Income differences within municipalities in Finland, 1989–1997

Differences in income between population groups in Finland have begun to increase since the recession of the early 1990s. These differences are examined here in terms of mean taxable incomes per household in 1989, 1993 and 1997 in 1 × 1 km grid cells, and the results are compared with those obtained using postal districts and municipalities as areal units. In spite of the increase, taxable income differences within municipalities are still relatively small. It is clear, however, that incomes have risen more in areas of increasing population than in areas of declining population. The results also indicate that the smaller the areal unit used, the greater the income differences, and vice versa. Thus the results of analyses based on different areal units cannot necessarily be regarded as comparable.     

西安市微区域收入及贫困空间格局研究

以街道办事处为研究单元,以居民收入数据为基础,采用FGT指数法和矢量数据符号法,分别从收入等级、收入差距、贫困程度等方面对西安市主城区的收入及贫困空间格局展开研究。结果表明:①1收入等级空间特征为"南高北低,西高东低"、"中心城区,高低交错";②街道办之间平均收入差距不大,街道办内部个人收入差距较大;③贫困地区主要集中在老城衰退区、老工业区、城中村棚户区及近郊城乡交错区;④收入高低、收入差距分别与贫困程度呈现反比和正比关系。本文的研究为政府部门从街道层面制定脱贫对策提供参考。     

DETERMINANTS OF IMMIGRANTS’ ENTRY TO HOMEOWNERSHIP IN THREE NORDIC CAPITAL CITY REGIONS

The extent of homeownership among immigrants may be seen as an indicator of integration and as a determinant of ethnic residential segregation. Studies have shown differences in the determinants of homeownership between immigrants and natives, indicating that variation in homeownership is not only a function of differences in economic resources. These studies have largely focused on Anglo‐American contexts, using mostly cross‐sectional data. We apply survival analysis methods to analyse the determinants of entry to homeownership in the capital regions of three Nordic countries – Denmark, Finland and Sweden – utilizing longitudinal individual‐level register‐based datasets. We find that differences in entry to homeownership between natives and different immigrant groups cannot be explained by differences in socio‐economic background factors. We also find differences in the effects of these factors. Effects of income are generally weaker among non‐Western immigrants and immigrants are less responsive to changes in household composition. The share of non‐Western immigrants in the neighbourhood is only weakly related to entry to homeownership, while immigrants and natives living in public rental housing tend to be slightly less inclined to move to homeownership. Weaker income effects among immigrants, weak effects of ethnic segregation and the importance of the public rental sector differentiate our results from earlier findings. Weaker income effects may indicate that uncertainty about the future also affects middle‐income immigrants. Differences between the three contexts in housing markets and policies do not seem to matter much, although the results indicate that difficult access to the private rental sector may push immigrants to homeownership.     

国家精准扶贫政策对贫困农户脱贫增收的效果评价——基于双重差分模型的检验

基于重庆市武陵山区和秦巴山区贫困农户与非贫困农户的调研数据，运用双重差分模型检验精准扶贫政策对贫困农户收入增长的影响。结果表明，贫困农户在精准扶贫政策的支持下，家庭人均纯收入增长显著，与非贫困农户相比差距进一步缩小；家庭主要收入来源，由单一渠道向多渠道转变，人均种植业收入和人均养殖业收入增长最明显，二者贡献率合计达到61.87%；农户的年龄、家庭人口数量、老人小孩数量、耕地面积、耕作半径、是否发展特色产业等因素对贫困农户家庭人均纯收入影响显著。因此，发展特色产业，解决贫困农户的教育、医疗、住房和土地撂荒问题是保障贫困农户脱贫后稳定增收的关键。     

内蒙古自治区农村人口多维贫困特征测算与分析

针对国家精准扶贫需求,构建基于A-F双临界值法的多维贫困度量模型,进行内蒙古自治区农村人口多维贫困特征的总体测算与分析,并分别分析多维贫困的空间集聚效应及不同分类体系下的贫困分异特征。结果显示:①研究区西部存在大面积高度贫困县单元,中部存在呈东西条带状分布的中度贫困县单元,东部地区贫困程度呈现"南高北低"状态;②研究区主要致贫因素为:人均纯收入、家庭健康、平均教育年限,一般致贫因素为燃料类型、资产、房屋结构,次要致贫因素为:饮水情况、通电情况、儿童入学率;且大部分贫困指标呈显著空间集聚效应;③研究区西部县际贫困特征差异较小,东部存在显著的南北分布差异;④不同类型县各贫困指标差异不同。     

西安市新城市贫困多维评估

本文运用FGT指数法和AF多维贫困测度法对西安市主城区收入贫困和典型贫困区多维贫困特征进行研究。主要结论:(1)主城区收入贫困空间与城市发展相对较晚的地区、城乡交错的边缘区、内城衰退区、城中村及老工业区耦合;(2)住房维度的贫困发生率最高,其次依次为暖气、电器资产、教育、职业、给排水、卫生设施维度;教育指数对多维贫困的贡献度最大,是主要的致贫因素;(3)老城衰退区(解放门)和外来人口聚集区城中村(鱼化寨)是多维贫困最严重的地区,退化的国企老工业区(纺织城)相对较轻。经济发展历史格局、城市发展政策导向、转型期社会制度变迁等是贫困形成的主要原因。     

The Historical Impact of Welfare Programs on Poverty: Evidence from the American States

Over the years, there has been a spirited debate over the impact of the welfare expansion associated with the War on Poverty. Many analysts have maintained that public assistance expansion during this period decreased poverty by raising the incomes of the poor (an income enhancement effect), while others have contended that welfare expansion increased poverty by discouraging the poor from working (a work disincentive effect). There has been considerable empirical research about the historical effect of welfare on poverty, nearly all of which relies on the poverty rate (i.e., the percentage of persons with income less than the “poverty threshold”) as an indicator of the extent of poverty. However, this work has not employed designs that allow researchers to sort out distinct income enhancement and work disincentive effects. We develop a model of poverty rates in the American states that permits estimation of these distinct effects—based on state‐level time‐series data observed annually for the years 1960–90—and we find that welfare had both effects during our period of analysis. We also calculate the net impact of increases in welfare benefits on the poverty rate—taking into account both work disincentive and income enhancement effects. Our results indicate that this net impact is dependent on three variables: the initial level of cash benefits, wage levels for unskilled workers, and the share of the benefit increase provided through cash rather than in‐kind assistance. Because of historical trends in these variables, since the 1970s welfare spending has become increasingly less effective in reducing the poverty rate. However, the significance of this result for policymakers must be tempered by evidence that flaws in the poverty rate as an indicator of poverty make it so that any finding about the net effect of an increase in welfare benefits on the poverty rate underestimates welfare's ability to lessen the true extent of poverty.     

ESTIMATING INTERREGIONAL UTILITY DIFFERENTIALS*

ABSTRACT The major objective of this paper is to estimate regional utility levels based on interregional migration data. We first revealed three stylized facts concerning migration behavior by examining long‐term Japanese data on interregional migration. We then uncovered inconsistency between net migration and utility differential in the presence of distance‐related migration costs. Based on the stylized facts and the inconsistency problem, we formulated an operational model and estimated interregional utility differentials. We showed that the interregional utility differentials converged until the late 1970s. We also showed that the utility estimates are highly correlated with the per capita real income. We also applied the model to interregional migration data in the United States and Canada and confirmed the model's validity.     

TOTAL FACTOR PRODUCTIVITY GROWTH IN MANUFACTURING FURTHER EVIDENCE FROM THE STATES*

In this paper, we first develop a measure of total factor productivity (TFP) growth and summarize a source-of-growth analysis for the manufacturing sector of 48 states. As have others, we find little association between TFP growth differentials and output growth differentials for census regions. At the staterather than the regional level, however, we find a positive association between TFP growth and output growth. We use cross-sectional data to estimate the determinants of the variation in TFP growth. Two results emerge that are important for regional policy and for understanding national productivity trends. First, state investments in education and in transportation infrastructure may affect TFP growth. Second, energy price increases in the early 1970s had no differential effects on productivity growth across states. We also explore the determinants of manufacturing output growth and find that TFP growth, demand growth, wage growth, wage levels, and state corporate income tax rates are significant.     

No Race in Any Direction: State Welfare and Income Regimes

This paper has two objectives. First, we examine state adoption and implementation of income support policies under the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. We develop a composite measure of income support that includes welfare programs that scholars traditionally investigate and adds optional policies that encourage independence through work. Second, we engage a substantive focus on the administrative ability and willingness of states to adopt and implement sophisticated income support policies. We investigate the extent to which state government professionalism, ideology, economic resources, and racially based policies have shaped state policy. We find that the percentage of the state population is liberal; state racial demographics and governmental professionalism are critical determinants of state welfare and income support regimes. Significantly, we find no evidence that states are converging toward high‐quality, effectively financed welfare policies or income regime policies to help the poor move into and economically survive in the job market.     

Income Transfers Alone Won't Eradicate Poverty

Even in the current economic situation, in developed countries, rhetoric about cutting "poverty" is misleadingly outmoded—because it implicitly suggests that government income transfers can be the vehicle for achieving substantial reductions in poverty. Almost all Americans already live far above subsistence poverty: most because of their earnings, and the rest because of government transfer programs. This decline in material poverty is obscured by weaknesses in how the official U.S. poverty measure counts income. What is now called poverty is really "income inequality." Reducing income inequality is also a vitally important social goal, but it cannot be accomplished through income transfers alone. The authors argue that, although income transfers have a role to play in lessening the impact of material deprivation, real progress in raising incomes will require building the human capital of the economically disadvantaged. This means both increasing the earnings capacity of lower-income workers and reducing the number of female-headed families.     

Outmigration from California: The Role of Migrant Selectivity

Frey (1995) noted that California generated two, separate outmigration streams. The first stream was composed of “negatively selected” migrants, or those with low education and low income levels. These migrants usually selected destinations in neighboring states such as Washington, Oregon, or Colorado. The second stream was more typical of interstate migration flows. Migrants were typically better educated, had higher incomes and destinations that were more national in scope (positively selected). The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the income selectivity of outmigrants from California. It was hypothesized that poorly educated migrants are negatively self-selective and the better educated would be positively self-selective. Using data derived from the 1990 PUMS data file, this paper studies the effects of expected wage differentials in determining the selectivity of outmigrants from California. Self-selectivity is accounted for in the modeling process via a two-stage estimation procedure, since estimated returns to migration based on a comparison of individual migrants may be biased due to self-selection. Results reveal no significant or systematic selectivity of the better educated migrants, while self-selection was more important among the poorly educated nonmigrants.     

Child Poverty in the American States: The Impact of Welfare Reform,Economics, and Demographics

This article identifies the predictors of child poverty rates at the state level before and after the adoption and implementation of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. The analysis shows that the most important state‐level factors that influence child poverty rates are demographics, the health and viability of the state economy, and often the generosity, inclusiveness, and quality of state welfare programs. States with large numbers of black citizens, and those that score highest on infant mortality, teen births, births to unmarried women, children living with a parent without a high school degree, and children living with a single parent have the highest rates of child poverty. Child poverty rates are lowest in states that suffer less unemployment, and in wealthier states. States that score higher on per capita personal income, tax revenues, and taxable resources have lower child poverty rates. While specific “tough” welfare policies adopted by some states seem to have no impact on child poverty rates, we tested for the first time a sophisticated measure of the overall quality of state welfare programs. The analysis reveals that the global quality of a state's welfare programs is often an independent predictor of child poverty. States with the most generous, inclusive, and supportive welfare programs have done the best job of lowering and containing child poverty.     

The Effects of Case-Mix Reimbursement on Ohio Medicaid Nursing Home Costs

This article examines empirically the effects of the Ohio case-mix reimbursement system on nursing home costs. The results show that case-mix is the single most important factor affecting both direct-care (nursing staff) and total per diem costs. Although other factors, such as bedsize, occupancy rate, ownership status, county per capita income, and the demand for nursing home care, also affeet costs; they have far smaller effects on costs than case-mix. Further, the results show that the cost differentials between for-profit and nonprofit facilities are largely explained by differences in cost response to case-mix and, to a lesser extent, by differences in cost response to bedsize, Medicaid utilization, county per capita income, demand for nursing home beds, and occupancy rate. The for-profit facilities in this study cost significantly less than their nonprofit counterparts.     

Out of the dark but not out of the cage: women's empowerment and gender relations in the Dangme West district of Ghana

In Ghana, strategies to address poverty among rural women have often been linked to women's empowerment programmes with credit as a core component of these. Yet, many programmes focus on the economic benefit to women without necessarily looking at the impact on gender relations at the household level and its implications on women. Using quantitative and qualitative data from the Dangme West district of Ghana, this article shows how poverty reduction programmes with credit components can reduce women's vulnerability to poverty and empower them. But much more needs to be done to complement these efforts. The study shows that women beneficiaries as against women non-beneficiaries have significantly improved their socio-economic status through access to financial and non-financial resources. This has in certain instances improved gender relations at the household level, with women being recognized as earners of income and contributors to household budget. However, some women still regard their spouses as ‘heads’ and require their consent in decisions even in issues that have to do with their own personal lives. Moreover, the improved economic status of women has resulted in a ‘power conflict’, creating confrontation between spouses. The article recommends that, as part of their programmes, assisting organizations and institutions must address ‘power relations’, the basis of gender subordination at the household level, otherwise socio-cultural norms and practices, underpinned by patriarchal structures, will remain ‘cages’ for rural women.     

Dividing Societies: The Socio‐Political Spatial Implications of Restructuring in Australia

This paper reviews trends over the last two to three decades in the socio‐economic divisions in Australia, focusing on their spatial dimensions. It provides empirical evidence that our society is dividing on multiple dimensions – including shifts in industry and occupational structure, income distribution, the incidence of poverty. And it demonstrates that the differentiations across space in socio‐economic phenomena also have complex multiple dimensions, which are explained inadequately by a ‘city/bush’ dichotomy popularly espoused by politicians and reported in the media. Processes of globalisation, economic restructuring and employment shifts, and changing patterns of population movement are combining to create stark differentials between places both within the major cities as well as in regional Australia. As demonstrated by the recent One Nation phenomenon, voter backlash is strong, and it too has specific spatial characteristics.     

Helping the Rich get Richer: A Re-assessment of the Income Distributional Trend in Hong Kong

Although many are under the impression that income inequality in Hong Kong has been continually on the rise, the picture presented by official statistics is mixed. This article suggests that official statistics, due to limitations in their design, have underestimated the impact of the top earners. Utilising taxation data, a continuous and strong growth in inequality can be identified when the distribution among taxpayers is considered, providing an alternative picture of inequality in Hong Kong. It is argued that the surge in income inequality is driven in part by the rich earning more rather than by more people becoming rich. The Hong Kong government, instead of adopting redistributive measures to alleviate the situation, has exacerbated inequality through policy choices that strongly favour the richest group. Although these actions might be explained in relation to the political influence wielded by the business sector and the upper class, the social implications of inequality cannot be neglected. Apart from a stronger demand for democracy, perceptions of income inequality and the pro-rich bias in the political system significantly affect people’s political views, as seen in the support for the recent Occupy Movement.     

新时期私营、个体经济税收政策与制度的变迁

20世纪80年代中期,随着一部分个体经营者先富裕起来,个人收入差距明显加大,党和政府开始注意运用税收手段(主要是所得税)调节个人收入差距。1994年税制改革统一了不同所有制的内资企业的所得税,由于政策导向明确,非公有制经济与公有制经济的税收差别逐步减少,逐步重新确认了公平税负的原则——社会主义市场经济中的税收基本原则。近年来内外资企业所得税率的统一,进一步体现了这一原则的精神。     

Urban bound migration and rural investment: the case of Mexico

The authors investigate an agriculturally based policy for improving rural incomes and for retarding the rural-urban migration flow. The production of agricultural goods is characterized by a production function in which output increases with increases in agricultural labor inputs, capital, public infrastructure, land, and technology. Differences among regions in agricultural technology will reflect regional differences in education, the institutionalized form of productive organization, and differences in access to technological information channeled through more technically advanced cities. To pick up the effect of out-migration changes in state agricultural labor supply and upon agricultural output, the state's agricultural out-migration rate is included together with the agricultural labor force. The gross migrant flow between 2 locations is hypothesized to depend upon a set of variables influencing the individual's perception of the economic rate of return to be gained by moving, a set of variables reflecting the individual's propensity to relocate, the labor displacement effects of investments, and the at risk population at 1 location available to migrate. It is also taken into account that individuals differ in their response to information about origin and destination wage differentials and that individuals may or may not perceive a new ecnomic gain from migration but may base the decision on other considerations. Results of a statistical analysis using data from the Mexican census of population for 1960 and 1970 are: 1) size of the rural labor force was negatively associated with agricultural wages, contrary to expectations; 2) small farmers have benefited from the expansion of irrigation in Mexico; and 3) higher urban wages attract migration, and higher growth rate of agricultural income retards rural-urban migration. With respect to the 1950-60 decade both agricultural income and rural out-migration impacts could have been substantial but both the impact on local urban growth and on the rate of in-migration to the primate city would have been slight.     

多维贫困视角下的旅游扶贫与空间正义研究——以贵州施秉喀斯特世界遗产地社区为例

旅游扶贫作为促进贫困地区经济发展的主要手段,在产生经济效益的同时亦存在众多社会矛盾,然而以往研究更多强调主体利益,而未从空间的本质去探讨社会矛盾的表现及过程。本文从多维贫困视角,以施秉喀斯特世界遗产地的牌楼冲社区为例,通过深度访谈等研究方法,探讨旅游扶贫产生的空间非正义的问题。研究认为,旅游扶贫对社区产生的效应有经济收入增加但不均衡、村民参与旅游但机会不平等和旅游服务技能提升但参与能力欠缺三方面,这是由资源不公正分配、村民自主决策权缺失和社区参与边缘化等空间非正义过程导致的。本研究对中国传统乡村向旅游乡村转型的空间再组织过程中,由经济制度、旅游政策、资本、发展话语与实践所带来的社会冲突与风险提供了一个新的分析视角,也促进对旅游扶贫的效应及其空间正义问题的反思。