household carbon inequality in urban china its sources and determinants designing mitigation policies for households requires knowledge of household carbon distributions this study surveys the household carbon inequality in urban china and analyzes its sources and determinants using weighted household survey data different from existing literatures studying carbon inequality on the international or regional level we focus on the household aspect and first survey its characteristics by some comparisons by ascribing household carbon emissions calculated by the consumer lifestyle approach to several consumption categories with the method of gini coefficient decomposition we find that residential consumption with high carbon intensity is the most important source of household carbon inequality in urban china food consumption and the consumption of educational cultural and recreational services are the next largest sources because of the consumed quantities or carbon intensity the application of shapley decomposition shows the determinants of household carbon inequality in urban china and their contributions which are household demographic characteristics 59 74 household employment and income 24 31 household burdens 8 00 and household assets and financial plans 7 95 the policy implications of these results are also discussed

labor supply at the extensive and intensive margins the eitc welfare and hours worked some previous studies have emphasized differences between labor supply responses on the extensive margin participation and intensive margin hours worked e g james j heckman 1993 jean kimmel and thomas j kniesner 1998 recent tax and welfare policy changes provide a potentially more convincing way of identifying these responses than is available in other nonexperimental data the earned income tax credit eitc changes during the 1990 1996 period sharply altered the budget sets of single mothers over a short period of time these changes in incentives are likely to be unrelated to differences across individuals in the desire to work and thus are likely to be exogenous to labor supply decisions this lack of exogeneity is harder to claim for wage differences across people which are the main alternative source of identifying variation in addition to preference heterogeneity wages are driven by supply and demand factors that one must account for to obtain valid estimates using wage variation the eitc unequivocally encourages single parents to work at least some hours during a year because it shifts out the budget set at all positive hours points this first prediction is clearly confirmed by the data in addition theory implies that the eitc will decrease hours worked among those already working because most recipients are on the plateau or phase out portions of the credit schedule for these recipients the eitc reduces or does not affect the after tax wage while at the same time discouraging work through the income effect of the credit payment however recent hours worked patterns for eitc eligible individuals do not appear to fit this second prediction hours and weeks worked by likely recipient groups have not fallen this paper analyzes this puzzling finding building on earlier work by nada eissa and jeffrey liebman 1996 and meyer and dan t rosenbaum 1999 this study shows that nearly all of the laborsupply adjustment of single mothers occurs at the extensive margin not the intensive margin this finding raises the issue of what model features are needed to explain both participation and hours but leaves the answer to be provided in future work this finding also suggests that the large literature simulating alternative policies for low wage workers such as the eitc may be misleading because nearly all work has used models that imply similar responses on participation and hours margins

child care policy and the labor supply of mothers with young children a natural experiment from canada in 1997 the provincial government of quebec the second most populous province in canada initiated a new child care policy licensed child care service providers began offering day care spaces at the reduced fee of 5 00 per day per child for children aged 4 by 2000 the policy applied to all children not in kindergarten using annual data 1993 2002 drawn from statistics canada s survey of labour and income dynamics the results show that the policy had a large and statistically significant impact on the labor supply of mothers with preschool children

labour supply of married women in canada 1980 this study uses recently released data from the 1981 census to reex amine the labor supply behavior of married women in canada using j j heckman s procedure to correct for selectivity bias and incorporating the influence of income taxes this study finds small wage and income effects on canadian wives labor supply the estimat es are similar in magnitude to those reported by a n akamura and m nakamura 1981 in their study of data from the 1971 census and t o t he estimates reported in a more recent canadian study by c robinson and n tomes 1985 who used data drawn from the 1979 quality of life survey

world polarization in carbon emissions potential conflict and groups an updated revision abstract typically conflicts in world environmental negotiations are related amongst other aspects to the level of polarization of the countries in groups with conflicting interests given the predictable relationship between polarization and conflict it would seem logical to evaluate the degree to which the distribution of countries for example in terms of their co 2 emissions per capita would be structured through groups which in themselves are antagonistic as well as their evolution over time this paper takes the concept of polarization to explore this distribution for the period 1992 2010 looking at different analytic approaches related to the concept specifically it makes a comparative evaluation of the results associated with endogenous multi polarization measures i e egr and der indices exogenous measures i e z k or multidimensional index and strict bipolarization measures i e wolfson s measure indeed the interest lies not only in evaluating the global situation of polarization by comparing the different approaches and their temporal patterns but also in examining the explanatory capacity of the different proxy groups used as a possible reference for designing global environmental policy from a group premise

the evolution of high incomes in northern america lessons from canadian evidence this paper uses tax statistics to construct new series on canadian top income shares from 1920 to 2000 and provides a systematic comparison with the u s experience as in the united states top income shares in canada display a ushaped pattern over the century with a precipitous drop during world war ii followed by a slower decline until 1970 since the late 1970s top income shares have been increasing dramatically and the very top shares are now as high as in the pre war era as in the united states the recent increase in top income shares is the consequence of a surge in top wages and salaries the canadian experience since the late 1970s does not appear to be well explained by tax changes suggesting that the upward trend in canada derives from the united states perhaps because many high income canadians have an emigration option this in turn suggests that the recent increase in u s personal income top shares is not merely a change in tax reporting behavior the recent sharp increase in top income shares in canada is of the same magnitude at the individual and family level and is not due to an increase in income mobility

the national ecological accounting and auditing scheme as an instrument of institutional reform in china a discourse analysis having been recognised as a resource intensive economy the people s republic of china has been experiencing major implications in terms of ecological environment degradation which continuously harms the health of the chinese people and the productivity of china s economy among the political efforts set forth by the chinese central authorities the claim of promoting a national ecological accounting and auditing scheme neaas has been drawing nationwide attention through a series of critical discourse analysis on relevant written texts produced by the central authorities mainstream media and the chinese academics this paper sets out to analyse the historical evolution of the institutional context in relation to the establishment of such a scheme and further to decipher the ideological underpinnings that have shaped this context the findings indicate that the signification of neaas goes far beyond the environment protection in that this scheme constitutes a fundamental institutional reform that the communist party of china seeks to conduct

ethnic inequality and poverty in malaysia since may 1969 part 1 inequality abstract the race riots that broke out in kuala lumpur in may 1969 triggered a national public effort to greatly reduce both malaysia s longstanding ethnic inequalities and its high incidence of poverty this paper studies how various measures of ethnic inequality evolved since 1969 two conceptual distinctions are emphasized that between income inequality and polarization on the one hand and that between relative and absolute inequality on the other over the last 50 years the poorest ethnic group the bumiputera have had the highest growth rate of household incomes which helped assure a substantial long term decline in relative between group inequality which in turn substantially reduced overall income inequality measures of ethnic polarization moved highly synchronously with between group inequality the differential growth rates by ethnicity were not enough to prevent rising absolute inequality given the extent of the initial ethnic disparities despite the progress against relative inequality malaysia s absolute disparities by ethnicity are now even larger than 50 years ago the second paper of this two part paper examines the contribution of lower relative ethnic inequality to the country s progress against poverty

international inequalities in per capita co2 emissions a decomposition methodology by kaya factors in this paper we provide a methodology for decomposing international inequalities in per capita co2 emissions into kaya multiplicative factors and two interaction terms we use the theil index of inequality and show that this decomposition methodology can be extended for analyzing between and within group inequality components we can thus analyze the factors behind inequalities in per capita co2 emissions across countries between groups of countries and within groups of countries the empirical illustration for international data suggests some points firstly international inequality in per capita co2 emissions is mainly attributable to inequalities in per capita income levels which helps to explain its recent reduction while differences in carbon intensity of energy and energy intensity have made a less significant contribution this result is strongly influenced by the performance of china and india secondly the between group inequality component which is the biggest component is also largely explained by the income factor thirdly the within group inequality component increased slightly during the period something mainly due to the change in the income factor and the interaction terms in a few regions

how does globalisation affect regional inequality within a developing country evidence from china developing countries are increasingly concerned about effects of globalisation on regional inequality this paper develops an empirical method for decomposing the contributions of two major driving forces of globalisation foreign trade and foreign direct investment fdi on regional inequality and applies it to china even after controlling for many other factors globalisation is still found to be an important factor contributing to the widening regional inequality the paper ends by investigating the role of factor market segmentations in aggravating the distributional effect of changing regional comparative advantages in the process of globalisation

future inequality in co2 emissions and the impact of abatement proposals this paper analyzes future carbon emissions inequality using a group decomposition of the gini index business as usual projections to the year 2100 for 135 countries show inequality in per capita emissions declines slowly next the impact on emissions levels and inequality of the kyoto protocol and other abatement proposals for annex ii countries in 2010 are measured with a focus on the gap narrowing and reranking effects substantial reranking of per capita emissions between annex ii and non annex ii countries will not occur unless the former reduce their emissions by at least 50 versus 1990 levels and the latter continue growing unabated

assessing global co2 emission inequality from consumption perspective an index decomposition analysis abstract co2 emission inequality among countries is a key issue in international climate negotiations in view of the growing popularity of the consumption based emission accounting system in climate policy studies analyzing the emission inequality from the consumption perspective can help policymakers design emission abatement scenarios that are fairer to all parties using a new approach based on the theil index and the index decomposition analysis ida technique this paper examines global per capita consumption based emission inequality in 1995 2009 the sources and determinants of both the status and evolution of the emission inequality are quantified the empirical results show that the global emission inequality was sourced mainly from the emerging economies particularly china and india the global inequality decreased at an accelerating rate during the period studied the narrowing disparity among countries in per capita consumption level drove while the expanding disparity in consumption based emission intensity largely hindered the inequality reduction comparing the consumption based emission inequality with that under the production based principle reveals that the latter partly masked the inequality in the distribution of global co2 emissions through production outsourcing more detailed results and discussions are presented

energy consumption and co2 emissions convergence in european union member countries a tonneau des danaides abstract as the consumption of energy is responsible for approximately 80 of ghg in eu iea 2008 the impact of energy activity on the environment has received increasing attention over the last decades from scholars researchers politicians and society as a whole within eu member countries it is commonly accepted that the design of energy and mitigation policies either at national or at european level require a detailed and integrated investigation of convergence divergence pattern among the participating countries in this paper we examine the distribution dynamics of energy consumption and co2 emissions their intensities as well as the carbonization index in 23 european countries over a forty one year period in particular from 1970 to 2010 for this purpose we used quah s methodology which is based on the dynamics of cross section distributions the main conclusion is that for all the examined variables the hypothesis of convergence patterns for the eu sample is not valid moreover regarding each examined variable different groups of polarization established important differences occur across eu countries according to the climate type with respect to the examined variables our analysis provides strong evidence supporting the fact that national and european energy and mitigation policies should be implemented according to the non convergence paradigm the body of evidence provided by our analysis is of great importance to energy policy makers and for issues related to climate change

distributional aspects of emissions in climate change integrated assessment models the recent failure of copenhagen negotiations shows that concrete actions are needed to create the conditions for a consensus over global emission reduction policies a wide coalition of countries in international climate change agreements could be facilitated by the perceived fairness of rich and poor countries of the abatement sharing at international level in this paper i use two popular climate change integrated assessment models to investigate the path and decompose components and sources of future inequality in the emissions distribution results prove to be consistent with previous empirical studies and robust to model comparison and show that gaps in gdp across world regions will still play a crucial role in explaining different countries contributions to global warming

international inequality in energy intensity levels and the role of production composition and energy efficiency an analysis of oecd countries abstract this paper analyses the inequality of energy intensity levels between oecd countries its causes and evolution the paper develops a methodology which allows the inequality in energy consumption per capita to be decomposed into explanatory factors it also analyses the contribution of different groups of countries to this inequality the results show that although differences in affluence are the most significant factor in explaining inequality in energy consumption per capita the inequality in energy intensity levels plays a prominent role in reducing the inequality in energy consumption per capita over the analysed period the paper also develops a methodology which determines the importance of different production structures and energy efficiency of productive sectors in the differences in energy use per unit of gdp between the countries analysed the results show that sector specialisation becomes increasingly important in explaining the inequality of energy intensity while there is a significant trend towards the convergence of energy efficiency between countries sector by sector this trend would explain the decreasing weight of energy intensity as an explanatory factor of the inequalities in energy consumption per capita

spatial polarization of the ecological footprint distribution abstract the international allocation of natural resources is determined not by any ethical or ecological criteria but by the dominance of market mechanisms from a core periphery perspective this allocation may even be driven by historically determined structural patterns with a core group of countries whose consumption appropriates most available natural resources and another group having low natural resource consumption which plays a peripheral role this article consists of an empirical distributional analysis of natural resource consumption as measured by ecological footprints whose purpose is to assess how strongly countries cluster together based on their ecological footprints this is the extent to which the distribution of consumption responds to polarization as opposed to mere inequality to assess this we estimate and decompose different polarization indices for a balanced sample of 119 countries over the period 1961 to 2007 our results point towards a polarized distribution which is consistent with a core periphery framework

are there dynamic gains from a poor area development program poor area development programs in which the government transfers extra resources to unusually poor areas have been widely used to fight poverty there has been some research on such programs but little is known about their impact on household living standards over time the authors address the issue for a sizable poor area development program in rural china china s program had a significant impact on rural living standards in the targeted areas of the sample the consumption growth model suggests that households living in the targeted areas had a higher rate of consumption growth than one would have otherwise expected nonetheless the authors found that while the gains in growth were enough to prevent an absolute decline in average living standards they were not enough to reverse the strong underlying divergent tendencies in the rural economy

the political economy of policy credibility the new classical macroeconomics and the remaking of emerging economies the criterion of policy credibility is invoked with increasing frequency today by new classical development economists in debates over economic and institutional reform in developing and transitional countries the paper argues that the credibility criterion is used to privilege neoliberal economic policies and associated institutions the paper demonstrates that the credibility criterion is theoretically anti pluralist and politically anti democratic in this connection the paper argues that a policy s credibility is always secured endogenously through political and economic power rather than exogenously by virtue of the epistemiological status of the theory that promotes it the paper concludes by suggesting two alternative criteria by which policy regimes and the governance structure of monetary institutions could be adjudicated these alternative criteria are termed the principle of democratic credibility and the principle of fallibility copyright 2000 by oxford university press

non hbox co _2 co 2 generating energy shares in the world cross country differences and polarization the aim of this paper is to examine the spatial distribution of non hbox co 2 generating energy sources in the world for the period 1990 2009 paying special attention to the evolution of cross country disparities to this end after carrying out a classical convergence analysis a more thorough investigation of the entire distribution is presented by examining its external shape the intra distribution dynamics and the long run equilibrium distribution this analysis reveals the existence of a weak rather insignificant convergence process and that large cross country differences are likely to persist in the long run next as polarization indicators are a proper way of appraising potential conflict in international environmental negotiations we test whether or not the distribution dynamics concurs with the presence of polarization our results indicate that two poles can be clearly differentiated one with high and other with low non hbox co 2 generating energy shares in view of these findings and to ensure a fair transition to a sustainable energy system the paper calls for the development of an ambitious clean energy agenda especially in countries with low non hbox co 2 generating energy shares

decomposing inequality in co2 emissions the role of primary energy carriers and economic sectors emission inequality across countries and the contribution of the energy mix and the sectoral composition of a country s energy use are of central importance to the climate debate we analyze the evolution of inequality in global co2 per capita emissions using both historical data on energy related co2 emissions and future emission scenarios generated with the integrated assessment model remind within our sample of 90 countries the results indicate that the gini index declined from about 0 6 in 1971 to slightly above 0 4 in 2008 a decomposition of the gini index of total emissions into primary energy carriers indicates that this reduction is mainly attributed to declining shares of emissions from coal peat and oil in total emissions and decreasing emission inequality within all fossil primary energy sources from the perspective of economic sectors the decline in overall inequality is almost entirely due to a decline of the contribution of emissions from manufacturing construction our analysis also suggests that an equally spread emission reduction from any one source would not have a major impact on overall emission inequality the analysis of future scenario data indicates that climate policy reduces absolute emission inequality while inducing drastic progressive emission reductions in all regions

inequality across countries in energy intensities an analysis of the role of energy transformation and final energy consumption this paper analyzes the role of the energy transformation index and of final energy consumption per gdp unit in the disparities in energy intensity across countries in that vein we use a theil decomposition approach to analyze global primary energy intensity inequality as well as inequality across different regions of the world and inequality within these regions the paper first demonstrates the pre eminence of divergence in final energy consumption per gdp unit in explaining global primary energy intensity inequality and its evolution during the 1971 2006 period secondly it shows the lower albeit non negligible impact of the transformation index in global primary energy inequality thirdly the relevance of regions as unit of analysis in studying cross country energy intensity inequality and their explanatory factors is highlighted and finally how regions around the world differ as to the relevance of the energy transformation index in explaining primary energy intensity inequality

breaking the mould an institutionalist political economy alternative to the neo liberal theory of the market and the state the paper criticises the currently dominant neo liberal discourse on the role of the state and proposes an alternative approach that will allow us to overcome its shortcomings especially its inadequate analyses of the role of institutions and politics it argues that the central problem with the neo liberal framework lies not in its excessively anti interventionist policy conclusions as some of its critics believe but in the very ways it envisages the modus operandi of the market the state institutions and their interrelationships the paper then discusses how we may construct the alternative approach of institutionalist political economy

empirics of world income inequality this article employs a common general formula for inequality indexes to answer several basic questions about intercountry income inequality in recent decades has inequality across nations increased or declined and why have earlier studies yielded mixed results have different rates of population growth played a significant role in the trend have large nations dominated the trend are the results robust over different inequality measures and different income series two findings stand out first different rates of population growth in rich and poor nations played the predominant role in determining change in the distribution of per capita income across nations second the centuries old trend of rising inequality leveled off from 1960 to 1989 the dependency theory thesis of a polarizing world system receives no support

changes in the labor supply behavior of married women 1980 2000 using march current population survey data we investigate married women s labor supply from 1980 to 2000 we find a large rightward shift in their labor supply function for annual hours in the 1980s with little shift in the 1990s these shifts account for most of the slowdown in the growth of labor supply during this period a major development was the dramatic decrease in the responsiveness of married women s labor supply to their own and husbands wages their own wage elasticity fell by 50 56 while their cross wage elasticity fell by 38 47 in absolute value

geographical spread of global emissions within country inequalities are large and increasing abstract in spite of the extensive literature on greenhouse gas emission inequalities at the world wide level most of the evidence so far has been based on country level data however the within country dimension matters for both the implementation and the policy formation of climate policies as a preliminary step towards a better understanding of within country inequalities this paper measures their extent for the two major greenhouse gases co2 and ch4 over the 1970 2008 period using theil index decompositions we show that within country inequalities account for the bulk of global inequality and tend to increase over the sample period in contrast with diminishing between country inequalities including differences across sectors reveals that between sector inequalities matter more than between country inequalities and between sector inequalities become the dominant source of global inequality at the end of the sample period in the co2 case finally estimated social tensions arising from the disconnection between emissions and future damages turn out to be increasing as soon as within country disparities are taken into account these orders of magnitude should be kept in mind while discussing the efficiency and fairness of alternative paths in combating global warming

inequality of renewable energy generation across oecd countries a note abstract this study recommends the use of theil s second measure to investigate international renewable energy generation disparities this index permits disparities to be broken down within and between groups of countries in a reliable style an analysis of oecd countries for 1980 2011 shows some basic points first drop in renewable energy generation disparities is attributable both to within group and between group inequality components second between group inequalities are presently the key contributor to the inequality and further investigation on within group inequalities divulges the significant explanatory role played by north american european and asian and oceanian countries

convergence of per capita carbon dioxide emissions in the eu legend or reality abstract designing appropriate environmental and energy policies in order to meet the kyoto protocol s carbon dioxide co 2 reduction targets in the european union eu requires a detailed examination and thorough understanding of co 2 emission trends across the eu member states this paper investigates whether co 2 emissions have converged across 22 european countries over the 1971 to 2006 period the bayesian shrinkage estimation method is employed to do this work and the results reveal the following first the hypothesis of absolute convergence in per capita co 2 emissions is supported and a slight upward convergence is observed second the fact that countries differ considerably in both their speed of convergence and volatility in emissions makes it possible to identify different groups of countries third the results with respect to convergence do not vary much once the share of industry in gdp is accounted for in a conditional convergence analysis however a decreasing share of industry in gdp seems to contribute to a decline in per capita emissions these findings may carry important implications for both national and eu environmental policies

inequality of energy intensities across oecd countries a note abstract this paper proposes the use of theil s second measure to analyze international energy intensity differences this index allows differences to be broken down within and between groups of countries in a consistent manner an analysis of oecd countries for the period 1971 1999 shows some basic points first the fall in energy intensities differences is attributable both to within group and between group inequality components second between group inequalities are currently the main contributor to the whole inequality value finally a detailed exploration on within group inequalities reveals the significant explanatory role played by eu countries

inequality in co2 emissions across countries and its relationship with income inequality a distributive approach this paper analyses the inequality in co2 emissions across countries and groups of countries and the relationship of this inequality with income inequality across countries for the period 1971 1999 the research employs the tools that are usually applied in income distribution analysis the methodology used here gives qualitative and quantitative information on some of the features of the inequalities across countries that are considered most relevant for the design and discussion of policies aimed at mitigating climate change the paper studies the relationship between co2 emissions and gdp and shows that income inequality across countries has been followed by an important inequality in the distribution of emissions this inequality has diminished mildly although the inequality in emissions across countries ordered in the increasing value of income inequality between rich and poor countries has diminished less than the simple inequality in emissions lastly the paper shows that the inequality in co2 emissions is mostly explained by the inequality between groups with different per capita income level the importance of the inequality within groups of similar per capita income is much lower and has diminished during the period especially in the low middle income group

the impact of child care costs on the labour supply of married mothers evidence from canada this paper provides estimates for canada of the impact of childcare costs on the labor supply of married mothers this is done by linking two microdata sources the 1988 canadian national child care survey and the 1988 labour market activity survey the key results show that the market wage and childcare costs have respectively a significant positive and negative impact on both hours of work and the labor force participation decision by married mothers the childcare cost elasticities for labor force participation and hours of work are reported to be 0 38 and 0 32 respectively

in quest of the good urban life socio spatial dynamics and residential building stock transformation in zurich this paper discusses socio spatial dynamics and the transformation of the residential building stock in the global city of zurich it deals with five questions does zurich exhibit the type of social polarisation outlined by the global city hypothesis if so how does social polarisation become visible in the context of a european city which actors in the real estate market are catering to the special tastes of the new urban middle class with whom does the new middle class compete for space in the city the paper argues that real estate developers customise the residential building stock and produce residential units for a targeted market the new urban middle class furthermore a new socio spatial phenomenon ennoblement has evolved as the new urban middle class takes residence in traditional upper class neighbourhoods by investing its own economic capital this new middle class is hoping to profit from upper class social and cultural capital

incremental reform and distortions in china s product and factor markets the purpose of economic reform is to reduce distortions and enhance efficiency however when reforms are partial and incremental individuals and local governments are often able to capture the rent inherent in the gradual transition process young 2000 warned that such rent seeking behavior might lead to increasing market fragmentation empirical studies have shown the opposite in the product market this article argues that as the rent from china s product market has been squeezed out due to deepening reforms rent seeking behavior may have shifted to the capital market further reforms are needed in the capital market to squeeze out these rent seeking opportunities just as those from the product and labor markets were squeezed out earlier

joint labor supply and childcare choice decisions of married mothers this paper examines the impact of childcare prices and wage rates on the joint employment and childcare mode center sitter relative and husband choice decisions of married mothers by estimating both a mixed logit and universal logit choice model data are drawn from the 1988 canadian national child care survey and the 1988 labour market activity survey the estimation results show that wages have a positive impact on the probability of choosing any of the working states and that childcare prices for center sitter and relative care reduce the probability of working and using each respective mode of care sensitivity analyses reveal that the wage elasticity for employment is fairly robust across model specifications while the own price elasticity of childcare is sensitive to model specification differing identifying assumptions in the estimation of childcare price equations and sample selection the simulation results show that differences exist in the degree to which government subsidies in the form of wage subsidies targeted childcare subsidies or unconditional childcare subsidies impact on labor supply decisions and decisions to substitute across different modes of care by those mothers already in the labor market

the gini coefficient majority voting and social welfare majority voting and social evaluation functions are the main alternatives proposed in the literature for aggregating individual preferences despite these being very different this paper shows that the ranking of income distributions symmetric under the same transformation by s gini consistent social evaluation functions and majority voting coincide if and only if the inequality index under consideration is the gini coefficient in this case we show that the equally distributed equivalent income is equal to the median of the distribution in addition we find that the gini coefficient is just an affine function of the median mean ratio

linking conflict to inequality and polarization in this paper we study a behavioral model of conflict that provides a basis for choosing certain indices of dispersion as indicators for conflict we show that a suitable monotone transform of the equilibrium level of conflict can be proxied by a linear function of the gini coefficient the herfindahl hirschman fractionalization index and a specific measure of polarization due to esteban and ray jel classification d74 d31

income polarization in european countries and europe wide 2004 2012 polarization is an interesting additional social indicator for analyzing income distribution across countries as it captures the phenomenon of clustering around extreme poles income polarization can be closely linked to social exclusion which is relevant for eu social policy because combatting social exclusion is a central element of the lisbon agenda and the europe 2020 strategy rising income polarization has been observed outside europe but within the eu polarization is relatively unexplored this paper provides theoretical insights into this relatively new dimension of income distribution and analyzes trends in income polarization in 28 eu countries and 3 non eu countries using micro data from eu silc over the period 2004 2012 income polarization is rather stable over this period in european countries and europe wide it was rising among the old eu15 countries in the sub period 2004 2008 but declining afterwards the opposite development is witnessed for new member states despite the great recession we find quite stable income polarization in europe

the developing world s bulging but vulnerable middle class summary western notions of the middle class are of little obvious relevance to developing countries instead the middle class is identified here as those living above the median poverty line of developing countries even if still poor by rich country standards over 1990 2005 economic growth and global distributional shifts allowed an extra 1 2 billion people to join the developing world s middle class four fifths came from asia and half from china many of those in this new middle class remain fairly close to poverty only 100 million of the 1 2 billion would not be considered poor in any developing county economic growth typically came with an expanding middle class

estimates of trends in global income and resource inequalities it is often argued that the inequality in the world is increasing we study the global income and resource inequality between 1960 and late 1990s income is measured in gdp capita in terms of both current market exchange rate and purchasing power parity ppp consumption of paper energy electricity food animal food as well as emissions of carbon dioxide is also studied changes in the absolute and relative gap between the top and bottom 20 consumers as well as the atkinson measure are used as inequality indicators some remarks are made on how to compare income across countries and how inequality should be measured we find that the inequality in terms of gdp capita measured in ppp terms is rather stable in relative terms but increasing in absolute terms we conclude that inequality as measured by the atkinson index is decreasing for all resources but that the gap in resource consumption in absolute terms is increasing for paper and electricity consumption

small sample bias in synthetic cohort models of labor supply this paper investigates small sample biases in synthetic cohort models repeated cross sectional data grouped at the cohort and year level in the context of a female labor supply model i use the current population survey to compare estimates when group sizes are extremely large to those that arise from randomly drawing subsamples of observations from the large groups i augment this approach with monte carlo analysis so as to precisely quantify biases and coverage rates in this particular application thousands of observations per group are required before small sample issues can be ignored in estimation and sampling error leads to large downward biases in the estimated income elasticity copyright 2007 john wiley sons ltd

drivers of greenhouse gas emissions in the baltic states decomposition analysis related to the implementation of europe 2020 strategy abstract the prevention of climate change by reducing and stabilizing carbon dioxide emissions is the most important concern for policymakers this study enriches the methodology of decomposition analysis by encompassing the eu 2020 strategy components thus the aim of study is to reveal how the implementation of europe 2020 strategy contributes to changes in ghg emissions in the baltic states the results showed that in all baltic states from 1990 to 2012 ghg emissions decreased by 55 the factor which contributed to the reduction of ghg emissions the most was the increase of the share of renewable energy in final energy consumption the reduction of energy consumption and decarbonisation index influenced the decrease of ghg as well as the increase of intensity of renewable resources and energy efficiency considering that during the period of economic growth the slight decrease of share of renewable resources and the growth of final energy consumption was observed all baltic states should achieve the increase of energy efficiency and that the energy consumption from renewable resources would increase seeking for the reduction of ghg emissions

does the labour supply of wives respond to husbands wages canadian evidence from micro data and grouped data using micro data and grouped data we assess the extent to which canadian wives adjusted their labour supply in response to changes in husbands wages during the period 1980 2000 grouped data parameters based on weighted least squares and the unbiased error in variables estimator developed by devereux 2004 2007a b yield cross wage elasticities that are substantially higher in absolute value than those derived from ols regressions run on micro data both grouping estimators indicate that the labour supply of canadian wives responded strongly to changes in husbands wages during the 1980s for the 1990s our estimates of wives cross wage elasticity display greater dispersion a l aide de micro donnees et de donnees groupees on etablit jusqu a quel point les epouses canadiennes ont ajuste leur offre de travail en reponse aux changements dans les salaires de leurs epoux au cours de la periode 1980 2000 les parametres pour les donnees groupees derives par la methode des moindres carres ponderes et de l estimateur developpe par devereux 2004 2007a b engendrent des elasticites croisees qui sont substantiellement plus grandes en termes absolus que ceux derives par la methode des moindres carres ordinaires en utilisant des micro donnees les deux estimations montrent que l offre de travail des epouses canadiennes a repondu fortement aux changements dans les salaires des epoux au cours des annees 80 pour les annees 90 les evaluations des elasticites croisees des salaires montrent une plus grande dispersion

polarization of co2 emissions in china s electricity sector production versus consumption perspectives abstract the inter provincial inequality of per capita co2 emissions in china s electricity sector means that their responsibilities for co2 emission reduction are different considering the spatial separation of co2 emissions in power production and consumption with respect to the large scale inter provincial electricity trade in china this paper innovatively investigates the sub national inequality and polarization degree of per capita co2 emissions in china s electric power sector from the perspectives of both production and consumption the overall tendencies of the sub national polarization degrees of per capita co2 emissions embodied in the both electric power consumption and production in china show an increasing trend the results indicate that the polarization distribution of per capita co2 emissions is still one of the important factors leading to difficulties in achieving the new reduction arrangements the evolution of the bi polarization analysis shows that the grouping results of per capita co2 emissions are different from production and consumption perspectives as well as the high and low emission groups have significantly different characteristics the inequality and polarization degree of per capita co2 emissions in china s electric power sector have changed as the co2 emissions embodied in the electricity trade had been taken into account one size fits all strategies are unlikely to be successful in advancing the provincial cooperation on co2 emissions reduction

2 the institutional structure of production 1 prize lecture to the memory of alfred nobel december 9 1991 this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

perceptional inequality and preferential judgements an empirical examination of distributional axioms there are two categories of income distribution evaluations first the more or less value free perception of income inequality as a statistical dispersion and second the valuation of income distributions according to an explicit social welfare function which is meant to capture all of society s value judgements these societal value judgements can be expressed in the form of preferences whereas the inequality perception of income distributions appeals to an observer s sober judgement the revelation of preferences with respect to specific income distributions appeals to his or her sentiments

decomposing inequality in energy related co2 emissions by source and source increment the roles of production and residential consumption abstract using provincial data on energy related co2 emissions in china from 1997 to 2014 and the co2 emission gini coefficient ceg this study evaluates china s spatial inequality in energy related co2 emissions further we decompose this inequality and its variation from the perspectives of production and residential energy consumption using the source decomposition and source increment decomposition methods this paper presents a new ceg source increment decomposition method that can achieve complete decomposition the results reveal a downward trend in china s overall production sector and residential sector co2 emissions inequality although the gini coefficient of co2 emissions from the residential sector is larger than that from the production sector the contribution of the latter to the overall ceg is higher the impacts of the spatial inequality of co2 emissions from china s production and residential sectors depend on the type of energy the concentration effect is the primary factor responsible for inducing changes in china s overall and production sector co2 emissions inequality but it is not the only dominant factor for the residential sector co2 emissions inequality

measuring future grandparents preferences for equality and relative standing individuals aversion to risk and inequality and their concern for relative standing are measured through experimental choices between hypothetical societies it is found that on average individuals are both fairly inequality averse and have a strong concern for relative income the results are used to illustrate welfare consequences based on a utilitarian swf and a modified crra utility function it is shown that the social marginal utility of income may then become negative even at income levels that are far from extreme

behavioural response to ui reform in constrained and unconstrained models of labour supply this paper investigates how taking account of demand side constraints affects estimated models of labor supply and hence predicted behavioral responses to unemployment insurance reform in canada constrained and unconstrained labor supply equations are estimated for single men and women using microdata from the 1982 survey of consumer finance detailed modeling of the impact of the canadian unemployment insurance program on individual budget constraints enables the simulation of behavioral responses to the unemployment insurance reform proposals of the forget and macdonald commissions results indicate that in a high unemployment economy labor supply responses will be negligible

a comparison of the labor force behavior of married women in the united states and canada with special attention to the impact of income taxes estimation results are presented for the probability of working the hourly wage rate and the annual hours of work for wives in seven different age groups in both the u s and canada federal and state or provincial taxes are incorporated into the analysis an iterative estimation method is employed to circumvent the statistical problems resulting from the dependence of the hours of work on the tax rate and the dependence of the tax rate on the hours of work authors

is the accumulation of international reserves good for development international reserves accumulation has been the preferred policy recently adopted by developing economies to achieve financial stability the aim of this policy is to increase liquidity and thus reduce the risk of suffering a speculative attack the main concern expressed in the literature has been related to its cost most of the studies conclude that the opportunity cost of international reserves accumulation is around 1 of gdp however these studies have not analysed whether this strategy is or could be more broadly supportive of development an issue that must be of central interest for developing economies the aim of this paper is to show that the stockpiling of international reserves is not optimal for developmental purposes and that there exist alternative policies that can be applied to achieve financial stability policy autonomy and a better performance in terms of development

what difference do polarisation measures make an application to china in recent years there has been much discussion of the difference between inequality and polarisation the vast literature on inequality is held to miss out key features of distributional change which are better described as changes in polarisation axioms have been proposed which capture some of these differences and measures of polarisation as distinct from inequality have been suggested the theoretical distinctions proposed in this literature are indeed interesting but do the newly proposed measures of polarisation give different results in comparing societies over time we address these questions for china where dramatic increases in inequality and polarisation have been much discussed in the literature we find that contrary to theoretical expectation the new measures of polarisation do not generate very different results from the standard measures of inequality the paper ends by considering a different approach to polarisation which might better conform to the policy concerns expressed in t

regional inequality and regional polarization in russia 1990 99 abstract this paper contributes to the growing debate on regional inequality and polarization in russia using a consistent data series and applying a number of recently developed measures it documents trends over the transition decade of 1990 99 it shows that while inequality and polarization increased rapidly during 1991 96 the increases leveled off and even reversed in the late 1990s using a polarization index based on inequality decomposition it is shown that the main dimensions of increasing polarization are not so much the west east or the ethnic russian national republics divides but factors such as export shares of regions or the relative sizes of their capitals this provides a different perspective on the causes of regional inequality and polarization and suggests a research and policy agenda somewhat different from that which is prominent in the current debate

explanatory factors of co2 per capita emission inequality in the european union the design of european mitigation policies requires a detailed examination of the factors explaining the unequal emissions in the different countries this research analyzes the evolution of inequality in co2 emissions per capita in the european union eu 27 in the period 1990 2009 and its explanatory factors for this purpose we decompose the theil index of inequality into the contributions of the different kaya factors the decomposition is also applied to the inequality between and within groups of countries north europe south europe and east europe the analysis shows an important reduction in inequality to a large extent due to the smaller differences between groups and because of the lower contribution of the energy intensity factor the importance of the gdp per capita factor increases and becomes the main explanatory factor however within the different groups of countries the carbonization index appears to be the most relevant factor in explaining inequalities the policy implications of the results are discussed

income polarization in argentina pure income polarization theory and applications this paper applies newly developed methods for the computation of income polarization by duclos esteban ray 2004 to the argentine case between 1998 and 2002 we find that despite the slowdown in the growth of the inequality the rate of growth of polarization increased every year low income groups in the population were those who contributed the most to polarization the results of a micro decomposition show that on average all the effects led to an increase in polarization between 1998 and 2002 although most of the change came from unobservable factors region returns to education and return to experience had a moderate impact furthermore polarization increased within every geographic region this change had different intensity throughout them leading to distinct levels of tension within the country

a critical assessment of transaction cost theory and governance of public services with special reference to water and sanitation this is a pre copyedited author produced version of an article accepted for publication in cambridge journal of economics following peer review the version of record hulya dagdeviren and simon a robertson a critical assessment of transaction cost theory and governance of public services with special reference to water and sanitation cambridge journal of economics vol 40 6 1707 1724 january 2016 is available online at https doi org 10 1093 cje bev079

child care costs and the employment decision of women canadian evidence the authors estimate the joint decision for women with preschool children to engage in paid employment and to purchase market forms of child care the results confirm those found in most u s studies indicating that child care costs exert a significant negative effect on the labor supply of women with children and on their decision to purchase child care as well the expected wage of the mother exerts a significant positive impact on both the decision to purchase market forms of child care and the decision to engage in paid unemployment

single women s labor supply elasticities trends and policy implications this paper uses cps data to examine changes in single women s labor supply elas ticities in recent decades specifically the authors investigate trends in how single women s hours of work and labor force participation rates responded to both wages and income over the years 1979 2003 results from the base specification suggest that over the observation period hours wage elasticities decreased by 82 participation wage elasticities by 36 and participation income elasticities by 57 these results imply that changes in tax policy had a much larger effect on the labor supply and labor force participation behavior of women in this subpopulation in the early 1980s than in recent years i t is well documented that over the past few decades female labor force behavior has undergone substantial changes women s labor force participation rates have increased markedly as have their annual hours of work at the same time the marital composition of women has undergone a substantial change as well with the proportion of married women falling steadily over time as a result single women comprise a greater share of the labor force than in earlier years and hence their behavioral responses to changes in wages and incomes carry even greater importance for the effects of changes in tax and transfer policies despite the large increase in the number of single women over the past decades single women s labor supply behavior has received

what can new survey data tell us about recent changes in distribution and poverty it has been claimed that in recent times the poor have lost ground both relatively and absolutely even when average levels of living have risen this article tests that claim using household surveys for 67 developing and transitional economies over 1981 94 it finds that changes in inequality and polarization were uncorrelated with changes in average living standards distribution improved as often as it worsened in growing economies and negative growth was often more detrimental to distribution than positive growth overall there was a small decrease in absolute poverty although with diverse experiences across regions and countries almost always poverty fell with growth in average living standards and rose with contraction

the gini coefficient structure and its application for the evaluation of regional balance development in china abstract the evaluation of balanced regional development should consider not only the economic and ecological benefits but also regional differences a nongrouped gini index is constructed based on a continuous distribution function to evaluate the regionally balanced development of the economy and the environment and the applicability of the method is analyzed given the data characteristics combining the difference in the regional economic base and ecological carrying capacity a multigroup overall gini index mgo gini with regional spatial heterogeneity is further developed along with its decomposition structure this work evaluates and analyses the regional balance in china s development with regard to regional industrial output energy consumption and pollution emissions from 2000 to 2015 using both the nongrouped and the mgo gini the results show that the gini index constructed in this paper can be well adapted to fat tailed data which is a typical feature of china s regional economic and ecological benefits data the regionally balanced development of china does not obviously promote industrial output whereas the regional balance of energy consumption shows the same upward trend when evaluated with both the nongrouped and the mgo gini from 2000 to 2015 in recent years after a period of improvement the regional balance of pollution emissions has experienced a downward trend there is disparity in cleaner production efficiency between regions of china as well as an upward trend in this disparity in recent years china s interregional balance has been enhanced in terms of energy consumption and pollution emissions considering regional spatial heterogeneity whereas the balance of economic output has been further reduced the balance in regional energy consumption plays a supporting role in balanced development among regions the imbalance within developed areas is the main source of regional economic output and energy consumption imbalances and the imbalance in developing areas is the main source of the regional pollution imbalance in china

changes in relative wages and family labor supply the large changes in relative wages that occurred during the 1980s provide fertile ground for studying the behavioral responses of married couples to the wage changes of husbands and wives i find estimates of own wage and cross wage elasticities for men that are very small the own wage elasticity for women is positive and the cross wage elasticity for women suggests a strong negative response of female labor supply to changes in their husband s wages family labor supply behavior determines how changes in individual wage rates translate into family earnings changes the responses of women to changes in their husband s wages attenuated somewhat the increases in individual wage inequality at the family level the results suggest that the earnings of the wives of low income men would actually have fallen over the decade if women s labor supply did not respond to changes in their husbands wages however assortative mating implies that wage changes of husbands and wives are correlated and so family earnings inequality still grew during the decade of the 1980s

the incredible shrinking elasticities married female labor supply 1978 2002 this paper demonstrates the extent to which married women s labor supply elasticities have changed over the past quarter century estimates from march current population survey data suggest that these elasticities have decreased substantially by 60 percent for the hours wage elasticity from 0 36 to 0 14 70 percent for the hours income elasticity from 0 053 to 0 015 95 percent for the participation wage elasticity from 0 66 to 0 03 and 60 percent for the participation income elasticity from 0 13 to 0 05 changing demographic characteristics explain little of the drop in these elasticities suggesting that preferences toward work have changed across birth cohorts

employment and child care choices in canada and the united states in this paper we examine employment and child care choices of two parent families with young children in the united states and canada using a pooled data set based on recent national surveys in each country we find that the employment and child care choices of canadian families are similar to those of u s families estimates of a model of employment and child care choices indicate significant effects of child care subsidies child care prices and wage rates on employment and child care choices however none of these factors helps to explain the differences in employment and child care choices between the two countries ce memoire examine le choix de l emploi et du soin des enfants dans les familles ou il y deux parents aux etats unis et au canada en utilisant des donnees d etudes recentes dans les deux pays il appert que les choix des familles canadiennes sont semblables a ceux des familles americaines les calibrations d un modele de ces choix montrent les effets significatifs des subventions au soin des enfants du prix des soins des enfants et des taux de salaires sur ces choix cependant aucun de ces facteurs n explique les diffrences dans les patterns de choix entre les deux pays

evaluating the impact of tax for fee reform fei gai shui on water resources and agriculture production in the zhanghe irrigation system china this article questions the effectiveness and viability of rural tax for fee reform fei gai shui on water resources and agriculture production taking the zhanghe irrigation system of china as a case study example the fei gai shui reform has been heralded as a possible solution for reducing the excessive fiscal burden on peasants while the reform may achieve in relieving peasant burdens significantly the initial impact of fei gai shui on water resources and agricultural production indicate least satisfactory trends the policy shows significant impact on rice yield and area it might also have profound impact on cropping pattern but it has yet to be seen dependence on local water resources such as ponds show significant increase after fei gai shui as it discouraged farmers to rely on regional water sources although the lower regional water use under fei gai shui reduced the water charges paid by farmers the savings were mostly offset by increasing pumping costs in accessing water from local ponds without any adjustments the fei gai shui is likely to cause serious predicament in agricultural sector it is visioned that local water resources such as water ponds will continue to play an important role in sustaining agricultural production

analysis of the international distribution of per capita co2 emissions using the polarization concept abstract the concept of polarization is linked to the extent that a given distribution leads to the formation of homogeneous groups with opposing interests this concept which is basically different from the traditional one of inequality is related to the level of inherent potential conflict in a distribution the polarization approach has been widely applied in the analysis of income distribution the extension of this approach to the analysis of international distribution of co 2 emissions is quite useful as it gives a potent informative instrument for characterizing the state and evolution of the international distribution of emissions and its possible political consequences in terms of tensions and the probability of achieving agreements in this paper we analyze the international distribution of per capita co 2 emissions between 1971 and 2001 through the adaptation of the polarization concept and measures we find that the most interesting grouped description deriving from the analysis is a two groups one which broadly coincide with annex b and non annex b countries of the kyoto protocol which shows the power of polarization analysis for explaining the generation of groups in the real world the analysis also shows a significant reduction in international polarization in per capita co 2 emissions between 1971 and 1995 but not much change since 1995 which might indicate that polarized distribution of emission is still one of the important factors leading to difficulties in achieving agreements for reducing global emissions

more on the labour supply of canadian women the traditional consensus on female labour supply is that the wage elasticity is large and positive in contrast to a small and generally negative elasticity for males this consensus has recently been challenged in a series of important papers by alice and masao nakamura who find a backward bending supply curve for females similar to that for males this result has been challenged on a variety of grounds the present paper tests the hypothesis advanced by the nakamuras on data that have several advantages over the census type in their papers the results offer strong support for the nakamuras conclusions

the causal factors of international inequality in hbox co _ 2 emissions per capita a regression based inequality decomposition analysis this paper uses the possibilities provided by the regression based inequality decomposition fields in res labor econ 22 1 38 2003 to explore the contribution of different explanatory factors to international inequality in hbox co 2 emissions per capita in contrast to previous emissions inequality decompositions which were based on identity relationships this methodology does not impose any a priori specific relationship thus it allows an assessment of the contribution to inequality of different relevant variables in short the paper appraises the relative contributions of affluence sectoral composition demographic factors and climate the analysis is applied to selected years of the period 1993 2007 the results show the important though decreasing share of the contribution of demographic factors as well as a significant contribution of affluence and sectoral composition

cross country polarisation in co2 emissions per capita in the european union changes and explanatory factors we analyse the degree of polarisation in the international distribution of co2 emissions per capita in the european union it is analytically relevant to examine the degree of instability inherent to a distribution and in the analysed case the likelihood that the distribution and its evolution will increase or decrease the chances of reaching an agreement on climate policy two approaches were used to measure polarisation the endogenous approach in which countries are grouped according to their similarity in terms of emissions and the exogenous approach in which countries are grouped geographically our findings indicate a clear decrease in polarisation since the mid 1990s which can essentially be explained by the fact that the different groups have converged i e antagonism among the co2 emitters has decreased as the contribution of energy intensity to between group differences has decreased this lower degree of polarisation in co2 distribution suggests a situation more conducive to the possibility of reaching eu wide agreements on the mitigation of co2 emissions

institutions in economics the old and the new institutionalism 1 definitions and issues 2 formalism and anti formalism 3 individualism and holism 4 rationality and rule following 5 evolution and design 6 efficiency and reform 7 conflicts and complementarities

interprovincial disparities in china output and consumption 1952 1987 the flood of economic information from china in recent years has permitted reassessment of the chinese model of development and the extent to which china s own development experience has conformed to it the prevailing consensus of the 1970s concerning the substance of the model itself typically characterized in terms of the chinese leadership s objectives and priorities and its strategy for pursuing them has stood up quite well the same cannot be said about past appraisals of the extent to which china s economic reality has been reshaped to accord with the model s prescriptions one of the most widely remarked elements of the chinese model is the high priority assigned to regional objectives and more specifically to balance in the distribution of productive capacity and equity in the distribution of income and hence consumption during the maoist era i e prior to 1979 the central government pursued regional objectives through such measures as interregional transfers of investment resources effected via the planning system subsidization of health and education expenditures in poor regions and attempts to maintain a safety net of state relief effected largely via control of grain surpluses in short there is little doubt that prior to 1979 the chinese leadership placed an unusually high value on the spread of modern growth and the improvements in welfare associated with it and persistently acted to limit the emergence or widening of interregional disparities although china s post mao leaders have shown greater concern with efficiency and with the potential trade offs between efficiency and such goals as balance and equity their continuation of many redistributive policies indicates that they have not abandoned regional objectives but how successful has china been in achieving these objectives

new estimates of labour supply elasticities for married women in canada 1996 2005 in this article we estimate income and substitution labour supply and participation elasticities for canadian married women using data from the survey of labour and income dynamics 1996 2005 we use the canadian tax and credit simulator ctacs and detailed information on the structure of income at the household level to compute the marginal tax rates faced by each individual we then use these marginal tax rates to compute net own wage spouse wage and nonlabour income we show how the magnitude of the estimated elasticities varies depending on whether net or gross wages and income are used in the estimation procedure and quantify biases caused by using average tax rates instead of marginal tax rates finally because marginal tax rates vary significantly over the sample we use quantile regressions to compare elasticities at different points of the hours distribution overall our results show that public policies now have on average less scope for influencing hours of work than 10 years ago howev

partnerships for sustainable change in cotton an institutional analysis of african cases this article examines intersectoral partnerships formed to promote sustainable cotton production and the extent to which such partnerships are facilitated or constrained by their institutional environment based on an analysis of five partnerships in sub saharan africa this article shows that institutional factors create both opportunities and obstacles for partnership implementation which are inextricably linked to their adoption of particular farming strategies and sustainability standards in general these institutional factors tend to facilitate the implementation of partnerships using contract farming and mainstream sustainability standards and hinder those adopting cooperative farming methods and organic standards

economic reform and interprovincial inequalities in china abstract this note is an attempt to explore two issues 1 the trend of interprovincial inequality in the post 1978 reform era in china and 2 the factors behind the dynamics of interprovincial inequality using recently released provincial gross domestic product gdp data we have shown that interprovincial inequality decreased in the fast half of the 1980s but started to increase in the second half of the 1980s to understand the impact of sectoral reforms on interprovincial inequality the overall inequality in provincial per capita gdp is decomposed into the contributions by the primary secondary and tertiary sectors it seems that the trend of interprovincial inequality has been largely induced by the reforms of the industrial sector which make up a large share of the secondary sector in addition national income data from the socialist national accounting system are used to identify the impact of interprovincial resource flows on interprovincial inequalities the findings seem to suggest a relative decline in the role of redistributive budgetary transfers