Thomas Goda

Changes in Income Inequality from a Global Perspective: An Overview

Rising income inequality has recently moved into the centre of political and economic debates in line with increasing claims that a global rise in income inequality might have been a root cause of the subprime crisis. This paper provides an extensive overview of world scale developments in relative (i.e. proportional) income inequality to determine if the claims that the latter was high prior to the crisis are substantiated. The results of this study indicate that (i) non-population adjusted inequality between countries (inter-country inequality) increased between 1820 and the late 1990s but then decreased thereafter, while there was a steady decrease after the 1950s when population weights are taken into account; (ii) income inequality between ‘global citizens’ (global inequality) increased significantly between 1820 and 1950, while there was no clear trend thereafter; (iii) contemporary relative income inequality within countries (intra-country inequality) registered a clear upward trend on a global level since the 1980s.

The Role of Income Inequality in Crisis Theories and in the Subprime Crisis

An increasing number of economists argue that income inequality was a root cause behind the subprime crisis of 2007. The aim of this paper is to outline and contrast the theoretical underpinnings of Marxian, Post Keynesian and mainstream crisis theories and to compare their viewpoints regarding the role that inequality plays. The main finding of this paper is that despite important theoretical differences, economists from all three strands provide a similar explanation for the link between inequality and the subprime crisis (even though conventional mainstream crisis theories do not regard inequality as destabilizing factor). This suggests that the rise in income inequality indeed played an important role in the build-up of the crisis. To ensure that a wider audience accepts inequality as a prominent causal factor for the crisis it is however necessary that the negative effects of wealth concentration are also taken into account.

Global trends in relative and absolute wealth concentrations

This paper compares changes in relative and absolute wealth concentrations to establish if both processes have followed similar trajectories. The findings indicate that while the level of relative wealth concentration has increased recently, it is not extraordinarily high in an historical perspective. On the contrary, the level of absolute wealth concentration is most likely higher than that previously occurred because of the increase in the wealth holdings and population size of high net worth individuals. The sustainability of this on-going absolute concentration of wealth is questionable insofar as the resulting pressure of investor demand for safe securities poses a potential threat for financial stability.

Overvaluation of the real exchange rate and the Dutch Disease: the Colombian case.

In this study, we estimate the impact of the 2004-2012 energy and mining boom on the real effective exchange rate in Colombia and the sectoral composition of its economy. To this end, we introduce the new “extended Dutch Disease” concept, according to which a currency appreciation may not only occur due to traditional “spending” and “relocation” effects but also due to exports and massive inflows of external capital that finances the booming sector. The empirical results indicate that Colombia experienced an overvaluation of its real exchange rate, which in turn negatively affected the competitiveness of its manufacturing and agricultural sector.

The Differential Impact of Public and Private Governance Institutions on the Different Modes of Foreign Investment

Abstract This paper examines the respective impacts of public and private governance institutions on foreign direct and foreign portfolio investment inflows. We present two hypotheses: (1) there is a strong correlation between the quality of a country’s public governance institutions and the amount of foreign direct investment (FDI) received while the quality of its private governance institutions has no further discernible impact on this correlation; (2) there is a strong correlation between the quality of a country’s public governance institutions and the amount of foreign portfolio investment (FPI) received while the quality of its private governance institutions has a further positive impact on this correlation. Our findings, which are based on panel data analysis, show both hypotheses to be valid.

A Case for Redistribution? Income Inequality and Wealth Concentration in the Recent Crisis

Several Nobel laureates economists have called for redistributive policies. This paper shows that there is a strong case for redistributive policies because the global increase of income inequality and wealth concentration was an important driver for the financial and Eurozone crisis. The high levels of income inequality resulted in balance of payment imbalances and rising debt levels. Rising wealth concentration contributed to the crisis because the increasing asset demand from the rich played a key role in the rise of the structured credit market and enabled poor and middle-income households to accumulate increasing amounts of debt. To tame the inherent instability of the current mode of capitalism it is necessary to reduce inequality.

Inequality and Property Crime: Does Absolute Inequality Matter?

Economic crime models and the social strain theory argue that income inequality can foster property crime, yet empirical studies do not provide strong support for this relationship across countries. An important limitation of these studies is that they only consider relative inequality measures and omit absolute ones. Absolute inequality can have a crime-inducing effect for two main reasons: First, the potential monetary returns from crime can be expected to depend on the interaction between relative income inequality and mean income. Second, higher levels of absolute inequality imply that the economic elite can capture institutions in ways that can make them dysfunctional for society as a whole. This article finds that, in contrast to relative inequality, absolute inequality is a robust and statistically significant determinant of violent property crime rates for a sample of up to 59 developed and developing countries.

Natural resource-seeking FDI inflows and current account deficits in commodity-producing developing economies

Natural resource-seeking foreign direct investment (FDI) rose substantially during the last two decades as global commodity prices soared. This type of FDI typically is expected to improve the current accounts of recipient countries. Notwithstanding the commodity boom, however, current account balances of many commodity-producing developing economies were negative during 1995–2013. Considering 31 commodity-producing countries, we find that the average net effect of a 1% increase in natural resource-seeking FDI was a 0.23% decline in the current account (measured as percentage of GDP). This surprising result can be explained by the repatriation of profits.

Class or Location? What Explains the Rising Tide of Absolute Global Income Inequality During 1850-2010?

This paper is the first to decompose absolute global income inequality into its within-country ?class? and between-country ?location? components. The estimates show that until 1970 locational income differences were the main driver of absolute global inequality, whereas its recent growth can be explained primarily by class differences. Nowadays, inequality between classes explains 70% of absolute global market inequality. Additional findings are that absolute income convergence between countries took place after 2005, that it is possible to reduce absolute inequality and to grow at the same time, and that of late within countries net inequality was growing faster than market inequality.