National Income and Its Distribution
Author | : Markus Bruckner |
Publisher | : International Monetary Fund |
Total Pages | : 44 |
Release | : 2014-06-11 |
ISBN-10 | : 9781498320900 |
ISBN-13 | : 1498320902 |
Rating | : 4/5 (00 Downloads) |
Download or read book National Income and Its Distribution written by Markus Bruckner and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2014-06-11 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Does the distribution of income within a country become more equal as it grows richer? This paper uses plausibly exogenous variations in trade-weighted world income and international oil price shocks as instruments for within-country variations in countries real GDP per capita to examine this issue for a large sample of advanced and developing countries. Our findings indicate that increases in national income have a significant moderating effect on income inequality: a one percent increase in real GDP per capita, on average, reduces the Gini coefficient by around 0.08 percentage points, a result that is robust across income levels, different time horizons, and alternative estimation techniques. From a policy perspective, our results suggest that education policies that promote equity and help individuals continue on to higher levels of education could help reduce income inequality.