This paper provides a comprehensive survey of seven aspects of rising inequality that are usually discussed separately: changes in labor’s share of income; inequality at the bottom of the income distribution, including labor mobility; skill-biased technical change; inequality among high incomes;...

This paper examines how the level and dispersion of self-reported happiness has evolved over the period 1972-2006. While there has been no increase in aggregate happiness, inequality in happiness has fallen substantially since the 1970s. There have been large changes in the level of happiness...

This paper considers the distributional consequences of the reform programme in Russia. Although a small fraction of the population have gained under the reforms, average real household per capita income has declined significantly with households at the lower end of the income distribution...

Numerous authors have pointed out the importance of taking into consideration the intra-household distribution of resources in the analysis of poverty. Most empirical studies of poverty, however, assume an equal sharing of resources between all household members. There is a growing body of...

This paper presents an analysis of the Five Economists' plan for a "wage-tax trade-off", combining an EITC program with a freeze on award wage increases, as a policy package for reducing unemployment. The study identifies the changes in effective tax rates implied by the EITC program and shows...

The paper examines the appropriate domain of the Welfare State by exploring the areas in which free enterprise fails to provide adequate welfare state services. The paper outlines a simple coherent strategy for formulating government welfare state policy by identifying the relevant market...

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela's death on 5 December 2013 and his funeral ten days later were taken as an occasion in the global media to discuss the merits of political leadership for human security, with occasional comments on its pitfalls. This particular leader is not the most politically safe...

While security of our<em> </em>hominid<em> </em>encampments and settlements must have been at or near the top of our species priorities since our evolution some several hundred thousand years ago, awareness of the magnitude of our alterations, interactions and impacts on our world is a very recent event. Even...

The last two decades were characterized by severe conflicts in the West Africa subregion. The era of conflict resolution, management and peace building thus came to define theregion. The destruction left by long years of protracted conflicts and the present state of devel opment is reason enough...

Timor-Leste is a very young and developing nation state. Endemic infectious disease and weakened health security coupled with its growing and inclusive public institutions keep Timor-Leste fragile and in transition on the spectrum of state stability. The objective here is to systematically...