Suchergebnisse

The linkage between liberal democracy and income inequality has been the subject of considerable empirical research. However, the literature has largely ignored advances in the techniques for measuring income distribution which help to improve and strengthen the robustness of research findings in this field. by drawing upon recent developments in data collection and formal analyses, this paper explores inequality trends in selected Western democracies over the 1970s and 1980s. The results indicate that the gap between rich and poor is widening in some countries but not in all, thus pointing to the role of national policies in the redistribution of income. Conventional models grounded on demand driven policies persuasively explain declining income inequality, yet fail to account for the rising trends in the 1980s. Reasons for this failure are the omission of political 'slack' as a key dimension in redistributive options and the fallacy of linearity. The paper shows that despite significant progress, we are still not in a position to be confident of our theories and methods.

What has happened to incomes, inequality and satisfaction with living standards in the first stage of transition from a communist command economy to a market economy in East Germany? This paper tests six hypotheses about the transition to capitalism. Contrary to expectations, real incomes went up not down, net income inequality scarcely increased, and those who were previously advantaged did not become better off aí the expense of the previously disadvantaged. A major reason for the last two results was that the Federal Republic's taxes and benefits, which were much more progressive than the Communist regime's, had the effect of counteracting the increasing inequality of household gross incomes. It is also reported that, although real net incomes increased, satisfaction with living standards declined, probably because East Germans increasingly compared themselves with Western counterparts. Optimism about the future declined in 1991-2 after reaching very high levels in 1990 immediately after the revolution. This paper is based on the first three waves of the East German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP) conducted in June 1990 (N= 4453 respondents in 2179 households), March-April 1991 and March-April 1992.

In seinem Ausblick auf die künftige Entwicklung des westdeutschen Wohlfahrtsstaat in den nächsten 20 Jahren schildert der Autor zunächst die Schwierigkeiten, die aus den Veränderungen der demographischen Struktur der Bevölkerung und der damit verbundenen Erhöhung der Soziallastquote resultieren. Weitere Ausführungen gelten den zu erwartenden Veränderungen der Haushaltsgröße, insbesondere der Frage, wie sich die Mitgliederzahl der Privathaushalte verändern wird. Dem Zusammenhang zwischen Wirtschaftswachstum, Beschäftigungsgrad und Produktivitätssteigerung einerseits und den Möglichkeiten der Ordnungspolitik andererseits ist ein weiterer, wesentlicher Abschnitt des Beitrages gewidmet. Um die Finanzierbarkeit der gesetzlichen Krankenversicherung der Arbeitslosenversicherung und der Rentenversicherung zu erhalten, so das Fazit, müßten die nicht außergewöhnlichen (normalen) Zeiten der Krankheit und der Arbeitslosigkeit von den Individuen selbst getragen werden, zumal der erreichte Grad des allgemeinen Wohlstandes in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland dieses zuläßt. Generell gesehen hat sich der Staat von der Ansicht zu lösen, daß es seine Aufgabe sei, in den genannten Fällen eine Einkommensumverteilung vorzunehmen. Es wäre vielmehr staatlicherseits sinnvoll, eine Mindestversorgung für die betroffenen Personenkreise zu garantieren und im übrigen das unternehmerische Denken und Interesse der Bürger zu fördern. (NG)

Germany has lower posttax income inequality than the United States and hence is doing better according to a strict egalitarian fairness ideal. On the other hand, the United States is doing better than Germany according to a libertarian fairness ideal, which states that people should be held fully responsible for their income. However, most people hold intermediate (responsibility-sensitive) positions, and hence it is interesting to study and compare fairness according to these positions. We find that the ranking of the two countries according to the intermediate positions depends on the treatment of the unexplained variation in the income equation. If we hold people responsible for the residual, the United States is considered fairer than Germany for all levels of responsibility sensitivity. If we, however, demand compensation for the residual, Germany is fairer than the United States for all levels of responsibility. The latter may be seen as the preferred approach as it follows a `benefit of the doubt' strategy.

Three decades ago, Canada and the United States shared almost identical relative poverty and inequality levels. Yet despite experiencing similar macro-level social and economic transformations from 1974 to 1994 , the two nations have experienced diametrically opposite trends in relative household poverty. While levels of poverty increased in the U.S. during this period, Canada has experienced declining household poverty. Several institutional economists have utilized the comparative case of Canada to emphasize the important role of one kind of institution for explaining differences in poverty or inequality rates at one point in time i . These economists have presented compelling evidence that institutional differences, and not broader cultural or economic differences, explain the poverty and inequality differences between Canada and the U.S. in the late 1980s. These institutional differences include unionization policy and social welfare packages. Yet despite the importance of these institutional differences for explaining differences in poverty or inequality levels at one point in time, my analysis of Luxembourg Income Survey (LIS) data on Canada and the U.S. over this period clearly demonstrates that it is the different ways each nation has reformed their transfer systems over this period, and not other institutional differences or reforms, that comprehensively explain the divergent trends in relative household poverty rates from 1974 to 1994. My analysis utilizes harmonized LIS data to identify the relative explanatory strength of different facets of the transfer systems for explaining the divergence in poverty from 1974-1994. Surprisingly, the breakdown analysis reveals that the divergent trends can largely be explained by differences in the structure and reform of each nation's Social Retirement benefits, a factor not mentioned as an explanatory factor in the previous literature. Differences in other 'Social Insurance' transfers and 'Means-Tested' benefits together also helped explain the divergence in poverty trends, but with less power than expected. The increased effectiveness of the Canadian transfers for reducing its relative household poverty rate compared to the American system over this period has consequences for explaining divergence in inequality and possibly health outcomes and other measures of well-being between these two nations.

This study aims to compare the anti-poverty effectiveness of taxes and income transfers among western welfare states. It is shown that a country's poverty outcome can be decomposed into the level of market-generated poverty, the overall level of welfare efforts, and the poverty reduction efficiency of taxes and transfers. Using the LIS micro data, the decomposition analysis suggests that welfare states differ widely in respect to the anti-poverty effectiveness of taxes and transfers and that cross-national variation in anti-poverty effectiveness is mainly attributed to differences in the level of welfare efforts, rather than to differences in the poverty reduction efficiency.