Inequality decompositions:a reconciliation

We show how classic source-decomposition and subgroup-decomposition methods can be reconciled with regression methodology used in the recent literature. We also highlight some pitfalls that arise from uncritical use of the regression approach. The LIS database is used to compare the approaches using an analysis of the changing contributions to inequality in the United States and Finland

Evidence for the Gompertz Curve in the Income Distribution of Brazil 1978-2005

This work presents an empirical study of the evolution of the personal income distribution in Brazil. Yearly samples available from 1978 to 2005 were studied and evidence was found that the complementary cumulative distribution of personal income for 99% of the economically less favorable population is well represented by a Gompertz curve of the form $G(x)=\exp [\exp (A-Bx)]$, where $x$ is the normalized individual income. The complementary cumulative distribution of the remaining 1% richest part of the population is well represented by a Pareto power law distribution $P(x)= \beta x^{-\alpha}$. This result means that similarly to other countries, Brazil's income distribution is characterized by a well defined two class system. The parameters $A$, $B$, $\alpha$, $\beta$ were determined by a mixture of boundary conditions, normalization and fitting methods for every year in the time span of this study. Since the Gompertz curve is characteristic of growth models, its presence here suggests that these patterns in income distribution could be a consequence of the growth dynamics of the underlying economic system. In addition, we found out that the percentage share of both the Gompertzian and Paretian components relative to the total income shows an approximate cycling pattern with periods of about 4 years and whose maximum and minimum peaks in each component alternate at about every 2 years. This finding suggests that the growth dynamics of Brazil's economic system might possibly follow a Goodwin-type class model dynamics based on the application of the Lotka-Volterra equation to economic growth and cycle.Comment: 22 pages, 15 figures, 4 tables. LaTeX. Accepted for publication in "The European Physical Journal B

Understanding How Inequality in the Distribution of Income Affects Health

Research on the determinants of health has almost exclusively focused on the individual but it seems clear we cannot understand or improve patterns of population health without engaging structural determinants at the societal level. This article traces the development of research on income distribution and health to the most recent epidemiologic studies from the USA that show how income inequality is related to age-adjusted mortality within the 50 States. (r 520.62, p 5 0.0001) even after accounting for absolute levels of income. We discuss potential material, psychological, social and behavioral pathways through which income distribution might be linked to health status. Distributional aspects of the economy are important determinants of health and may well provide one of the most pertinent indicators of overall social well-being.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/66686/2/10.1177_135910539700200303.pd

A century of trends in adult human height

Being taller is associated with enhanced longevity, and higher education and earnings. We reanalysed 1472 population-based studies, with measurement of height on more than 18.6 million participants to estimate mean height for people born between 1896 and 1996 in 200 countries. The largest gain in adult height over the past century has occurred in South Korean women and Iranian men, who became 20.2 cm (95% credible interval 17.5-22.7) and 16.5 cm (13.3-19.7) taller, respectively. In contrast, there was little change in adult height in some sub-Saharan African countries and in South Asia over the century of analysis. The tallest people over these 100 years are men born in the Netherlands in the last quarter of 20th century, whose average heights surpassed 182.5 cm, and the shortest were women born in Guatemala in 1896 (140.3 cm; 135.8-144.8). The height differential between the tallest and shortest populations was 19-20 cm a century ago, and has remained the same for women and increased for men a century later despite substantial changes in the ranking of countries

The economics of training

IndeksBibliografi hlm. 135-144xiv, 152 hlm. : il. ; 23 cm

Reinterpreting between-group inequality

Inequality decompositions, D31,