Sharing the national cake in post reform New Zealand: income inequality trends in terms of income sources

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Podder, N; Chatterjee, S
• 署名单位: Massey University; University of New South Wales Sydney
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2727
• DOI: 10.1016/S0047-2727(01)00117-7
• 发表日期: 2002
• 页码: 1-27
• 关键词: income; INEQUALITY; New Zealand

摘要

Using Household Economic Survey (HES) data in unit record form, this paper examines the trends of household income inequality in New Zealand over the period 1984-96, a period that saw New Zealand implement a wide range of economic and social policy reform. The observed changes in the overall income inequality are then decomposed by income components to measure the contributions of the different sources of personal income to the overall inequality. To our knowledge, this is the first time that the methodology for disaggregating the Gini co-efficient, including its more recent extensions by Lerman and Yitzhaki [Review of Economics and Statistics 63 (1985) 151]; Podder [Review of Income and Wealth 39 (1993) 51]; and Mookherjee and Shorrocks [Economic Journal 92 (1982) 886], has been applied to micro-level New Zealand data for computing income inequality and other, related, indices and measures reported in this study. The findings, which indicate a steady upward trend in income inequality, are examined in the light of the reform policies used at the time. Their implications for policy are also addressed. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science BY All rights reserved.