Publication: International Redistribution of Income
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2009
ISSN
0305750X
Published
2009
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
How do international policies on aid, trade, and factor movements affect the international distribution of income? We calculate the impact by world decile of the actual level of aid flows and the effect on income of merchandise trade restrictions by high-income countries. We find that aid's distributional impact is equality enhancing, extremely small in terms of changes in inequality measures, but of some importance for the lowest decile of the distribution. We also find that some of this impact is counteracted by lost potential income in the lower deciles from merchandise trade barriers imposed by high-income countries.
Link to Data Set
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Citations
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Global Redistribution of Income(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2006-07)The actual distribution of world income across countries is extremely unequal, much higher than the within country inequality faced by most countries. The question studied in this paper is: How do international policies on aid, trade, and factor movements affect the international distribution of income? To begin to answer this question, the authors calculate the impact by decile of the actual level of aid flows and the effect on potential income of merchandise trade restrictions by high-income countries. They find that aid's distributional impact is equality enhancing. While it is extremely small in terms of changes in standard inequality measures, it is of some importance for the lowest decile of the world's income distribution. The authors also find that some of this impact is counteracted by lost potential income in the lower deciles from merchandise trade barriers imposed by high-income countries. In brief, there is a contradiction in international policies where aid's equality-enhancing effect is somewhat offset by protectionism. They also discuss some of the analytical difficulties with extending this analysis of redistribution to other forms of international factor flows-more specifically, migrant worker and profit remittances. The analysis presented is partial and static and ignores within country distribution. As such, the authors suggest that future research should explore the distributional consequences of the broader general equilibrium effects, dynamic effects, and externalities associated with aid, trade, and factor flows. Future research should also analyze the within country distributional impacts of international policies.Publication Globalization and the Role of Public Transfers in Redistributing Income in Latin America and the Caribbean(2010)This paper focuses on measuring the extent to which publicly subsidized transfers in Latin America and the Caribbean redistribute income. The redistributive power of 56 transfers in eight countries is measured by their simulated impacts on poverty and inequality, and by their distributional characteristic. Our findings suggest that public transfers can be effective instruments to redistribute income to the poor. Despite coverage and distributional patterns that favor the poor, small unit subsidies limit the redistributive, poverty and inequality impacts of even the most targeted social assistance programs.Publication Fiscal Redistribution and Income Inequality in Latin America(2011)This paper documents and compares the redistributive performance of Latin American and Western European fiscal systems. Three main conclusions emerge: (i) taxes and transfers widen the difference in income inequality between the two country groups, because (ii) the redistributive impact of the fiscal system is very large in Europe and very small in Latin America; and (iii) where fiscal redistribution is significant, it is achieved mostly through transfers rather than taxes. While the priorities of pro-equity fiscal reforms vary across Latin American countries, overall the prospects for major fiscal redistribution lie mainly in raising the volume of resources available for transfers, and improving their targeting, rather than increasing the progressivity of Latin America's tax systems.Publication The Impact of Macroeconomic Policies on Poverty and Income Distribution : Macro-Micro Evaluation Techniques and Tools(Washington, DC : World Bank and Palgrave Macmillan, 2008-01-19)This book assembles methodologies and techniques to evaluate the poverty impact of macroeconomic policies. It takes as a departure point a companion volume, the impact of economic policies on poverty and income distribution: evaluation techniques and tools. This volume was primarily a review of microeconomic techniques aimed at assessing policies that are directly concerned with the welfare of poor households or individuals such as changing the level of cash transfers to the poorest households, increasing price subsidies for basic consumer goods, and the like. In addition, the second part of that earlier publication introduced basic techniques to deal with the poverty impact of macroeconomic policies that by definition are not targeted and affect the whole population. This volume presents a comprehensive array of macro-micro modeling frameworks. It begins by highlighting the limitation of macroeconomic models that use representative household groups to link macroeconomic policies and microeconomic data. It then moves to more complexes, top-down modeling frameworks, which combine (top) macro models and (down) micro simulation models that, in turn, can be simple micro accounting models or behavioral micro models. The book also explores integrated models, in which the macro and micro parts are either linked by iterative feedback loops or solved simultaneously as a single model. By providing clear access to these techniques, by documenting their analytical underpinnings, their data requirements, and their range of applicability, and even by highlighting some of their limitations, this book provides a unique compendium for practitioners, policy makers, and anyone interested in economic development.Publication Trust in Government and Support for Redistribution(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-05)In many countries safety nets consist predominantly of universal subsidies on food and fuel. A key question for policy makers willing to shift to targeted safety nets is under what conditions middle-class citizens would be supportive of redistributive programs. Results from a behavioral experiment based on a nationally representative sample in Jordan reveal that increasing transparency in benefit delivery makes middle-class citizens (particularly among the youth and low-trust individuals) more willing to forgo their own welfare to benefit the poor. Moreover, increasing transparency enhances the relative support for cash-based safety nets, which have greater impact on poverty compared with in-kind transfers, but may be perceived as more prone to elite capture.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
No results found.