage inequality first increases, reaches a maximum and decreases eventually, ceteris paribus.