Nothing Special   »   [go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/lis/liswps/299.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

(Re-)Distribution of Personal Incomes, Education and Economic Performance across Countries

Author

Listed:
  • G nther Rehme
Abstract
In many OECD countries income inequality has risen, but surprisingly re-distribution as well. The theory attributes this partly to the redistributive effect of education spending. In the model income inequality and growth depend in an inverted U-shaped way on education. To maintain a given level of human capital it is shown that a less efficient schooling technology requires more resources, which lowers pre-tax and post-tax income inequality as well as growth. Using consistently defined income data from the Luxembourg Income Study suggests that there is a negative relationship between growth and income inequality in rich countries. It is argued that using some unadjusted inequality measures in growth regressions may yield estimates that are biased upwards. The evidence suggests that a rich country would raise growth with lower pre-tax and post-tax inequality if it spent more on education.

Suggested Citation

  • G nther Rehme, 2002. "(Re-)Distribution of Personal Incomes, Education and Economic Performance across Countries," LIS Working papers 299, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    • Handle: RePEc:lis:liswps:299
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.lisdatacenter.org/wps/liswps/299.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Deirdre N. McCloskey & Stephen T. Ziliak, 1996. "The Standard Error of Regressions," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 34(1), pages 97-114, March.
    2. Romer, Paul M, 1986. "Increasing Returns and Long-run Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(5), pages 1002-1037, October.
    3. Bertola, Giuseppe, 1993. "Factor Shares and Savings in Endogenous Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(5), pages 1184-1198, December.
    4. Alberto Alesina & Dani Rodrik, 1994. "Distributive Politics and Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(2), pages 465-490.
    5. Amiel,Yoram & Cowell,Frank, 1999. "Thinking about Inequality," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521466967, October.
    6. Hongyi Li & Heng‐fu Zou, 1998. "Income Inequality is not Harmful for Growth: Theory and Evidence," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 2(3), pages 318-334, October.
    7. Francesco Caselli, 1999. "Technological Revolutions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(1), pages 78-102, March.
    8. Lawrence F. Katz & Kevin M. Murphy, 1992. "Changes in Relative Wages, 1963–1987: Supply and Demand Factors," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(1), pages 35-78.
    9. Daron Acemoglu, 1998. "Why Do New Technologies Complement Skills? Directed Technical Change and Wage Inequality," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(4), pages 1055-1089.
    10. Galor, Oded & Tsiddon, Daniel, 1997. "Technological Progress, Mobility, and Economic Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(3), pages 363-382, June.
    11. Büttner, Thiess & Fitzenberger, Bernd, 1998. "Central wage bargaining and local wage flexibility: evidence from the entire wage distribution," ZEW Discussion Papers 98-39, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    12. Robert J. Barro, 1998. "Determinants of Economic Growth: A Cross-Country Empirical Study," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262522543, April.
    13. A.B. Atkinson & F. Bourguignon (ed.), 2000. "Handbook of Income Distribution," Handbook of Income Distribution, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 1, number 1.
    14. Angel de la Fuente & Rafael Doménech, 2006. "Human Capital in Growth Regressions: How Much Difference Does Data Quality Make?," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 4(1), pages 1-36, March.
    15. Oded Galor & Joseph Zeira, 1993. "Income Distribution and Macroeconomics," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 60(1), pages 35-52.
    16. Roberto Perotti, 1993. "Political Equilibrium, Income Distribution, and Growth," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 60(4), pages 755-776.
    17. Deininger, Klaus & Squire, Lyn, 1996. "A New Data Set Measuring Income Inequality," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 10(3), pages 565-591, September.
    18. Lindbeck, Assar & Snower, Dennis J, 1996. "Reorganization of Firms and Labor-Market Inequality," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(2), pages 315-321, May.
    19. Anindya Banerjee & Massimiliano Marcellino & Chiara Osbat, 2004. "Some cautions on the use of panel methods for integrated series of macroeconomic data," Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 7(2), pages 322-340, December.
    20. Sala-i-Martin, Xavier X, 1996. "A Positive Theory of Social Security," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 1(2), pages 277-304, June.
    21. Antonio Ciccone & Giovanni Peri & Douglas Almond, "undated". "Capital, Wages, and Growth: Theory and Evidence," Working Papers 152, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
    22. repec:dau:papers:123456789/10091 is not listed on IDEAS
    23. repec:bla:econom:v:50:y:1983:i:197:p:3-17 is not listed on IDEAS
    24. Deininger, Klaus & Squire, Lyn, 1998. "New ways of looking at old issues: inequality and growth," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(2), pages 259-287.
    25. Gregory Mankiw, 1995. "The Growth of Nations," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 26(1, 25th A), pages 275-326.
    26. Rehme, Gunther, 1999. "Education, economic growth and personal income inequality across countries," Economics Working Papers ECO 1999/42, European University Institute.
    27. Ben S. Bernanke & Julio J. Rotemberg (ed.), 1996. "NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1996," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262522225, April.
    28. Banerjee, Abhijit V & Duflo, Esther, 2003. "Inequality and Growth: What Can the Data Say?," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 8(3), pages 267-299, September.
    29. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 1994. "Is Inequality Harmful for Growth?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(3), pages 600-621, June.
    30. Caselli, Francesco & Esquivel, Gerardo & Lefort, Fernando, 1996. "Reopening the Convergence Debate: A New Look at Cross-Country Growth Empirics," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 1(3), pages 363-389, September.
    31. Cecilia Garcia-Penalosa & Eve Caroli & Philippe Aghion, 1999. "Inequality and Economic Growth: The Perspective of the New Growth Theories," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 37(4), pages 1615-1660, December.
    32. Paul, Gilles Saint & Verdier, Thierry, 1996. "Inequality, redistribution and growth: A challenge to the conventional political economy approach," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(3-5), pages 719-728, April.
    33. Barro, Robert J. & Lee, Jong-Wha, 1994. "Sources of economic growth," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 1-46, June.
    34. McCloskey, Donald N, 1985. "The Loss Function Has Been Mislaid: The Rhetoric of Significance Tests," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(2), pages 201-205, May.
    35. Roland Benabou, 2000. "Unequal Societies: Income Distribution and the Social Contract," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(1), pages 96-129, March.
    36. Deininger, Klaus & Squire, Lyn, 1996. "A New Data Set Measuring Income Inequality," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 10(3), pages 565-591, September.
    37. Chiu, W Henry, 1998. "Income Inequality, Human Capital Accumulation and Economic Performance," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 108(446), pages 44-59, January.
    38. Easterly, William & Rebelo, Sergio, 1993. "Fiscal policy and economic growth: An empirical investigation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 417-458, December.
    39. Jonathan Temple, 1999. "The New Growth Evidence," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 37(1), pages 112-156, March.
    40. Fernandez, Raquel & Rogerson, Richard, 1998. "Public Education and Income Distribution: A Dynamic Quantitative Evaluation of Education-Finance Reform," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(4), pages 813-833, September.
    41. Fields, Gary S., 1987. "Measuring inequality change in an economy with income growth," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 357-374, August.
    42. Glomm, Gerhard & Ravikumar, B, 1992. "Public versus Private Investment in Human Capital Endogenous Growth and Income Inequality," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(4), pages 818-834, August.
    43. David H. Autor & Lawrence F. Katz & Alan B. Krueger, 1998. "Computing Inequality: Have Computers Changed the Labor Market?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(4), pages 1169-1213.
    44. Robert Summers & Alan Heston, 1991. "The Penn World Table (Mark 5): An Expanded Set of International Comparisons, 1950–1988," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(2), pages 327-368.
    45. Andrea Brandolini & Anthony B. Atkinson, 2001. "Promise and Pitfalls in the Use of "Secondary" Data-Sets: Income Inequality in OECD Countries As a Case Study," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 39(3), pages 771-799, September.
    46. Atkinson, Anthony B., 1970. "On the measurement of inequality," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 244-263, September.
    47. repec:bla:rdevec:v:2:y:1998:i:3:p:318-34 is not listed on IDEAS
    48. Kristin J. Forbes, 2000. "A Reassessment of the Relationship between Inequality and Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(4), pages 869-887, September.
    49. Johnson, George E, 1984. "Subsidies for Higher Education," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 2(3), pages 303-318, July.
    50. Bound, John & Johnson, George, 1992. "Changes in the Structure of Wages in the 1980's: An Evaluation of Alternative Explanations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(3), pages 371-392, June.
    51. Lee, Woojin & Roemer, John E, 1998. "Income Distribution, Redistributive Politics, and Economic Growth," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 3(3), pages 217-240, September.
    52. Paul Beaudry & David Green, 2000. "The Changing Structure of Wages in the US and Germany: What Explains the Differences?," NBER Working Papers 7697, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    53. Costas Azariadis & Allan Drazen, 1990. "Threshold Externalities in Economic Development," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 105(2), pages 501-526.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lukach, R. & Plasmans, J.E.J., 2002. "Measuring Knowledge Spillovers using Patent Citations : Evidence from the Belgian Firm's Data," Other publications TiSEM d78bf59a-e0ff-4451-86b9-1, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    2. repec:pru:wpaper:18 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Patricia Justino, 2004. "Redistribution, Inequality And Political Conflict," Royal Economic Society Annual Conference 2004 143, Royal Economic Society.
    4. Petra Sauer & Martin Zagler, 2014. "(In)equality in Education and Economic Development," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 60(S2), pages 353-379, November.
    5. Toshiki Tamai, 2015. "Redistributive taxation, wealth distribution, and economic growth," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 115(2), pages 133-152, June.
    6. Glomm, Gerhard & Kaganovich, Michael, 2008. "Social security, public education and the growth-inequality relationship," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 52(6), pages 1009-1034, August.
    7. Klump, Rainer & Prüfer, Patricia, 2005. "How to prioritise policies for poverty reduction: Applying Bayesian Model Averaging to Vietnam," Proceedings of the German Development Economics Conference, Kiel 2005 27, Verein für Socialpolitik, Research Committee Development Economics.
    8. N. Gobbin & G. Rayp, 2004. "Inequality and Growth: Does Time Change Anything?," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 04/230, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
    9. Timothy M Smeeding, 2002. "Globalisation, Inequality and the Rich Countries of the G-20: Evidence from the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS)," RBA Annual Conference Volume (Discontinued), in: David Gruen & Terry O'Brien & Jeremy Lawson (ed.),Globalisation, Living Standards and Inequality: Recent Progress and Continuing Challenges, Reserve Bank of Australia.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Günther Rehme, 2007. "Education, Economic Growth and Measured Income Inequality," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 74(295), pages 493-514, August.
    2. Rehme, Günther, 2002. "Education, Economic Growth and Personal Income Inequality Across (Rich) Countries," Publications of Darmstadt Technical University, Institute for Business Studies (BWL) 43476, Darmstadt Technical University, Department of Business Administration, Economics and Law, Institute for Business Studies (BWL).
    3. Rehme, G., 1999. "Education, Economic Growth and Personal Income Inequality across Countries," Economics Working Papers eco99/42, European University Institute.
    4. Christophe Ehrhart, 2009. "The effects of inequality on growth: a survey of the theoretical and empirical literature," Working Papers 107, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    5. Günther Rehme, 2011. "Endogenous Policy And Cross‐Country Growth Empirics," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 58(2), pages 262-296, May.
    6. Adalgiso Amendola & Roberto Dell�Anno, 2014. "Income inequality and economic growth: an empirical investigation in Mediterranean countries," RIEDS - Rivista Italiana di Economia, Demografia e Statistica - The Italian Journal of Economic, Demographic and Statistical Studies, SIEDS Societa' Italiana di Economia Demografia e Statistica, vol. 68(2), pages 35-58, April-Jun.
    7. Adelaide Duarte & Marta Simões, 2009. "Channels of transmission of inequality to growth: A survey of the theory and evidence from a Portuguese perspective," GEMF Working Papers 2009-07, GEMF, Faculty of Economics, University of Coimbra.
    8. Cristiano Perugini & Gaetano Martino, 2008. "Income Inequality Within European Regions: Determinants And Effects On Growth," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 54(3), pages 373-406, September.
    9. Daniel Halter & Manuel Oechslin & Josef Zweimüller, 2014. "Inequality and growth: the neglected time dimension," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 19(1), pages 81-104, March.
    10. Dustin Chambers, 2005. "Inequality and Growth: A Semiparametric Investigation," Computing in Economics and Finance 2005 132, Society for Computational Economics.
    11. Roberto Dell'Anno & Adalgiso Amendola, 2015. "Social Exclusion and Economic Growth: An Empirical Investigation in European Economies," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 61(2), pages 274-301, June.
    12. Thomas Leoni & Wolfgang Pollan, 2003. "The Impact of Inequality on Economic Growth," WIFO Working Papers 211, WIFO.
    13. Ricardo Arguello, 2004. "Revisiting the Relationship between Income Distribution and Economic Growth," Borradores de Investigación 4336, Universidad del Rosario.
    14. Amparo Castelló-Climent, 2004. "A Reassessment Of The Relationship Between Inequality And Growth: What Human Capital Inequality Data Say?," Working Papers. Serie EC 2004-15, Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas, S.A. (Ivie).
    15. Aysan, Ahmet Faruk, 2005. "The Role of Efficiency of Redistributive Institutions on Redistribution: An Empirical Assessment," MPRA Paper 17773, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Rehme, Gunther, 2006. "Redistribution and economic growth in integrated economies," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 392-408, June.
    17. Gravier-Rymaszewska, Joanna & Tyrowicz, Joanna & Kochanowicz, Jacek, 2010. "Intra-provincial inequalities and economic growth in China," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 237-258, September.
    18. Eicher, Theo S. & Garcia-Penalosa, Cecilia, 2001. "Inequality and growth: the dual role of human capital in development," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(1), pages 173-197, October.
    19. Marrero, Gustavo A. & Rodríguez, Juan G., 2013. "Inequality of opportunity and growth," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 107-122.
    20. Martin Baur, 2010. "Politics and Income Distribution," Chapters, in: Neri Salvadori (ed.), Institutional and Social Dynamics of Growth and Distribution, chapter 3, Edward Elgar Publishing.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:lis:liswps:299. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Piotr Paradowski (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lisprlu.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.