This paper attempts to bridge the gap between previous cross-national work estimating rates of return to education and the current trend toward examining rates over time. Changes in the returns to education in the 1980s over five countries were driven by different forces across the countries.

Using two period comparisons of six wealthy nations, the authors look at the extent of inequality at three levels of income: earned income, market income, and after tax and transfer disposable income. Interesting implications of the results are discussed.

This paper investigates the relationship between educational attainment and earnings inequality in eight nations using the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) database. Although the results should be considered exploratory rather than definitive until verified and qualified by more detailed...

This paper was originally presented a the Fourth International Research Seminar of the Foundation for International Studies on Social Security (FISS) in June 1997 in Sigtuna, Sweden. In the United States, several public policy initiatives have been undertaken to encourage more work and later...

This paper uses microdata from the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) to estimate and compare four dimensions of the well-being of the aged in Taiwan and eight other countries - the United States, Japan, Australia, Poland, Finland, Germany, Hungary and Canada. Together, these nine countries cover a...

We assemble data from several different sources to examine the cross-national effects of inequality and trust on social expenditures. We find that the inequality between the middle classes and the poor (as measured by the 50/10 percentile ratio) has a small, positive impact in social spending;...