4. Living Interdependently: public goods and externalities Flashcards
Why is their government involvement in inequality?
Market cannot correct itself
What determines income distribution in the general equilibrium framework?
4 things
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Optimise the constrained demand function?
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What is the market clearing condition?
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Is there a mechanism to equalise income when prices are determined by supply and demand?
What is the sample size when Income inequality is measured?
- Measured based on samples of indivduals in the population
- Typically household income is observed
Complications of using income inequality as a measure of inequality
- Difficult if you live in a household with multiple people (E.g. There may be a dependent person in the household)
What do we do to adjust for the inaccuracy that can result when measuring income inequality as a result of people living in multi-person households?
- Equivalised income (Adjusting for household composition)
- OECD modified equivalence scale since the 1990s: A value of 1 to the household head, 0.5 to each additional adult and 0.3 to each child (Adds weights)
What is the OECD eqivalence sclae
2018 UK equivalised household disposable income
The UK distribution of wages
What is missing from our simple model (where income is determined by labour supply and productivity)?
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Rewards and inequality
* What is it determined by?
* What does it differ across and why?
- Determined by market equilibrium
- Differ across time and space due to distribution of property rights, relative scarcity of different skills
International trade and inequality
Rising inequality is associated with rising prices that come around due to globalisation
- Trade agreements = reduction in protectionism. Income can be affected by ways other than direct ways (Can affect prices in an open economy)
- Lower prices of goods, that are import- competiting
- Lowering of the wages of those who produce the lower priced goods
Thomas Piketty: Capital in the 21st century
* What does he argues causes inequality?
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Equivalised income example
Gini coefficent
- Standard measure of inequality
- Named after Itlian Statitician Corrado Gini
Lorenz curve
Graphical representation of the distribution of income within a population
Named after American economist Max Otto Lorenz
Equality line
The basics of the Lorenz curve
What is the approximate Gini coefficent equation