A rich array of institutional diversity makes the United States an excellent place to study the relationship between political institutions and public policy outcomes. This Paper has three main aims. First, it reviews existing empirical evidence on the relationship between institutional rules, political representation and policy outcomes. It aims to place the literature into a broader context of theoretical and empirical work in the field of political economy. Second, it develops a parallel empirical analysis that updates studies in the literature and re-examines some of the claims made, in a setting unified both in terms of policy outcomes and the period under study. Third, the paper develops some new directions for research, presenting a small number of novel exploratory results.

Political Institutions and Policy Choices: Evidence from the United States

https://isiarticles.com/bundles/Article/pre/pdf/51048.pdf

Spinning out new ventures: a typology of incubation strategies from European research institutions

We derive the asymptotic sampling distribution of various estimators frequently used to order distributions in terms of poverty, welfare and inequality. This includes estimators of most of the poverty indices currently in use, as well as estimators of the curves used to infer stochastic dominance of any order. These curves can be used to determine whether poverty, inequality or social welfare is greater in one distribution than in another for general classes of indices. We also derive the sampling distribution of the maximal poverty lines (or income censoring thresholds) up to which we may confidently assert that poverty or social welfare is greater in one distribution than in another. The sampling distribution of convenient estimators for dual approaches to the measurement of poverty is also established. The statistical results are established for deterministic or stochastic poverty lines as well as for paired or independent samples of incomes. Our results are briefly illustrated using data for 6 countries drawn from the Luxembourg Income Study data bases.

Statistical Inference for Stochastic Dominance and for the Measurement of Poverty and Inequality

Over the past four decades, income inequality has increased and family structures have diversified. We argue that family structure has become an important mechanism for the reproduction of class, race, and gender inequalities. We review studies of income inequality and family structure changes and find a wide range of estimates of the correlation. We discuss how increases in income inequality may lead to increases in single motherhood, particularly among less educated women. Single motherhood in turn decreases intergenerational economic mobility by affecting children's material resources and the parenting they experience. Because of the unequal distribution of family structure by race and the negative effects of single motherhood, family structure changes exacerbate racial inequalities. Gender inequalities also increase as mothers incur more child-related costs and fewer fathers experience family life with children.

Family Structure and the Reproduction of Inequalities

https://repub.eur.nl/pub/11021/IncomeRelatedInequalities_1997.pdf

Income-related inequalities in health: some international comparisons.

Income distribution and inequalities in the southern United States are analyzed and compared with data for the rest of the country. "The evidence presented in this paper reveals that in the 1970s the Souths income distribution either converged or moved significantly closer to the income distribution of the rest of the country. The degree of convergence depends on the definition of the recipient unit and to a degree on the particular cost-of-living index used to deflate Southern and non-Southern incomes." The convergence is attributed in part to the labor unionization in the Northeast and the resulting relocation of companies to the South. Data are from the 1970 and 1980 censuses and concern total household income. (EXCERPT)

Convergence of the South and non-South income distributions 1969-1979.

Economists have long speculated that envy and malice play important roles in economic decisions. Surprisingly little empirical evidence has been offered in support of such claims. This paper uses experimental and multinomial logit techniques to estimate the effects of envy and malice in economic decisions involving Pareto efficiency. Envy and malice turn out to be powerful motivations with strong differential impacts across countries and relative positions. In some cases, opposition to Pareto gains reaches 60%. Behind a veil of ignorance, however, opposition falls to 10% overall. Pareto efficiency thus garners its greatest support under conditions which can lay claim to greatest legitimacy, those free of situational and personal bias. “... the greater part of human actions have their origin not in logical reasoning but in sentiment. This is particularly true for actions that are not motivated economically.... Man, although impelled to act by nonlogical motives, likes to tie his actions logically to certain principles; he therefore invents these a posteriori in order to justify his actions.” V. Pareto in The rise and fall of the elites (1968, p. 27)

Envy, malice and Pareto efficiency: An experimental examination

Mobility measurement,transition matrices and statistical inference

This paper examines income inequality in the Untied States over the period 1967-86 using recently developed tests for differences in Lorenz curves The authors are able to rank eighteen of nineteen annual comparisons In contrast, standard techniques are able to rank only twelve These results suggest that the Lorenz dominance principle is more empirically relevant than previously thought The tests reveal a sharp rise in US inequality between 1978 and 1982, as well as a shift toward greater inequality over the entire period The authors also examine changes in economic welfare using the joint mean-Lorenz dominance principle Copyright 1991 by MIT Press

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2109695.pdf

Lorenz Dominance and Welfare: Changes in the U.S. Distribution of Income, 1967-1986

This paper examines income inequality across nine countries using the Luxembourg Income Study data set. New statistical tests and comparability of data provide an exceptionally clear picture of relative income inequality. Only 4 comparisons out of a possible 108 cannot be ranked. In most cases, differences in the definition of the recipient unit make little difference in the rankings. Irrespective of recipient units, Sweden, Norway, and Germany come out at the top of the ordinal Lorenz ranking, with Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom in the middle, and the United States and Switzerland at the bottom. Copyright 1991 by The London School of Economics and Political Science.

/pdf/international-comparisons-of-income-inequality-tests-for-2wwyl62dgd.pdf

John P. Formby

Papers

Convergence of the South and non-South income distributions 1969-1979.

Envy, malice and Pareto efficiency: An experimental examination

Mobility measurement,transition matrices and statistical inference

Lorenz Dominance and Welfare: Changes in the U.S. Distribution of Income, 1967-1986

International Comparisons of Income Inequality: Tests for Lorenz Dominance Across Nine Countries