IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/loceco/v33y2018i6p583-600.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Economic inequality, social policy and a good society

Author

Listed:
  • Nat O'Connor

Abstract

The economic discourse on bringing about a fairer or more equal society has thus tended to focus heavily on increasing the cash income of disadvantaged households, while lessening the focus on non-cash economic benefits derived from social policies. The dominance of cash in the economic inequality discourse leads inexorably to (perhaps well-intentioned) policies to reduce personal taxation for lower income households and to increase their cash incomes, including the recently popular idea of an unconditional Universal Basic Income. This paper argues that innovative direct solutions to the provision of various goods and services by alternative means tend to be squeezed out of the current discourse about economic inequality. Through analysis of the Minimum Essential Standard of Living, an argument is made that a more sophisticated social policy discourse is needed to tackle disparities in people’s material conditions, beyond a focus on cash income, in order to bring about the foundational conditions for a good society even in the context of low economic growth and/or fiscal austerity.

Suggested Citation

  • Nat O'Connor, 2018. "Economic inequality, social policy and a good society," Local Economy, London South Bank University, vol. 33(6), pages 583-600, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:loceco:v:33:y:2018:i:6:p:583-600
    DOI: 10.1177/0269094218802987
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0269094218802987
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0269094218802987?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Atkinson, Anthony B., 2015. "Inequality: what can be done?," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 101810, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    2. Federico Cingano, 2014. "Trends in Income Inequality and its Impact on Economic Growth," OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers 163, OECD Publishing.
    3. Mr. Jonathan David Ostry & Mr. Andrew Berg & Mr. Charalambos G Tsangarides, 2014. "Redistribution, Inequality, and Growth," IMF Staff Discussion Notes 2014/002, International Monetary Fund.
    4. Sen, Amartya, 1995. "Inequality Reexamined," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198289289.
    5. Jonathan David Ostry & Andrew Berg & Charalambos G Tsangarides, 2014. "Redistribution, Inequality, and Growth," IMF Staff Discussion Notes 14/02, International Monetary Fund.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Fabio Clementi & Mauro Gallegati & Lisa Gianmoena & Simone Landini & Joseph E. Stiglitz, 2019. "Mis-measurement of inequality: a critical reflection and new insights," Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, Springer;Society for Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents, vol. 14(4), pages 891-921, December.
    2. Fabio CLEMENTI & Mauro GALLEGATI, 2017. "NEW ECONOMIC WINDOWS ON INCOME AND WEALTH: THE k-GENERALIZED FAMILY OF DISTRIBUTIONS," Journal of Social and Economic Statistics, Bucharest University of Economic Studies, vol. 6(1), pages 1-15, JULY.
    3. Jochen Hartwig, 2018. "Wachstumsfolgen von Einkommensungleichheit – Theorie, empirische Evidenz und Politikempfehlungen," Chemnitz Economic Papers 020, Department of Economics, Chemnitz University of Technology.
    4. Emiliano Álvarez & Marcelo Álvez & Juan Gabriel Brida, 2020. "Impuesto progresivo al ingreso y crecimiento. Abordaje desde la complejidad," Documentos de trabajo 2020008, Banco Central del Uruguay.
    5. Jekaterina Navickė & Romas Lazutka, 2018. "Distributional Implications of the Economic Development in the Baltics: Reconciling Micro and Macro Perspectives," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 138(1), pages 187-206, July.
    6. Alexander Krenek & Margit Schratzenstaller, 2018. "A European Net Wealth Tax," WIFO Working Papers 561, WIFO.
    7. Ville-Veikko Pulkka, 2017. "A free lunch with robots – can a basic income stabilise the digital economy?," Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, , vol. 23(3), pages 295-311, August.
    8. Ines A. Ferreira & Rachel M. Gisselquist & Finn Tarp, 2021. "On the impact of inequality on growth, human development, and governance," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2021-34, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    9. Sudip Ranjan Basu, 2017. "Do data show divergence? Revisiting global income inequality trends," Asia-Pacific Development Journal, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), vol. 24(1), pages 23-53, June.
    10. Saha, Anjan K. & Mishra, Vinod, 2020. "Genetic distance, economic growth and top income shares: Evidence from OECD countries," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 37-47.
    11. Nora Albu & Heike Joebges & Rudolf Zwiener, 2018. "Increasing competitiveness at any price?," IMK Working Paper 192-2018, IMK at the Hans Boeckler Foundation, Macroeconomic Policy Institute.
    12. Emile Cammeraat, 2020. "The relationship between different social expenditure schemes and poverty, inequality and economic growth," International Social Security Review, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 73(2), pages 101-123, April.
    13. Pasquale Tridico, 2015. "The Rise Of Income Inequality In Oecd Countries," Departmental Working Papers of Economics - University 'Roma Tre' 0201, Department of Economics - University Roma Tre.
    14. Claudia Andreea Urean, 2017. "The Impact Of Income Inequality And Educational Inequality On Economic Growth - A Literarure Review," Annals - Economy Series, Constantin Brancusi University, Faculty of Economics, vol. 4, pages 59-65, August.
    15. Jan Vandemoortele, 2021. "The open‐and‐shut case against inequality," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 39(1), pages 135-151, January.
    16. Sirine MNIF, 2017. "The Impact of Inequality on Growth Driven by Technological Changes: a Panel of Developing Countries," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 8(1), pages 127-140, March.
    17. Amrita Saha & Tommaso Ciarli, 2018. "Innovation, Structural Change, and Inclusion. A Cross Country PVAR Analysis," SPRU Working Paper Series 2018-01, SPRU - Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex Business School.
    18. Orsetta Causa & Mikkel Hermansen & Nicolas Ruiz, 2016. "The Distributional Impact of Structural Reforms," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 1342, OECD Publishing.
    19. Francisco G. Ferreira & Nora Lustig & Daniel Teles, 2015. "Appraising cross-national income inequality databases: An introduction," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 13(4), pages 497-526, December.
    20. Stefan Thewissen & Lane Kenworthy & Brian Nolan & Max Roser & Tim Smeeding, 2018. "Rising Income Inequality and Living Standards in OECD Countries: How Does the Middle Fare?," Journal of Income Distribution, Ad libros publications inc., vol. 26(2), pages 1-23, July.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:loceco:v:33:y:2018:i:6:p:583-600. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/index.shtml .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.