In Chapter 2, "Accounting for Cross-Country Differences in Intergenerational Earnings Persistence: The Impact of Taxation and Public Education Expenditure," I study the determinants of cross-country differences in intergenerational earnings persistence between fathers and sons. Western economies...

This thesis consists of three chapters, each of which focuses on different aspects of economic inequality.First, we investigate the differences in wage inequality between the United States and continental European countries (CEU). Wage inequality has been significantly higher in the US compared...

The paper models the policy challenges facing globalizing developing countries. Models from the pure theory of international trade, the small open economy model, growth accounting, the Solow- Swan model, the gravity model, models of portfolio diversification and currency crises models are...

This study focuses on testing the relationship between income inequality and growth within U.S. counties, and the channels through which such effects are observed. The study tests three hypotheses: (1) income inequality has an inverse relationship with growth; (2) regional growth adjustments are...

Trade policy reforms in recent decades have sharply reduced the distortions that wereharming agriculture in developing countries, yet global trade in farm products continues to befar more distorted than trade in nonfarm goods. Those distortions reduce some forms ofpoverty and inequality but...

Financial instability has increased for many economies in the face of greater capital mobility. Eliminating capital flows, especially portfolio investment flows, may reduce volatility, but it could also result in domestic capital constraints. To overcome this dilemma, policymakers may consider...

By focusing on structural features within developing economies, this paper attempts to reconcile developments observed in many post-liberalization countries with the help of modified versions of standard trade theory factor endowment models. The common thread generating most of our interesting...

The objective of this study was to examine if intra-racial income inequality contributes to higher infant mortality rates (IMRs) for African-Americans. The conceptual framework for this study is derived from Richard Wilkinson's psychosocial environment interpretation of the income inequality and...

The first chapter demonstrates that although it is possible to design utility functions that behave like empirical well-being, the functional forms relying on income adaptation and social comparisons put forward in the happiness literature fail to receive empirical validation. Under the income...

Statistical income surveys are used to document systemic changes in distribution and redistribution of household income and its determinants over the period 1988-1996. First, the growing difficulties facing income surveys under the democratic regime are considered. Secondly, the substantive...