This article uses a nonparametric varying coefficient panel data model to study the convergence of real GDP per capita among 120 world economies for the sample period of 1980-2010. The estimates show that the indirect contribution of initial income via the control variables is important. The...

The paper shows how - using as an example the trade flows between eleven European countries and 31 OECD 'reporting' countries - the result of a gravity model, in terms of potential trade, changes substantially when country heterogeneity and dynamics are taken into account. Comparing the...

We revisit the link between poverty, the middle class and institutional outcomes using a newly developed cross-country panel dataset containing detailed information on the distribution of income and expenditures. When the size of the middle class increases (measured as the proportion of people...

Achieving low unemployment in an environment of weak growth is a major policy challenge; a more egalitarian distribution of hours worked could be the key to solving it. Whether worksharing actually increases employment, however, has been debated controversially. In this article we present...

Does redistribution in democracies cater to the will of the majority? We propose a direct empirical strategy based on survey data that needs not assume that voters are guided by pecuniary motives alone. We find that most democracies implement the median voter's preferred amount of redistribution...

The increasing wage inequality in many countries is usually seen as brought about by economic forces that drive for economic efficiency within a changing technological and social environment. Ethical evaluations of these developments diverge, yet the view that free labor markets drive to...

This article analyzes income redistribution in the inter-ethnic context. The model shows that redistribution in favor of less prosperous ethnic minorities raises fertility among the unskilled minority recipients, lowers fertility among the contributing local skilled, slows human capital...

We revisit the link between poverty, the middle class and institutional outcomes using a newly developed cross-country panel dataset containing detailed information on the distribution of income and expenditures. When the size of the middle class increases (measured as the proportion of people...

When income is redistributed at national level, the minimum requirement is that the transfers should be progressive, that is flow from richer to poorer individuals. The same rule should hold at the global level: it is not sufficient that transfers be from a richer to a poorer country. But...

Based on stylized evidence showing variation of the Gini coefficient of income inequality across skill cohorts and on the rapid rise in trade in technology-intensive goods, the ripple effects of technology transmission and income inequality are explored in a global Computable General Equilibrium...