can the human capital approach explain life cycle wage differentials between races and sexes i introduction the trends in gender and racial wage gaps have continued to receive the attention of researchers and policy makers due to their mounting social significance substantial literature concludes that after world war ii the black white pay gap shrank rapidly until the mid 1970s this trend was reversed in the 1980s card and dinardo 2002 couch and daly 2002 darity and myers 1998 o neill 1990 smith and welch 1989 1 in contrast the gender pay gap persisted for four decades after world war ii only in the 1980s did it start to narrow yet it showed only a little progress in the 1990s blau ferber and winkler 2002 goldin 1990 o neill 2003 although a large number of studies have been purported to investigate the sources of male female and black white pay gaps most have not addressed the issue of whether or not the individuals being observed have changed their economic status over their lifetimes the major problem is that longitudinal data are not available over a long enough period to determine the age earnings profiles 2 by using the national longitudinal survey of youth data 1979 cohort nlsy79 this paper examines gender and racial wage gaps among individuals of the same age in an effort to eliminate major life cycle differences while at the same time tracking the changes in the wage gaps over their life spans in particular we would like to provide answers to the following questions what factors can account for the narrowing widening gender wage gaps among blacks whites as they age can the observed life cycle wage gaps be attributed to different paths of postschool human capital accumulation since today s individuals regardless of race or sex have on average completed similar years of schooling among the youth cohort the observed disparity in wages between races and sexes may simply reflect the differences in the quality of schooling family background and postschool investment 3 given that school quality and family background are essentially fixed for an individual as he or she ages in order to address the questions above this paper attempts to further examine the differences in postschool human capital investment behavior among individuals past estimates of the structural parameters for the model of postschool human capital accumulation have however not been fruitful benporath 1970 brown 1976 haley 1976 heckman 1976a 1976b rosen 1976 the major reasons as heckman 1976b points out are that dynamic models are difficult to solve explicitly and that the proportion of time spent investing in on the job training cannot be measured directly moreover to fulfill the dynamic concepts of human capital accumulation longer period longitudinal data must be used to explore the life cycle view of individual wages 4 the lack of empirical investigation in relation to the continuous time dynamic model using panel data therefore leads us to develop an alternative empirical version for estimating the structural parameters of the wage function over a lifetime in other words the purpose of our study is to estimate a dynamic structural model based on the theory of optimal human capital accumulation in accordance with this theory of human capital the wage and its life path can be viewed as the outcome of an optimal path of human capital investment over an individual s life cycle instead of comparing the differences in the outcome of this optimization process i e wages we estimate the key parameters in determining the life cycle wage path as well as further empirically identifying the sources of the wage gap our empirical results first suggest that the male female wage gap mainly arises from gender difference in the marginal costs of human capital production as men in general spend more time in the labor market and gain more work experience than women they tend to have lower marginal costs in the process of human capital production

does the gap in family friendly policies drive the family gap a segregation of the labour market into a family friendly and a non family friendly sector has the effect that women self select into the sectors depending on institutional constraints preferences for family friendly working conditions and expected wage differences we find that neglecting the sector dimension tends to understate the effect of birth related interruptions in both sectors the combined effect of a large depreciation effect and no recovery means that females in the non family friendly sector e g private sector are punished severely after childbirth in the family friendly sector e g public sector we find complete catch up

income distribution and environmental quality in china a spatial econometric perspective abstract paying heed to a surge of concern about the serious and continuous environmental degradation that is currently being witnessed in china in this paper we investigate whether income distribution contributes to environmental deterioration environmental degradation can be linked not only to income growth we argue but also to increases in income inequality the study calculated the gini coefficient of 31 province using a data set of 403 city level data in mainland china and estimated the linkage between income distribution and environmental deterioration utilizing balanced data for 31 chinese provinces during the period 1996 2015 first the degree of environmental pollution was calculated by constructing a comprehensive index system which was formulated using the entropy method based on six environmental indicators then a spatial panel regression model was also employed in order to estimate whether income inequality is likely to be a relevant factor in environmental deterioration in china the estimation results showed that using the index and spatial analysis techniques significant spatial positive agglomeration were found existing between chinese provinces in terms of their levels of environmental degradation the influencing factors estimation results substantiated the existence of an invert u shaped relation lending support to the environmental kuznets curve theory more importantly the study found that income inequality played a significant role in preventing environmental degradation suggesting that an appropriate level of income inequality over a delimited period is beneficial to improving environmental quality it should however also be emphasized that optimizing the country s income distribution is remains an important long term task for the chinese government other factors were found to exert different types and magnitudes of impacts on environmental pollution results showed that many factors for instance energy intensity the share of secondary industry population density and foreign direct investment contribute to environmental deterioration conversely our findings also indicate that rising urbanization levels can have a positive effect on environmental quality in addition no clear evidence was found to suggest that local government expenditure is related to environmental degradation

inequality and the environmental kuznets curve abstract is income inequality harmful to the environment the answer to this question has not reached a consensus in the literature this study seeks to provide insight into this question by examining the influence of income inequality on the environmental kuznets curve ekc i e the impact of income inequality on the ekc turning point two potential mechanisms through which inequality may affect the ekc turning point by reducing public demand for environmental protection and by increasing a power of capital owners to prevent such protection using a large sample n 170 174 of countries we find evidence of the ekc for so2 emissions and income inequality has a significant impact on the ekc turning point income inequality increases the ekc turning point suggesting that high inequality can be damaging to the environment the results are robust to potential outliers different data sources of income inequality a different so2 emissions measure changes in model specification different samples and an alternative estimation method we also find that inequality appears to be more important than corruption in determining the ekc turning point

income inequality and co2 emissions in the g7 1870 2014 evidence from non parametric modelling abstract we examine whether income inequality effected carbon emissions in what are now the world s wealthiest countries over the period 1870 2014 employing a non parametric panel estimation method with cross sectional and time varying coefficients we find that the relationship between income inequality and co2 emissions is highly non linear in terms of signs and significance the nonparametric coefficient function for income inequality is found to vary over the period 1870 2014 income inequality exhibits a significant positive effect from 1870 to 1880 and a significant negative impact from 1950 to 2000 on co2 emissions we also find that for extended periods between 1881 and 1949 and between 2000 and 2014 there is no significant relationship between the two variables

the direction of developing country trade empirical evidence of differences between south south and south north trade abstract declining market opportunities in northern markets led to views that greater south south trading might provide an alternative growth stimulus this paper analyses the characteristics of south south trade in manufactures and recent changes in the level of such trade to help clarify the potential of greater self reliance within the south south south trade is found to be more intensive in the use of both physical and human capital hence less rational from the static comparative advantage viewpoint than south north trade there is indirect but strong evidence that exporting countries with greatest orientation towards the south are those with greater distortions less rapid movements up the ladder of comparative advantage and weaker export performance finally it is observed that the recent boom in south south trade is largely explained by simple market size effects very rapid growth of rich oil exporters and the faster gnp growth of developing compared to developed countries the paper concludes that while south south trade of about the present magnitude one of greater developing country exports is certainly rational there is little evidence to support views that greater south south trade should be especially promoted arguments of dynamic comparative advantage may favor south south trade but so far these have been more speculative and not yet well researched empirically

a longitudinal analysis of white women s wages according to human capital theory women s work participation decisions will strongly affect their wages and wage growth we test human capital predictions about how labor force withdrawals both past and prospective part time work experience and working in male rather than in female jobs affect wages and wage growth for white women we do this by estimating a wage change model for the years 1967 1979 for a national sample of white women we find that wages drop immediately following withdrawals but that this is followed by a rapid wage growth so that the net loss in wages from dropping out of the labor force is small we further find that wage growth is not significantly lower in female than in male jobs but that part time work experience does not lead to significant wage growth in either male or female jobs

understanding the family gap in pay for women with children as the gender gap in pay between women and men has been narrowing the family gap in pay between mothers and nonmothers has been widening one reason may be the institutional structure in the united states which has emphasized equal pay and opportunity policies but not family policies in contrast to other countries that have implemented both the authors now have evidence on the links between one such family policy and women s pay recent research suggests that maternity leave coverage by raising women s retention after childbirth also raises women s levels of work experience job tenure and pay

design and implementation of carbon cap and dividend policies an important concept in discussions of carbon management policies is cap and dividend where some fraction of the revenues of an auction on emission allowances is returned to citizens on an equal per capita basis this policy tool has some important features it emphasizes the fact that the atmosphere is a common property resource and it is a highly transparent measure that can be effectively used to protect the income of low income individuals in this paper we examine this policy in the california context and focus on the costs and impacts of a cap and dividend scheme when applied to carbon emissions associated with electricity natural gas and transportation services we find that cap and dividend can effectively be used to address the economic impacts of carbon management policies making them progressive for the lowest income members of society we find that the majority of households receive positive net benefits from the policy even with the government retaining half of the auction revenue if auction revenues are instead dedicated only to low income households the majority of low income households can be fully compensated even with the state government retaining upwards of 90 of auction revenues for other purposes

occupational attainment and gender earnings differentials in mexico women earned about 20 8 less than men in mexico in 1987 a difference that increased to 22 0 by 1993 using 1987 93 data from mexico s national urban employment survey the authors study the role of occupational attainment in this wage differential most of the 1987 93 increase in the gender log monthly earnings gap they find can be explained by relative chnges in human capital endowments wage coefficient changes would have slightly reduced the gap all else equal the increasing male female earnings differential was tempered by a substantial decline in gender differences in occupational attainment from 1987 to 1993 most of the male female differences in earnings in both 1987 and 1993 can be explained by differences in rewards to individual endowments rather than gender differences in endowments

why are u s women decreasing their labor force participation if their wages are rising given the traditional interpretation of women s labor force participation rate lfpr trends as movements along a positively sloped labor supply curve it is surprising that the recent downward trend in u s women s lfpr has occurred over a period when women s real wages were commonly believed to be rising i find that almost two thirds of the decline since 2000 is attributable to aging of the adult female population the remainder due to declining labor force participation for women under 55 becomes less puzzling in light of my evidence that the wage education locus faced by women actually may have worsened since 2000 jel j21 j31 j82

income inequality and the environment aggregation bias in environmental kuznets curves abstract the environmental kuznets curve assumes an inverted u shaped relation between environmental damage and per capita income recently it has been argued in the literature that in addition to income levels the inequality in the distribution of power and income is positively related to environmental degradation we provide an additional argument based on simple aggregation for including a measure of income dispersion in empirical analyses when the relationship between environmental damage and household income is concave e g resembles an environmental kuznets curve then income inequality is negatively related to total environmental damage results from an empirical analysis of cross national variation indicate that the aggregation effect can run counter to and outweigh the political economy effect for some environmental indicators

stoking the fires co2 emissions and economic growth abstract we examine the relationship between economic development and carbon dioxide emissions a greenhouse gas central to global warming predictions estimates derived from global panel data suggest a diminishing marginal propensity to emit mpe carbon dioxide as gdp per capita rises despite this global carbon dioxide emissions growth will continue at 1 8 percent per annum for the foreseeable future a result that is not sensitive to average output growth instead emissions growth continues because output and population will grow most rapidly in lower income nations with high mpes this latter feature emphasizes the distributional consequences of policies to reduce emissions

the trend in the male female wage gap in the united states despite the rise in the feminist movement the enactment of equal opportunity legislation and the rapid increase in women s labor force participation a substantial sex differential in wages has persisted in the united states for at least 4 decades measured by hourly earnings of year round workers this wage gap was 31 in 1955 widened to a 35 37 range by the 1960s and early 1970s and then narrowed to 33 by 1982 this paper examines the extent to which changes in the characteristics of men and women in the labor force and other factors can account for the observed pattern the main finding is that increases in women s labor force participation were initially associated with a declining skill level of employed women relative to employed men where skill is measured by years of schooling and job tenure more recently the work experience of employed women has been increasing which helps account for the recent narrowing trend in the wage gap during the 1970s the wage gap probably woul have narrowed m

the wages of motherhood better or worse data from two british cohort studies show that women with children have lower wages than childless women we develop an innovative decomposition of this family gap the crude pay gap between mothers and childless women in their thirties was similar in 1978 and 1991 but low pay in part time work became more important in explaining this gap and human capital less so we find that among full time employees women who broke their employment at childbirth were subsequently paid less than childless women in contrast mothers who maintained employment continuity were as well paid as childless women but neither were as well remunerated as men copyright 1999 by oxford university press

changes in the male female wage gap 1976 85 this study uses detailed information on work experience tenure and on the job training collected in the 1976 and 1985 questionnaires of the panel study of income dynamics to account for changes in wage differentials between white men and white women over these nine years decompositions of changes in the wage gap are used to illustrate the contribution of individual factors between 1976 and 1985 the wage gap between white men and women narrowed by approximately 4 percent this study finds that nearly 50 percent of this reduction was due to average changes in job tenure and other work history variables over this period

does income inequality facilitate carbon emission reduction in the us abstrct considering the short and long term impacts of income inequality on carbon emissions as well as the heterogeneity of the emission distribution this paper employs panel ardl and quantile regression models to analyze the effect of income inequality on carbon emissions across us states the findings suggest that higher income inequality increases us carbon emissions in the short term whereas it promotes carbon reduction in the long term furthermore we find that the absolute values for the coefficients on income inequality in the states from the 70th to the 90th quantiles are larger than those from the 10th to the 40th quantiles this indicates that income inequality reduces more carbon emissions in states with higher per capita carbon emissions the results provide important insights for policy makers to improve the quality of economic development and address climate change

the distribution of the male female earnings differential 1970 1990 the authors examine the male female earnings differential between 1970 and 1990 their objective is to provide consistent estimates that can be compared and interpreted over time and to assess the sensitivity of their results to alternative specifications the authors find that women made modest gains over the period standard decomposition techniques reveal that gender differences in observable characteristics do not explain much of the earnings differential most of the improvement in women s relative earnings has come by a decline in the unexplained component the authors also find that the differential varies systematically across age and education groups and across high and low income women coauthors are dwayne benjamin andree desaulniers and mary grant

the family gap and family friendly policies the case of norway norway has among the most generous family policies in the world the most recent is the cash for care reform which was implemented in 1998 we answer two main questions in this article what is the level of the family gap in such a generous regime and how has it developed as a consequence of the latest reform results suggest that the family gap is rather modest in norway compared to many other countries and we find no evidence of a worsening of the gap in recent years a positive interpretation of these results is that the norwegian labour market is fairly flexible in the sense that it seems to be able to absorb even more generous family policies

marital status child rearing and earnings differentials in the graduate labour market differential the importance of family role specialisation for the measurement of the residual earnings differential is examined within a sample selection model of participation and earnings the earnings differential between men and women may be divided into that explained by different characteristics and attributes and that due to residual factors one element of this residual may be discrimination although other factors may be incorporated in the unexplained component the residual also incorporates the effects on earnings associated with the production of home goods see polachek ig75 a b these will occur

inequality as a cause of environmental degradation abstract this paper advances two hypotheses first the extent of an environmentally degrading economic activity is a function of the balance of power between the winners who derive net benefits from the activity and the losers who bear net costs second greater inequalities of power and wealth lead all else equal to more environmental degradation

the family gap for young women in the united states and britain can maternity leave make a difference in the united states and britain there is a family gap between the wages of mothers and other women differential returns to marital and parental status explain 40 50 of the gender gap another 30 40 is explained by women s lower levels of work experience and lower returns to experience taking advantage of quasi experiments in job protected maternity leave in the united states and britain this article finds that women who had leave coverage and returned to work after childbirth received a wage premium that offset the negative wage effects of children

power distribution the environment and public health a state level analysis abstract this paper examines relationships among power distribution the environment and public health by means of a cross sectional analysis of the 50 us states a measure of inter state variations in power distribution is derived from data on voter participation tax fairness medicaid access and educational attainment we develop and estimate a recursive model linking the distribution of power to environmental policy environmental stress and public health the results support the hypothesis that greater power inequality leads to weaker environmental policies which in turn lead to greater environmental degradation and to adverse public health outcomes

trends in earnings differentials by gender 1971 1981 this paper clarifies trends in relative earnings by sex over the decade 1971 1981 and decomposes these trends to determine which factors contributed to a decline and which to an increase our analyses are based upon data from the annual demographic files of the current population survey for 1972 and 1982 this study is unique in that it estimates earnings functions in each year which are corrected for selectivity bias it is found that such a correction markedly raises the progress of white women relative to men among blacks the impact of the selectivity bias correction was to substantially lower the relative earnings increase of women however the coefficients on the selectivity variable were not significant the findings suggest declining sex role specialization and discrimination as conventionally measured over the decade on the other hand contrary to expectations the total effect of variables reflecting the sex composition of the individuals occupation worked to widen the sex differential over the period the sex differential was also adversely affected by a decline in the relative return to education especially for whites authors modified

human capital discrimination and the gender wage gap in bangladesh summary this paper investigates changes in the gender wage gap in bangladesh over the period 1999 2009 the gap in average wages between men and women decreased by 31 over this period this paper shows that a key driver of this change was an improvement in female educational qualifications it also demonstrates that the gender wage gap across the wage distribution narrowed much more at the lower end of the wage distribution than at the upper end it attributes this mainly to a decline in discrimination against women implications for policies aimed at more equal access to education and enforcement of equal pay legislation in bangladesh are also identified

why the gender gap in wages narrowed in the 1980s since 1976 the gender gap in wages on average declined by about 1 per year this article focuses on identifying the factors underlying this trend three data sets are analyzed the current population survey the panel study of income dynamics and the national longitudinal survey we find that convergence in measurable work related characteristics schooling and work experience explains one third to one half the narrowing the remainder is attributable to a relative increase in women s returns to experience as well as to declining wages in blue collar work and other factors

a study of wages and reliability this article studies the role of reliability on the wage rate reliability is defined in the sense of showing up for scheduled work over an extended period just as reliability is an important determinant of product prices a worker s reliability ought to be an important determinant of his or her wage moreover while workers are not conveniently packaged by brand name firms form expectations about reliability across identifiable groups of workers and thus effectively attach brand names to workers based on their observable characteristics a worker s wage depends on his own track record and the reputation for reliability of his identifiable group using robust measures of reliability i find that observed reliability and expected reliability substantially affect the wage rate and that about half of the gender wage gap can be explained by differences in expected reliability between men and women in the workforce

economic transition and the motherhood wage penalty in urban china investigation using panel data china s economic transition has fundamentally changed the mechanisms for allocating and compensating labour this paper investigates how the economic transition has affected the wage gap between mothers and childless women in urban china using panel data for the period 1990 2005 the results show that overall mothers earned considerably less than childless women additionally the wage penalties for motherhood went up substantially from the gradualist reform period 1990 96 to the radical reform period 1999 2005 the results also show that that although motherhood does not appear to have a significant wage effect for the state sector it imposes substantial wage losses for mothers in the non state sector these findings suggest that the economic transition has shifted part of the cost of childbearing and rearing from the state and employers back to women in the form of lower earnings for working mothers copyright oxford university press

are the economy and the environment decoupling a comparative international study 1960 20051 ecological modernization theory posits that even though economic development harms the environment the magnitude of the harmful link decreases over the course of development in contrast the treadmill of production theory argues that the strong relationship between environmental harms and economic development will remain constant or possibly increase through time to evaluate these competing propositions interactions between economic development and time are used in cross national panel analyses of three measures of carbon dioxide emissions the results vary across the three outcomes as well as between developed and less developed countries providing mixed support for both theoretical perspectives the authors conclude by discussing how both theories could benefit from engaging contemporary research concerning changes within the transnational organization of production and the structure of international trade and how these global shifts influence environment economic development relationships

community college enrollment college major and the gender wage gap the literature on the narrowing of the gender wage gap during the 1980s considers among other factors the closing of the male female differential in post secondary education this paper looks specifically at the role played by the dramatic relative increase in women s enrollment in two year colleges with independent cross sections developed using nlsy data the authors find that the gender wage gap narrowed by 0 0469 log points between 1985 and 1990 and by 0 0932 log points between 1989 and 1994 the more pronounced decrease observed for 1989 94 is largely explained by erosion of male female differences in weeks worked job tenure and full time employment a more novel finding is evidence that while change in the quantity of education provides essentially no explanatory power disaggregating education by two year and four year providers and by major field of study accounts for 8 5 11 of the closing of the wage gap over the 1989 94 period

trade policy and distortions in intra asian trade this paper analysis wheather the level of tariffs and non tariff barriers affect the pattern of inter industry trade within asia the heckscher ohlin theorem is based on the assumption of efficient resource allocation however markets in many developing countries protect the domestic production by trade barriers we would therefore expect the pattern of production and trade not to reflect comparative advantages perfectly it is found that import charges and non tariff barriers have a significant positive impact on capital intensities in net export

comparative advantage in manufactured goods a re appraisal japanese input coefficients are used to investigate the pattern of comparative advantage in the exportation of manufactured products in a cross country framework estimates are made for the imports of manufactured products as well as for net exports also alternative techniques of estimation are utilized and an attempt to explain the residuals in the regression equations and to indicate the predictive power of these equations is made the paper shows that patterns of comparative advantage in manufactured goods can be explained by reference to commodity characteristics and country characteristics in turn intercountry differences in the extent of trade orientation the concentration of exports and foreign direct investment explain part of the residuals of the cross country regression equations finally it has been found that the method applied permits projecting the factor intensity of trade for individual countries

two ways to success expansion of renewable energies in comparison between germany s federal states abstract expansion of renewable energies is a central pillar of the german energy transition towards a non nuclear renewable system the expansion rate is co determined to a significant degree at the level of the federal states and varies considerably from state to state apart from the existence of natural energy resources and general economic conditions do parties in government play an important role for the development at the state level we consider potentially influential factors in a fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis fsqca focusing on the expansion of renewable electricity production in all 16 federal german states from 2004 to 2014 as a result two promising ways for accelerated expansion of renewable electricity production can be identified on the one hand a group of economically less developed states have succeeded in promoting expansion and uses it as part of an economic modernization strategy within the economically more developed states however the party political composition of the state governments green party s involvement plays a significant role these results also have implications for other federal countries beyond germany pointing to tailor made policy strategies that consider these specific circumstances

examining the determinants and the spatial nexus of city level co2 emissions in china a dynamic spatial panel analysis of china s cities abstract china now the world s top co2 emitter is facing increasingly pressure to instigate energy saving and emission reduction measures as a result great attention is being paid to the driving forces behind co2 emissions in china literature has to date however tended to exclude the city level due to a scarcity of energy statistics at that scale using gis technology and dynamic spatial panel data models and aided by spatiotemporal modeling that integrates remote sensing data and statistical data this study identifies the determinates and the spatial nexus of co2 emissions at china s city level the results show that the co2 emissions of all of china s cities increased between 1992 and 2013 with the highest co2 emission levels occurring in eastern rather than western or central china in addition an obvious spatial agglomeration effect was observed in city level co2 emissions highlighting the influence cities exert on their neighbors our empirical results also emphasize the influence that factors such as economic growth population the industrialization level capital investment and population density all exert in relation to raising co2 emissions as such the study found little evidence in support of the ekc hypothesis these results further imply that if china persists in its current development pattern the estimated factors will inevitably lead to increased co2 emissions in the long term road density and the traffic coupling factor were in contrast both found to exert strong influences to the mitigation of co2 emissions as such improving the coupling degree between the urban spatial structure of a city and its traffic organization could play an important role in reducing co2 emissions our findings merit attention from chinese policy makers as they shed new light on the path toward developing low carbon cities

a distributional analysis of the gender wage gap in bangladesh this article empirically investigates the gender wage gap in bangladesh during the period 2005 2009 applying unconditional quantile regression models the article demonstrates that women are paid less than men throughout the wage distribution and the gap is higher at the lower end of the distribution discrimination against women is the primary determinant of the wage gap the article also demonstrates that the observed gender wage gap is likely to be underestimated if we ignore selection in full time employment a number of policy implications are discussed

structural change in developing countries has it decreased gender inequality summary this paper examines the evolution of female labor market outcomes from 1987 to 2008 by assessing the role of changing labor demand requirements in four developing countries brazil mexico india and thailand the results highlight the importance of structural change in reducing gender disparities by decreasing the labor demand for physical attributes the results show that india the country with the greatest physical labor requirements exhibits the largest labor market gender inequality in contrast brazil s labor requirements have followed a similar trend seen in the united states reducing gender inequality in both wages and labor force participation

identifying the impacts of income inequality on co2 emissions empirical evidences from oecd countries and non oecd countries abstract the emergence of environmental quality challenges is rooted in social problems which mainly come from income inequality and power gap income inequality and climate change have been highlighted as hindering the achievement of sustainable development and environmental protection globally though existing literature has estimated the influences of income inequality on co2 emissions relatively little is known about the long run and short run effects from a cross national perspective therefore the aim of this study is to shed light on the long run and short run relationships between income inequality and per capita co2 emissions based on balanced country level panel dataset for 78 countries from 1990 to 2017 in order to understand how a country s economic level affects the link between inequality and co2 emissions this study classified the sample countries into three groups oecd countries low income non oecd countries and high income non oecd countries the fmols and dols model is applied to examine the relationship between the income inequality and per capita co2 emission meanwhile the estimates of an ardl model revealed the long run and short run effects our empirical results indicate that there is a long term cointegration relationship between income inequality and per capita co2 emissions higher income inequality promotes emission reductions in oecd countries and high income non oecd countries while the influences are insignificant in low income non oecd countries in the long run per capita income carbon intensity population size and urbanization were also considered in this study the estimates of an ardl model indicate that whilst income inequality does not have a significant impact on co2 emissions in the short run per capita national income positively affects co2 emissions meaning that income growth will accelerate emissions carbon intensity positively affects co2 emissions in the long term indicating that increased income facilitates increased energy use and emissions but that progress in co2 recycling technology may ultimately reduce emissions neither population size nor urbanization rate exerted any obvious effects on per capita co2 emissions from a policy perspective governments have an onerous task ahead of them in balancing economic efficiency and distributary justice lastly we provide insights for policy makers that in order to realize the goal of emission reductions in the long run it may be best to proceed by making reasonable national income redistribution policies and by adjusting the welfare system

the income inequality and carbon emissions trade off revisited abstract this paper investigates the marginal effect of income inequality on carbon emissions per capita we use a panel consisting of 68 countries over a 50 year period from 1961 to 2010 we report estimates that support the hypothesis that there is a trade off between carbon emissions per capita and income inequality this trade off is not homogeneous across countries and depends upon the level of development measured by income per capita using panel smooth transition regression we find that this relationship is negative for countries with low to moderate income per capita but becomes slightly positive after passing a threshold located around fifteen thousand 2011 us dollars moreover the inequality elasticity of emissions per capita is comparable in magnitude to its income elasticity therefore both inequality and income levels are crucial to define policies to reduce carbon emissions this implies a challenge to policymakers who pursue to reduce both income inequality and carbon emissions

heteroskedastic sample selection and developing country wage equations many researchers have dealt with potential selectivity bias in developing country wage equations by employing heckman s 1979 two step method or related techniques despite the potential for such methods to produce misleading results if the assumptions on which they are based are incorrect this paper argues that the results produced even by parametric easy to implement selectivity bias correction methods can inspire more confidence than the typical applications to date when model selection testing is used to select from a specified diverse set assumptions for which there is support in the data and when sensitivity analysis is used to identify parameters whose estimates are robust across a wide range of assumptions in particular it highlights the importance of allowing for the nonlinearities implied by selection rule heteroskedasticity there is economic reason to suspect heteroskedasticity and econometric reason to believe that the nonlinearities it introduces into the first stage will improve

generating conditional expectations from models with selectivity bias comment abstract plugging identical values of the mills ratio into estimates of selectivity adjusted wage regressions for men and women generates wage predictions that pertain to men and women with identical unobserved characteristics only under highly restrictive conditions this calls into question the suggestion of vella 1988 and the details of several gender gap decomposition studies

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

impact of income inequality and environmental regulation on environmental quality evidence from china abstract china s environmental pollution is of widespread concern and environmental governance has become the country s main method of achieving high quality development environmental quality is a comprehensive indicator which includes many factors such as air water and solid waste pollution this study did not use a single pollutant as a substitute variable for environmental quality firstly we used principal component analysis to construct a comprehensive environmental quality index secondly the stochastic impacts by regression on population affluence and technology and panel quantile regression models were used with data from 30 chinese provinces in china from 1998 to 2017 to analyze the effect of income inequality and environmental regulation on environmental quality the constructed comprehensive index revealed that china s environmental quality had an m type trend over time the mean regression results showed that income inequality and environmental regulation improved environmental quality but higher income inequality reduced environmental quality the panel quantile regression model results revealed that the coefficient of income inequality was positively significant at the 10 30 quantiles and negatively significant at the 70 90 quantiles the coefficients of the absolute value of income inequality at the 10 30 quantiles were less than those at the 70 90 quantiles this implied that higher income inequality reduced environmental quality whereas higher environmental regulations improved environmental quality considering the possible impact of environmental quality on income inequality and environmental regulations we designed a simultaneous equation model to overcome the deviation caused by bilateral causality the conclusions of this study provide policymakers with a new perspective on environmental governance and new paths for achieving high quality development

income inequality and carbon emissions in the united states a state level analysis 1997 2012 abstract this study investigates the relationship between u s state level co 2 emissions and two measures of income inequality the income share of the top 10 and the gini coefficient each of the inequality measures which focus on unique characteristics of income distributions is used to evaluate the arguments of different analytical approaches results of the longitudinal analysis for the 1997 to 2012 period indicate that state level emissions are positively associated with the income share of the top 10 while the effect of the gini coefficient on emissions is non significant the statistically significant relationship between co 2 emissions and the concentration of income among the top 10 is consistent with analytical approaches that focus on political economy dynamics and veblen effects which highlight the potential political and economic power and emulative influence of the wealthy the null effect of the gini coefficient is generally inconsistent with the marginal propensity to emit approach which posits that when incomes become more equally distributed the poor will increase their consumption of energy and other carbon intensive products as they move into the middle class

careers and motherhood policies for compatibility this paper examines the economic issues relevant to policy debates that surround the increasing labour force participation of mothers we review the main changes in women s labour market participation in britain the main source of increase in women s participation rates has come from mothers returning to work after child birth after progressively shorter intervals the major influences on this behaviour and the length of time spent out of work over the first childbirth and the associated empirical work are also reviewed these changes have raised issues relevant to maternity and parental leave childcare provision employers family friendly working arrangements and children s welfare the paper makes some recommenda tions about how to further gender equity in a form compatible with family life

quantifying the global and distributional aspects of american household carbon footprint abstract analysis of household consumption and its environmental impact remains one of the most important topics in sustainability research nevertheless much past and recent work has focused on domestic national averages neglecting both the growing importance of international trade on household carbon footprint and the variation between households of different income levels and demographics using consumer expenditure surveys and multi country life cycle assessment techniques this paper analyzes the global and distributional aspects of american household carbon footprint we find that due to recently increased international trade 30 of total us household co 2 impact in 2004 occurred outside the us further households vary considerably in their co 2 responsibilities at least a factor of ten difference exists between low and high impact households with total household income and expenditure being the best predictors of both domestic and international portions of the total co 2 impact the global location of emissions which cannot be calculated using standard input output analysis and the variation of household impacts with income have important ramifications for polices designed to lower consumer impacts on climate change such as carbon taxes the effectiveness and fairness of such policies hinges on a proper understanding of how income distributions rebound effects and international trade affect them

can volunteer work help explain the male female earnings gap using the 1987 survey of volunteer activity in canada we examine whether differential returns to volunteer work in the paid labour market can explain part of the male female earnings gap male volunteers earn on average about 11 higher incomes than their non volunteering counterparts as a result of their volunteer experience whereas comparable female volunteers and non volunteers earn similar incomes this differential return across the sexes may be partially explained by the type of volunteer activity undertaken our results indicate that as much as one third of the male female earnings gap may be attributable to the fact that the labour market rewards male and female volunteers differently

emulation inequality and work hours was thorsten veblen right we investigate the manner in which a desire to emulate the rich influences individuals allocation of time between labour and leisure greater inequality inducing longer work hours as a result data on work hours in ten countries over the period 1963 98 show that greater inequality is indeed associated longer work hours these veblen effects are large and the estimates are robust using country fixed effects and other specifications because consumption inequality is a public bad a social welfare optimum cannot be implemented by a flat tax on consumption but may be accomplished by more complicated progressive consumption taxes at the close of the nineteenth century thorsten veblen proposed what he termed pecuniary emulation as the foundation of a theory of consumption spending he maintained is driven by relative status considerations that is by the desire to be a particular type of person as much as bythedesire to enjoytheconsumer goodsper se the joneses with whom one had to keep up were not the neighbours but the rich theirleveloflivingbecamethenever attainableobjectiveinaconsumptionarmsrace among the less well to do in the theory of the leisure class he wrote the motive is emulation the stimulus of an invidious comparison especially in any community in which class distinctions are quite vague all canons and reputability and decency and all standards of consumption are traced back by insensible gradations to the usages and thoughts of the highest social and pecuniary class the wealthy leisure class 1934 p 81 while valued by some economists as capturing common sense aspects of consumption as a form of status seeking veblen s view of social preferences was soon eclipsed by the simpler and more tractable neoclassical theory of the consumer relegated to the underworld of economics veblen s ideas have nonetheless resonated over the ensuing years in the writing of duesenberry 1949 leibenstein 1950 and galbraith 1958 at the middle of the past century and schor 1998

the nexus between income inequality and co2 emissions in turkey abstract environmental degradation and income inequality are two of the most important international debates that await immediate resolution despite that their interaction in the environmental economics literature has been very little analysis the aim of this study is to examine the impact of income distribution on the co2 emissions in turkey during 1984 2014 an autoregressive distributed lag model ardl test is employed to determine possible long term and short term nexus among the series the ardl test results show that the series are cointegrated and that income inequality has a positive effect on co2 emissions we also find that the environmental kuznets curve ekc is valid in turkey the toda yamamoto causality test denotes that gini coefficient is the granger cause of co2 emission the results show that deterioration in income distribution will reduce environmental quality in turkey which validates that political economy approach is valid in turkey study results can be an important guide for policymakers reducing income inequality for a new strategy in the fight against environmental problems may lead to a win win situation for turkey and the international community