IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/lis/liswps/763.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Work and Poverty in Post-Industrial Democracies

Author

Listed:
  • Kaitlin Alper
  • Evelyne Huber
  • John D. Stephens

Abstract

This article explores the determinants of relative market income poverty and poverty reduction in advanced industrial democracies; that is, pre-tax and transfer relative poverty and reduction in poverty rates due to the tax and transfer system. Using data from twenty countries between 1969 and 2014, we show that the primary determinants of market income poverty are the availability of work, deindustrialization, and union involvement in minimum wage setting. Contrary to expectations, we find that wage dispersion in the lower half of the income distribution does not affect household poverty. We then show that the main determinant of poverty reduction is social spending on the non-aged. These results suggest that the main way in which states affect poverty via social policy is through the tax and transfer system, and that market income poverty is primarily the result of factors affecting volume of work and remuneration levels at the bottom of the distribution.

Suggested Citation

  • Kaitlin Alper & Evelyne Huber & John D. Stephens, 2019. "Work and Poverty in Post-Industrial Democracies," LIS Working papers 763, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    • Handle: RePEc:lis:liswps:763
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.lisdatacenter.org/wps/liswps/763.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Daron Acemoglu & David Autor & David Dorn & Gordon H. Hanson & Brendan Price, 2016. "Import Competition and the Great US Employment Sag of the 2000s," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(S1), pages 141-198.
    2. Barro, Robert J. & Lee, Jong Wha, 2013. "A new data set of educational attainment in the world, 1950–2010," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 184-198.
    3. Robert C. Feenstra & Robert Inklaar & Marcel P. Timmer, 2015. "The Next Generation of the Penn World Table," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(10), pages 3150-3182, October.
    4. Nicolas Fleury & Sylvain Petit & Aurélie Cassette, 2012. "Income inequalities and international trade in goods and services: short and long-run evidence," Post-Print hal-01831503, HAL.
    5. Adrian Wood, 2018. "The 1990s trade and wages debate in retrospect," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(4), pages 975-999, April.
    6. Van Reenen, John, 2011. "Wage inequality, technology and trade: 21st century evidence," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(6), pages 730-741.
    7. Garrett, Geoffrey, 1995. "Capital mobility, trade, and the domestic politics of economic policy," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 49(4), pages 657-687, October.
    8. Pontusson, Jonas & Rueda, David & Way, Christopher R., 2002. "Comparative Political Economy of Wage Distribution: The Role of Partisanship and Labour Market Institutions," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 32(2), pages 281-308, April.
    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. Alcalá, Francisco & Solaz, Marta, 2018. "International Relocation of Production and Growth," CEPR Discussion Papers 13422, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Rod Tyers & Yixiao Zhou, 2023. "Automation and inequality with taxes and transfers," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 70(1), pages 68-100, February.
    3. Klaus Gründler & Niklas Potrafke & Timo Wochner, 2020. "Structural Reforms and Income Inequality: Who Benefits From Market-Oriented Reforms?," EconPol Policy Reports 18, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich.
    4. Valentin F. Lang & Ms. Marina Mendes Tavares, 2018. "The Distribution of Gains from Globalization," IMF Working Papers 2018/054, International Monetary Fund.
    5. António Afonso & José Alves & Krzysztof Beck, 2022. "Pay and unemployment determinants of migration flows in the European Union," Working Papers REM 2022/0251, ISEG - Lisbon School of Economics and Management, REM, Universidade de Lisboa.
    6. Nadir Altinok & Claude Diebolt, 2024. "Cliometrics of learning-adjusted years of schooling: evidence from a new dataset," Cliometrica, Springer;Cliometric Society (Association Francaise de Cliométrie), vol. 18(3), pages 691-764, September.
    7. Dany Bahar & Hillel Rapoport & Riccardo Turati, 2019. "Does Birthplace Diversity Affect Economic Complexity ? Cross-Country Evidence," LIDAM Discussion Papers IRES 2019020, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES).
    8. Z Fang & D Ding & C Guan, 2024. "Does Methodology Matter? Revisiting the Energy-growth Nexus in Asia Pacific Economies," Economic Issues Journal Articles, Economic Issues, vol. 29(1), pages 5-34, March.
    9. Gehringer, Agnieszka & Prettner, Klaus, 2019. "Longevity And Technological Change," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 23(4), pages 1471-1503, June.
    10. Florent Silve & Alexander Plekhanov, 2018. "Institutions, innovation and growth : Evidence from industry data," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 26(3), pages 335-362, July.
    11. Olaf J de Groot & Carlos Bozzoli & Anousheh Alamir & Tilman Brück, 2022. "The global economic burden of violent conflict," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 59(2), pages 259-276, March.
    12. Thomas Ziesemer, 2023. "Labour-augmenting technical change data for alternative elasticities of substitution: growth, slowdown, and distribution dynamics," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(4), pages 449-475, May.
    13. Jens J. Krüger, 2020. "Long‐run productivity trends: A global update with a global index," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(4), pages 1393-1412, November.
    14. Bloom, David E. & Canning, David & Kotschy, Rainer & Prettner, Klaus & Schünemann, Johannes, 2024. "Health and economic growth: Reconciling the micro and macro evidence," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 178(C).
    15. Stefan Pahl & Marcel P. Timmer, 2020. "Do Global Value Chains Enhance Economic Upgrading? A Long View," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 56(9), pages 1683-1705, July.
    16. Georges Daw, 2022. "Determinants of Wealth Disparities in the EU: A Multi-scale Development Accounting Investigation," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 64(2), pages 211-254, June.
    17. Jonathan F Cogliano & Roberto Veneziani & Naoki Yoshihara, 2024. "The dynamics of international exploitation," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 56(5), pages 1420-1446, August.
    18. Sabrina Auci & Laura Castellucci & Manuela Coromaldi, 2021. "How does public spending affect technical efficiency? Some evidence from 15 European countries," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 73(1), pages 108-130, January.
    19. Rainer Kotschy & Uwe Sunde & Tommaso MonacelliManaging Editor, 2018. "Can education compensate the effect of population ageing on macroeconomic performance?," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 33(96), pages 587-634.
    20. Georgios Gioldasis & Antonio Musolesi & Michel Simioni, 2021. "Interactive R&D Spillovers: an estimation strategy based on forecasting-driven model selection," Working Papers hal-03224910, HAL.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:lis:liswps:763. 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: Piotr Paradowski (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lisprlu.html .

    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.