Within-country income inequality has risen since the early 1980s in most of the OECD, all transitional, and many developing countries. More recently, inequality has risen also in India and nations affected by the Asian crisis. Altogether, over the last twenty years, inequality worsened in 70 per cent of the 73 countries analysed in this volume, with the Gini index rising by over five points in half of them. In several cases, the Gini index follows a U-shaped pattern, with the turn-around point located between the late 1970s and early 1990s. Where the shift towards liberalization and globalization was concluded, the right arm of the U stabilized at the 'steady state level of inequality' typical of the new policy regime, as observed in the UK after 1990. Mainstream theory focusing on rises in wage differentials by skill caused by either North-South trade, migration, or technological change poorly explains the recent rise in income inequality. Likewise, while the traditional causes of income polarization-high land concentration, unequal access to education, the urban bias, the 'curse of natural resources'-still account for much of cross-country variation in income inequality, they cannot explain its recent rise. This volume suggests that the recent rise in income inequality was caused to a considerable extent by a policy-driven worsening in factorial income distribution, wage spread and spatial inequality. In this regard, the volume discusses the distributive impact of reforms in trade and financial liberalization, taxation, public expenditure, safety nets, and labour markets. The volume thus represents one of the first attempts to analyse systematically the relation between policy changes inspired by liberalization and globalization and income inequality. It suggests that capital account liberalization appears to have had-on average-the strongest disequalizing effect, followed by domestic financial liberalization, labour market deregulation, and tax reform. Trade liberalization had unclear effects, while public expenditure reform often had positive effects.
PART I: INCOME DISTRIBUTION TRENDS,THEORIES AND POLICIES 1: Giovanni Andrea Cornia: Inequality, Growth and Poverty: An Overview of Changes over the Last Two Decades 2: Giovanni Andrea Cornia, Tony Addison and Sampsa Kiiski: Income Distribution Changes and Their Impact in the Post-World War II period PART II: TRADITIONAL CAUSES OF INEQUALITY: STILL RELEVANT FOR EXPLAINING ITS RISE IN THE 1980s-90s? 3: Michael Carter: Land Ownership Inequality and the Income Distribution Consequences of Economic Growth 4: Daniele Checchi: Does Educational Achievement Help Explain Income Inequality? 5: Michael Lipton and Rob Eastwood: Rural and Urban Income and Poverty: Does Convergence Between Sectors Offset Divergence within Them? PART III. RECENT FACTORS INFLUENCING THE DISTRIBUTION OF INCOME 6: Ajit Singh and Rahul Dhumale: Globalization, Technology and Income Inequality: A Critical Analysis 7: Lance Taylor: External Liberalization, Economic Performance and Distribution in Latin America and Elsewhere 8: Rolph van der Hoeven and Catherine Saget: Labour Market Institutions and Income Inequality: What are the New Insights after the Washington Consensus? 9: Anthony B. Atkinson: Increased Income Inequality in OECD Countries and the Redistributive Impact of the Government Budget 10: Ke-young Chu, Amid Davoodi and Sanjeev Gupta: Income Distribution and Tax and Government Social Spending Policies in Developing Countries 11: Giovanni Andrea Cornia and Sanjay Reddy: The Impact of Adjustment-Related Social Funds on Income Distribution and Poverty PART IV. COUNTRY CASE STUDIES 12: Raghbendra Jha: Reducing Poverty and Inequality in India: Has Liberalization Helped? 13: Francisco Rodriguez: Factor Shares and Resource Booms: Accounting for the Evolution of Venezuelan Inequality 14: Erinc Yeldan: The Impact of Financial Liberalization and the Rise of Financial Rents on Income Inequality: The Case of Turkey 15: Carolyn Jenkins and Lynne Thomas: The Changing Nature of Inequality in South Africa 16: Isra Sarntisart: Growth, Structural Change and Inequality: The Experience of Thailand Index
Giovanni Andrea Cornia is currently professor of economics at the University of Florence. Before this, he was the Director of the World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU/WIDER) in Helsinki (1995-2000), and Director of the Economic and Social Policy Research Programme at the International Child Development Centre (the world-wide research centre of UNICEF) in Florence (1989-95). He was also the Chief Economist at UNICEF Headquarters in New York (1981-89) and held research positions at UNCTAD, UNECE (with a long spell at ECLAC in Santiago) and the Economic Studies Centre of FIAT.
Reviews for Inequality, Growth, and Poverty in an Era of Liberalization and Globalization
Together they make a valuable collection of papers on linkages between inequality and/or trade with growth and/or povertyresearchers will find much of value in the volumes, and research students will find the reviews, methods and case studies informative and useful. * Journal of International Development * This book is a well-researched, energetic and analytically adept multi-authored volume... * Development and Change * '...a valuable contribution to the important but still very limited body of serious analysis on the enormously important question of how liberalization and globalization affect people though their growth, distribution and poverty impacts. The volume addresses most of the key issues and, through the material it adds to the ongoing debates, will help to shift the balance of considered opinion away from the overoptimistic predictions of some of the cheer-leaders for liberalization and globalization to a more plausible middle ground. Such a shift is essential if these phenomena are to be appropriately controlled and harnessed for human betterment.' * Albert Berry, Professor, Department of Economics, University of Toronto * '..essential reading for anyone concerned with poverty reduction and the impact of current policy reforms' * Frances Stewart, Director, Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford *
