Empirical evidence on distributional preferences shows that people do not judge inequality as problematic per se but that they take the underlying sources of income differences into account. In contrast to this evidence, current measures of inequality do not adequately reflect these normative...

This paper discusses alternative adjustment patterns in Bolivia over the last three decades using a SAM-based model that explicitly separates formal from informal activities, includes separate accumulation balance adjustments for different economic agents, differentiates closures by periods of...

This paper describes the construction of a Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) for Bolivia for the year 1997. Three distinctive features render the SAM a useful starting point for distributional analyses. First, production in the agricultural and services sector is split up into formal and informal...

Der Beitrag analysiert die Argentinien-Krise, vergleicht die makroökonomische Entwicklung von Argentinien, Brasilien, Chile und Mexiko seit der Mexiko-Krise und entwickelt Indikatoren zur Beurteilung der Entwicklungschancen dieser Länder. Für Argentinien wie für Brasilien, Chile und Mexiko...

This paper investigates social mobility in Bolivia and discusses its implications for poverty reduction and long-run growth. Regressions based on household survey data show that social mobility is very low in Bolivia, even by Latin American standards. This is mainly caused by an inadequate...

This paper seeks to contribute to the ongoing controversy on the distributional effects of structural reforms in developing countries. Applying inequality indices and Fields' (2001) decomposition methodology to Bolivian household survey data of the years 1989 to 1997, we identify recent trends...

European countries have the world's most redistributive tax and transfer systems. While they have been well equipped to deal with vertical inequality - that is, fostering redistribution from the rich to the poor - less is known about their performance in dealing with horizontal inequality, that...

We analyze whether foreign direct investment (FDI) has contributed to the typically wide income gaps in five Latin American host countries. We perform country-specific and panel cointegration techniques to assess the long-run impact of inward FDI stocks on income inequality among households in...

I investigate how government ideology and globalization are associated with top income shares in 16 OECD countries over the period 1970 to 2010. I use the new World Top Incomes Database. Globalization is measured by the KOF index of globalization. The results show that the top 1% income share...

What was the impact of urban political structure on economic inequality in preindustrial times? I document that more closed political institutions were associated with higher economic inequality in a panel of early modern German cities. To investigate the mechanisms behind that...