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...

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 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...

This paper re-examines the link between globalization and income inequality. We use data for 140 countries over the period 1970-2014 and employ an IV approach to deal with the endogeneity of globalization measures. We find that the link between globalization and income inequality differs across...

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...

Using cross-country survey data and a survey experiment, I examine the effects of experienced social mobility on support for redistribution. In line with the self-serving bias, those with negative mobility experiences 'blame the system' and extrapolate from their experience onto society, which...

Technological change has fundamentally transformed the US labour market in recent decades, with high-earning jobs becoming increasingly focused on nonroutine, complex tasks. We provide a first experimental test of whether fairness perceptions and preferences for redistribution differ when top...