Not a Hollowing Out, a Stretching: Trends in U.S. Nonmetro Wage Income Distribution, 1961-2003

Much of the U.S. labor economics literature asserts that U.S. wage income inequality increased in the last half of the 20th century. These papers point to two trends: 1) the increasing dispersion in U.S. wage incomes, and 2) the rapid growth in the relative frequency of large wage incomes of fixed size in constant dollar terms. A subset of the labor economics literature interprets these trends as a hollowing out of the wage income distribution. A hollowing out would yield fewer middling wage incomes. Since nonmetro wage incomes have, historically, been smaller than metro wage incomes, a hollowing out might disproportionately displace nonmetro wage incomes into the left mode of the hollowed out distribution, that of small wage incomes. However, there was no hollowing out of the nonmetro wage income distribution between 1961 and 2003. While trends #1 and #2 exist in U.S. nonmetro wage income data, they are aspects of the stretching of the distribution of nonmetro wage incomes to the right over larger wage incomes as all its percentiles increased between 1961 and 2003. This stretching means that all nonmetro wage income percentiles increase simultaneously with greater proportional growth in the smaller percentiles. The literature focused on the greater absolute gains of the larger percentiles and took them as evidence of growing inequality. This paper shows for nonmetro wage incomes in the U.S. that those gains are but one aspect of the stretching of the distribution and that other aspects of this transformation might as easily be taken as evidence of growing equality.distribution dynamics; hollowed out distribution; inequality; nonmetropolitan; wage income; wage inequality

The Inequality Process vs. The Saved Wealth Model. Two Particle Systems of Income Distribution; Which Does Better Empirically?

The Inequality Process (IP) is a stochastic particle system in which particles are randomly paired for wealth exchange. A coin toss determines which particle loses wealth to the other in a randomly paired encounter. The loser gives up a fixed share of its wealth, a positive quantity. That share is its parameter, ω_ψ, in the ψth equivalence class of particles. The IP was derived from verbal social science theory that designates the empirical referent of (1-ω_ψ) as worker productivity, operationalized as worker education. Consequently, the stationary distribution of wealth of the IP in which particles can have different values of ω (like workers with different educations) is obliged to fit the distribution of labor income conditioned on education. The hypothesis is that when a) the stationary distribution of wealth in the ψth equivalence class of particles is fitted to the distribution of labor income of workers at the ψth level of education, and b) the fraction of particles in the ψth equivalence class equals the fraction of workers at the ψth level of education, then c) the model's stationary distributions fit the corresponding empirical distributions, and d) estimated (1-ω_ψ) increases with level of education. The Saved Wealth Model (SW) was proposed as a modification of the particle system model of the Kinetic Theory of Gases (KTG). The SW is isomorphic to the IP up to the stochastic driver of wealth exchange between particles. The present paper shows that 1) the stationary distributions of both particle systems pass test c): they fit the distribution of U.S. annual wage and salary income conditioned on education over four decades, 2) the parameter estimates of the fits differ by particle system, 3) both particle systems pass test d), but 4) the IP's overall fits are better than the SW's because 5) the IP's stationary distribution conditioned on larger (1-ω_ψ) has a heavier tail than the SW's fitting the distribution of wage income of the more educated better, and 6) since the level of education in the U.S. labor force rose, the IP's fit advantage increased over time.labor income distribution; goodness of fit; Inequality Process; particle system model; Saved Wealth Model

The particle system model of income and wealth more likely to imply an analogue of thermodynamics in social science

The Inequality Process (IP) and the Saved Wealth Model (SW) are particle system models of income distribution. The IP’s social science meta-theory requires its stationary distribution to fit the distribution of labor income conditioned on education. The Saved Wealth Model (SW) is an ad hoc modification of the particle system model of the Kinetic Theory of Gases (KTG). The KTG implies the laws of gas thermodynamics. The IP is a particle system similar to the SW and KTG, but less closely related to the KTG than the SW. This paper shows that the IP passes the key empirical test required of it by its social science meta-theory better than the SW. The IP’s advantage increases as the U.S. labor force becomes more educated. The IP is the more likely of the two particle systems to underlie an analogue of gas thermodynamics in social science as the KTG underlies gas thermodynamics.Inequality Process; Kinetic Theory of Gases; labor income distribution; particle system; Saved Wealth Model, social science analogue of thermodynamics

The Future of Confucian Political Philosophy

On February 14, 2017, Joseph Chan and Stephen Angle convened a Roundtable on the Future of Confucian Political Philosophy at the University of Hong Kong. Eight invited speakers each offered thoughts on the main topic, followed by discussion among the panelists and responses to questions from the audience. This transcript has been reviewed and edited by the main participants. Much of the discussion revolves around the relations and tensions between Confucian political philosophy as academic theory-construction and the lived realities of citizens in the modern world, especially in East Asia. How is Confucian theorizing connected to Confucian activism? Another central concern is democracy—as value or as institution, as necessary in pluralistic societies or as problematic monopolizer of political discourse. We also discuss translation, republicanism, meritocracy, the proposals of Jiang Qing and Daniel Bell, and the role of Confucianism in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South Korea

CONTEMPORARY CONFUCIAN AND ISLAMIC APPROACHES TO DEMOCRACY AND HUMAN RIGHTS

Both Confucian and Islamic traditions stand in fraught and internally contested relationships with democracy and human rights. It can easily appear that the two traditions are in analogous positions with respect to the values associated with modernity, but a central contention of this essay is that Islam and Confucianism are not analogous in this way. Positions taken by advocates of the traditions are often similar, but the reasoning used to justify these positions differs in crucial ways. Whether one approaches these questions from an intra-traditional, cross-traditional, or multi-traditional perspective, the essay shows that there is great value in getting clear on the ways in which ones textual canon may constrain one. In the end, we will see that while there are creative Islamic approaches to taking human rights seriously, the looser constraints under which Confucians operate today may make things easier for Confucian advocates of human rights and democracy

Influence of saving propensity on the power law tail of wealth distribution

Some general features of kinetic multi-agent models are reviewed, with particular attention to the relation between the agent saving propensities and the form of the equilibrium wealth distribution. The effect of a finite cutoff of the saving propensity distribution on the corresponding wealth distribution is studied. Various results about kinetic multi-agent models are collected and used to construct a realistic wealth distribution with zero limit for small values of wealth, an exponential form at intermediate and a power law tail at larger values of wealth.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures. To be presented at the WEHIA 2005, University of Essex, United Kingdom on June 13-15, 200

THE MINIMAL DEFINITION AND METHODOLOGY OF COMPARATIVE PHILOSOPHY: A REPORT FROM A CONFERENCE [abstract]

In June of 2008, the International Society for Comparative Studies of Chinese and Western Philosophy (ISCWP) convened its third Constructive Engagement conference, on the theme of Comparative Philosophy Methodology. During the opening speeches, Prof. Dunhua ZHAO, Chair of the Philosophy Department at Peking University, challenged the conferences participants to put forward a minimal definition of comparative philosophy and a statement of its methods. Based on the papers from the conference and the extensive discussion that ensued, during my closing reflections at the end of the conference I offered a tentative synthesis of the conferences conclusions. That summary has already been published on-line as part of the bi-annual ISCWP newsletter (Angle 2008). In this brief essay, I recapitulate the themes of my earlier summary and expand, in my own voice, on some of the key points

Ecological risks of novel environmental crop technologies using phytoremediation as an example:

"Phytoremediation is the use of living plants, known as hyperaccumulators which absorb unusually large amounts of metals in comparison to other plants. The use of classical plant breeding and new molecular techniques offers great potential to develop crops with the ability to clean up polluted sites. While these technologies have gained widespread attention, prior to commercial development, there are risks that must be considered – only a few of which have received even modest examination. Therefore, the focus of this working paper is to explore specific risks associated with phytoremediation and suggest ways in which these risks can be managed so that new, novel, and innovative plant technologies may be applied to provide low cost and efficient environmental solutions. " Authors' AbstractPhytoextraction, Phytomining,

Microeconomics of the ideal gas like market models

We develop a framework based on microeconomic theory from which the ideal gas like market models can be addressed. A kinetic exchange model based on that framework is proposed and its distributional features have been studied by considering its moments. Next, we derive the moments of the CC model (Eur. Phys. J. B 17 (2000) 167) as well. Some precise solutions are obtained which conform with the solutions obtained earlier. Finally, an output market is introduced with global price determination in the model with some necessary modifications.Comment: 15pp. Revised & a reference added. An appeal in Appendix-annex (section 8; not for publication) also added. Physica A (accepted for publication