INEQUALITY IN CITIES*

ABSTRACT Much of the inequality literature has focused on national inequality, but local inequality is also important. Crime rates are higher in more unequal cities; people in unequal cities are more likely to say that they are unhappy. There is a negative association between local inequality and the growth of city‐level income and population, once we control for the initial distribution of skills. High levels of mobility across cities mean that city‐level inequality should not be studied with the same analytical tools used to understand national inequality, and policy approaches need to reflect the urban context. Urban inequality reflects the choices of more and less skilled people to live together in particular areas. City‐level skill inequality can explain about one‐third of the variation in city‐level income inequality, while skill inequality is itself explained by historical schooling patterns and immigration. Local income also reflects the substantial differences in the returns to skill across, which are related to local industrial patterns.     

Human Rights Violations,Corruption, and the Policy of Repression

Quantitative cross‐national research on human rights violations and repression has made considerable progress in identifying and eliminating economic and political factors that influence the use of torture and killing by governments. Warfare tends to increase violations, democracy—notably full democracy—and trade tends to inhibit violations. Where motives have been considered, this research has generally assumed a strategic motivation for government use of repression. Repression is employed to counter threats from the opposition as represented by the presence of warfare. Less attention has been given to the effect of implementation on levels of repression. Theory suggests that agents are likely to make a substantial independent contribution to the level of repression, if given the opportunity. In this article we develop this argument and present cross‐country comparative evidence that suggests that agents’ opportunities for hidden action measured by perceived levels of financial corruption substantially influences the incidence of torture in a political system, after controlling for the strategic motive of governments and the other factors found influential in earlier research. We show that the results are robust and not sensitive to alternative modeling, measurement, and research‐design decisions.     

Migrant workers,self‐reliance,and the propensity to hold income protection insurance by country of residence

Utilising a large comparative survey across 11 countries, it is shown that country effects condition the individual uptake of income protection insurance and that shared attributes, including labour market status, are important factors in determining the take‐up of income protection insurance, whatever the respondents' country of residence. We observed differences in the respondents' coping strategies, including self‐reliance, and were able to distinguish between migrant workers and those who work in their country of origin, along with the “special” case of the Australian respondents. These findings have implications for the ongoing debate on the labour market effects of globalisation and the significance of national institutions and regulatory practices.     

SPACE,TRUST, AND COMMUNAL ACTION: RESULTS FROM FIELD EXPERIMENTS IN SOUTHEAST ASIA*

ABSTRACT This paper examines the spatial dimensions of trust in two Southeast Asian cities using data from both household surveys and field experiments conducted in low‐income communities. The results suggest that space and location are important to understanding communal action and trust in developing countries. Not surprisingly, space matters in different ways depending on culture, history and the political‐economy of a particular country or city.     

NEIGHBORHOOD SOCIAL MIX AND ADULTS' INCOME TRAJECTORIES: LONGITUDINAL EVIDENCE FROM STOCKHOLM

We investigate the relationship between neighborhood income composition and income trajectories of adults, employing annual panel data from Stockholm over the 1991–2008 period and multiple measures of neighborhood income mix. We advance the human geography literature in three ways by quantifying neighborhood effects that: (1) are unusually precise due to our large sample size; (2) are arguably causal and unbiased due to the econometric techniques employed; (3) are potentially heterogeneous, varying according to gender, income group, and ethnicity. Our innovative, fixed‐effect change modeling indicates that neighborhood income mix affects subsequent one‐ and five‐year income trajectories of residents in highly heterogeneous ways according to gender, income and ethnicity, and for some groups this effect is substantial. The evidence supports on Pareto improvement grounds a social mix policy that attempts to reduce the incidence of lower‐income dominant neighborhood environments and replace them with more mixed or middle‐income dominant ones.     

INCORPORATING TECHNOLOGY DIFFUSION,FACTOR MOBILITY AND STRUCTURAL CHANGE INTO CROSS‐REGION GROWTH REGRESSION: AN APPLICATION TO CHINA*

ABSTRACT This paper advocates a spatial dynamic model that introduces technology diffusion, factor mobility, and structural change into the cross‐region growth regression. The spatial setting is derived from theory rather than spatial statistical tests. An application of this model to the study of cross‐province growth in China over the period 1980–2005 indicates that incomes are spatially correlated, which highlights the significance of technology diffusion and factor mobility. Furthermore, the integration of neoclassical growth empirics and the structural change perspective of development economics provide a much improved account of interprovincial variations in income levels and economic growth.     

The Occupy Movement and the Top 1% in Canada

The Occupy movement catalyzed public debate on the issue of growing income inequality. This paper examines recent patterns of inequality in Canada, paying particular attention to changes in the characteristics of the top 1% of income earners. At the national level, the gap between the top percentile and the other 99% has widened considerably: in 2006, 11% of the nation's income was concentrated in the hands of top earners (whose mean income of $344,000 is 11 times that of the average Canadian) compared with 7.7% just 15 years earlier. Beneath such national‐level figures lie important geographical differences in the income hierarchy: the thresholds, average incomes and socio‐economic characteristics of the top 1% vary widely across provinces and cities. Among the most important spatial shifts observed is the growing concentration of high‐income groups in energy‐rich Western Canada, where Calgary has become the most unequal city in the country.     

Does Income Distribution Affect U.S. State Economic Growth?*

Abstract. Numerous models propose an income‐distribution/growth linkage, but the empirical evidence is ambiguous and depends on the regression approach. Mixed findings are not unexpected if there are differing short‐ and long‐term responses. Approaches utilizing cross‐sectional variation primarily reflect long‐run effects, whereas those using time‐series variation primarily reveal short‐run effects. This study reconciles these issues using U.S. state data. After allowing for short‐ and long‐run responses and for separate effects between the tails and middle of the distribution, the consistent pattern is the middle‐class share and overall inequality are positively related to long‐run growth. However, the short‐run income‐distribution response is less clear.     

Political Economy of Income Distribution: A Comparative Study of Taiwan and Mexico

Both Taiwan and Mexico have experienced remarkable economic growth since the 1960s. Taiwan demonstrates that higher income level can be accompanied by falling income inequalities. However, unlike Taiwan, the course of economic growth in Mexico has left the country with a very unequal distribution of income. This paper compares the government policies of income distribution in Mexico and Taiwan and identifies the factors contributing to the success of Taiwan and to the highly uneven income distribution in Mexico. The paper concludes that market-oriented growth does not automatically reduce inequality or poverty. The prospects for better income equity and sustainable economic development would be greatly enhanced through implementation of policies aimed at redistributing land and skills, facilitating small enterprises, and increasing domestic saving.     

REGIONAL INCOME EVOLUTION IN SOUTH AFRICA AFTER APARTHEID*

ABSTRACT South Africa is one of the wealthiest countries on the African continent. The high national level (and growth) of GDP per capita, however, masks significant differences in economic performance across South Africa's regions. This paper uses (spatial) Markov chain techniques to describe the evolution of the entire cross‐section regional income distribution in terms of its intra‐distributional characteristics during the post‐Apartheid period. The results indicate a heavily diverging regional income distribution. Relatively poor regions are likely to remain poor or become even poorer and the richest regions will maintain their lead in terms of income levels. Explicitly taking account of space furthermore shows that these high‐income regions are acting as local growth poles, absorbing economic activity from their immediate surroundings. Location, trade, education, and the variable fortune of the gold mining industry seem to be important determinants of the observed evolution.     

Understanding the Southern African ‘Anomaly’: Poverty,Endemic Disease and HIV

The epicentre of the global HIV epidemic is southern Africa. Previous explanations point to migration patterns and highly skewed income distribution, both thought to promote risky sexual behaviour. This study emphasizes the importance of common infectious and parasitic diseases that increase the likelihood of HIV transmission by increasing contagiousness and vulnerability to infection. Using multiple regression analysis on country‐level data, the authors find that socio‐economic variables explain statistically only one‐tenth of the difference in HIV prevalence between southern Africa and other low‐ and middle‐income countries. Measures of five cofactor infections together with the socio‐economic variables, however, explain statistically about two‐thirds of the southern Africa difference in HIV prevalence. They conclude that the relative affluence of countries in southern Africa and historical migration patterns have tended to mask the vulnerability of the majority of their populations who are poor and who have very high prevalence of infectious and parasitic diseases. Those diseases replicate a cycle of poverty that produces biological vulnerability through coinfections. An important implication of this research is that integrating treatment of endemic diseases with other HIV‐prevention policies may be necessary to slow the spread of HIV.     

Laboratories of (In)equality? Redistributive Policy and Income Inequality in the American States

Prior literature has emphasized demographic, economic, and political explanations for increasing income inequality in the United States, with little attention paid to the role of state‐level policy. This is despite great variation across states in both the level of inequality and the rate at which it is rising. This paper asks whether differences in state policy choices can help explain this variation; specifically, we examined a range of state redistributive policies enacted between 1980 and 2005 and identified four common approaches likely to impact inequality: taxes on the wealthy, taxes on the poor, spending on the poor, and labor market policies. We used pooled cross‐sectional time‐series data and a fixed‐effects model to assess the relationship between states’ use of each policy approach and two measures of market income inequality: the Gini coefficient and the income share of the top 1 percent. We find policies played a significant role in shaping income inequality in the states. For three of these four policy approaches, we found less inequality following expansions of state redistributive policy. Yet, for another, we identified the opposite pattern. These findings highlight the importance of state policy choices in shaping market inequality, and have implications for designing state policies to reduce income inequality since the success of these efforts depends on the policy approach used to redistribute income and wealth.     

How Asabano Children Learn; or,Formal Schooling amongst Informal Learners

ABSTRACT This paper discusses the way in which Asabano children of Papua New Guinea (PNG) learn. The question of how Asabano children learn is interesting because parents believe children to be incapable of heeding instruction, and so they consciously do not attempt to teach children and may even intervene to stop activities that they see as educational. Thus, with little or no instruction, children come to possess a rich corpus of skills and knowledge. To explain how this is possible, I draw upon the concepts of guided participation and play, illustrating that the routine arrangements of children's lives are critical to their education and enculturation. This traditional Asabano system of education contrasts starkly with the formal schooling system in the village, which I argue should better address the local socio‐cultural context     

Indigenous Research: Whose Priority? Journeys and Possibilities of Cross‐Cultural Research in Geography

Decolonising research in geography is part of a broader ‘reflexive’ process which continues to question the positivist status of ‘researcher as observer’. This paper contributes to this reflexive turn, drawing on the particular experiences of a cross‐cultural Honours thesis. The paper is pursued through a parallel journey involving a non‐Indigenous researcher (and author of the cross‐cultural Honours thesis) engaging Indigenous research 1 with interpretative insight from an Indigenous adviser or ‘on‐looker’. The methodological difficulties revealed by the parallel journey are emphasised to highlight both the complexities and reflexive possibilities of cross‐cultural research but also to consider potential institutional and pedagogic implications that stem from the experience. One of the substantial findings of the paper is that, by linking Indigenous community priorities to research and coursework, conventional (and often unequal) research relations are minimised and colonising tendencies reduced. By challenging the conventional way that cross‐cultural research is conceived, and the way that institutional practices and research frameworks are implemented, geographers can continue their prolonged and complex efforts at decolonisation of the field and their own practices.     

Australian welfare state expenditure revisited: Some implications for change

This article seeks to explore the reasons why Australia, in the period 1965–84, manifested markedly lower levels of income maintenance expenditure than most other OECD nations. A pooled cross‐section research design is utilized to bring within the scope of a single model the wide range of institutional, demographic, economic and political factors that have been hypothesized to influence income maintenance transfers. Having developed such a model, the article examines some of its implications for proposed welfare cut‐backs and reform in Australia and the OECD nations generally.     

Cross‐Disciplinarity in Australian Geography Presidential Address to the Institute of Australian Geographers’ Conference,Melbourne, July 20071

The disciplinary space that geographers conceive to be theirs has all been previously possessed, or latterly colonised, by other disciplines. Geographers defend their existence on the basis of their oft‐asserted, but never tested, cross‐disciplinarity. The journals in which refereed papers were published by members of the Institute of Australian Geographers (IAG) and the papers in Australian Geographical Studies were analysed for the period 1998–2002 to test the hypothesis of cross‐disciplinarity in both subject and method. IAG members do strongly tend to publish in more than one disciplinary area, and a large proportion of papers in Australian Geographical Studies are integrative across subdisciplines in geography, with many using more than one methodological approach. However, transgression of the physical geography/human geography divide was sufficiently uncommon to create a statistical break between sets of subdisciplines. Based on the data used in the present paper, Australian geographers can make a case for being members of a vital, integrative discipline, likely to make substantial advances in the hybrid spaces.     

IS THERE A NEW ‘TRUST’ IN INNER SCANDINAVIA? EVIDENCE FROM CROSS‐BORDER PLANNING AND GOVERNANCE

Inner Scandinavia is one of the Swedish‐Norwegian INTERREG‐A three sub‐programmes, and has been working in operationalizing cross‐border projects in the border area since 1994. To date, several cross‐border strategies have been implemented, one for each programming period of the INTERREG‐A programme. This article investigates whether these strategies can be regarded as a type of cross‐border planning mechanism in promoting territorial development of the border region. It does so by developing a typology, which captures the essentials of spatial planning, against the background of which the article also analyses Inner Scandinavia governance structures, which involves a whole set of interconnected territorial partnerships between five border counties: Hedmark, Østfold, Akershus (Norway), Värmland and Dalarna (Sweden). Here, the main goal is to see if the Inner Scandinavia governance structure, which was recently altered by the inclusion of the Hedmark–Dalarna cross‐border committee, also known as TRUST, is favourable to the implementation of a genuine and long‐term cross‐border spatial plan, with the ultimate goal of reducing the barrier effect and improving the territorial capital along the cross‐border region. Project dokuments and interviews indicate that the existing cross‐border governance model in Inner Scandinavia, led by the INTERREG‐A Steering Committee, produced substantial progresses in reducing the barrier effect, in all its dimensions, and in supporting the territorial development across the border area. Consequently, the role of other cross‐border governance structures should be confined to promoting the active involvement and mobilization of local and regional actors in the cross‐border cooperation process, and in implementing several cross‐border projects with local/regional significance.     

Nationalism and the cultivation of culture

ABSTRACT. On the basis of an extensive sample of European source material, the article investigates the meaning and importance of ‘culture’ in cultural nationalism. The author argues that European cultural nationalism in the nineteenth century followed a separate dynamic and chronology from political nationalism. Cultural nationalism involved an intense cross‐border traffic of ideas and intellectual initiatives, and its participating actors often operated extraterritorially and in multi‐national intellectual networks. This means that cultural nationalism needs to be studied on a supranational comparative basis rather than country‐by‐country, concentrating on the exchange and transfer of ideas and activities. A working model is proposed which may serve to bring these ideas and activities into focus.     

The Rise in Power of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is moving across the international stage as the future King of Saudi Arabia. He has the support of his father, Saudi royals, and the oil income of his country. He also has 10‐year plan he agreed upon with the King called Vision 2030. The three components of the Vision are to diversify the oil‐based economy to include technology and tourism, to make the country the heart of Islam and Arab culture and to become the economic and geographic hub of Asia/Europe and Africa. His rise in power will depend upon his skill in expanding the religious tolerance of Saudi people, the current economic structure of the country, and the education of the youth. He is simultaneously addressing all these challenges in order to cement the country's future sustainability. Suggestions for enhancing his multifaceted impact on his country are provided.     

Amenities,affordability, and housing vouchers

Against the background of an emerging rental affordability crisis, we examine how the standard rule that households should not spend more than 30% of their income on housing expenditures leads to inefficiencies in the context of federal low‐income housing policy. We quantify how the current practice of locally indexing individual rent subsidies in the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program regardless of quality‐of‐life conditions implicitly incentivizes recipients to live in high‐amenity areas. We also assess a novel scenario for housing policy reform that adjusts subsidies by the amenity expenditures of low‐income households, permitting national HCV program coverage to increase.