Excerpt: Inequality and Fiscal Policy
Excerpt: Inequality and Fiscal Policy

Author: Mr.Benedict J. Clements

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 2015-09-09

Total Pages: 32

ISBN-13: 1513521543

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This paper is an excerpt from Inequality and Fiscal Policy. The sizeable increase in income inequality experienced in advanced economies and many parts of the world since the 1990s and the severe consequences of the global economic and financial crisis have brought issues on equity and distribution to the top of the policy agenda. The book delves into this discussion by analyzing fiscal policy and its link with inequality. Fiscal policy is the government’s most powerful tool for addressing inequality. It affects household consumption directly and indirectly. An important message of the book is that growth and equity are not necessarily at odds; with the appropriate mix of policy instruments and careful policy design, countries can in many cases achieve better distributional outcomes and improve economic efficiency. Country case studies demonstrate the diversity of challenges and the diverging ways to use fiscal policy for redistribution. The analysis presented in the book builds on work by IMF economists and leading academics.

Taxing the Rich
Taxing the Rich

Author: Kenneth Scheve

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2017-11-07

Total Pages: 282

ISBN-13: 0691178291

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A groundbreaking history of why governments do—and don't—tax the rich In today's social climate of acknowledged and growing inequality, why are there not greater efforts to tax the rich? In this wide-ranging and provocative book, Kenneth Scheve and David Stasavage ask when and why countries tax their wealthiest citizens—and their answers may surprise you. Taxing the Rich draws on unparalleled evidence from twenty countries over the last two centuries to provide the broadest and most in-depth history of progressive taxation available. Scheve and Stasavage explore the intellectual and political debates surrounding the taxation of the wealthy while also providing the most detailed examination to date of when taxes have been levied against the rich and when they haven't. Fairness in debates about taxing the rich has depended on different views of what it means to treat people as equals and whether taxing the rich advances or undermines this norm. Scheve and Stasavage argue that governments don't tax the rich just because inequality is high or rising—they do it when people believe that such taxes compensate for the state unfairly privileging the wealthy. Progressive taxation saw its heyday in the twentieth century, when compensatory arguments for taxing the rich focused on unequal sacrifice in mass warfare. Today, as technology gives rise to wars of more limited mobilization, such arguments are no longer persuasive. Taxing the Rich shows how the future of tax reform will depend on whether political and economic conditions allow for new compensatory arguments to be made.

Excerpt: Fiscal Policies and Gender Equality
Excerpt: Fiscal Policies and Gender Equality

Author: Ms.Lisa L Kolovich

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 2017-10-03

Total Pages: 18

ISBN-13: 1484322045

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Historically, women around the world have had less opportunity than men in education, employment, and health care, and less political representation. The moral argument for gender equality is clear, and the economic evidence is mounting. The International Monetary Fund and other international institutions have focused in recent years on developing a range of approaches to help whittle away at the barriers that prevent girls and women from achieving their full economic potential. This book is based on a joint research project between the IMF and the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development on gender budgeting around the world. The book summarizes some of the most prominent gender budgeting efforts in more than 80 countries tried over the last two decades. The research team relied on published materials, developed a questionnaire sent to the ministries of finance of all 189 IMF member countries, and conducted interviews with country officials and international organizations that offer technical assistance to countries seeking to implement gender budgeting. Although the gender gap is shrinking, progress remains uneven across many regions of the world. Gender budgeting allows fiscal authorities to ensure that tax spending and policies address inequality and the advancement of women in areas such as education, health, and economic empowerment. Gender budgeting has been targeted to a variety of goals such as access to education, childcare, and health services; raising female labor force participation; and eradicating violence against women. There are still many lessons to be learned in implementing the appropriate government policies and fiscal measures to continue promoting women’s development and gender equality.

Inequality and the 1%
Inequality and the 1%

Author: Danny Dorling

Publisher: National Geographic Books

Published: 2015-09-08

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 1784782076

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Since the great recession hit in 2008, the 1% has only grown richer while the rest find life increasingly tough. The gap between the haves and the have-nots has turned into a chasm. While the rich have found new ways of protecting their wealth, everyone else has suffered the penalties of austerity. But inequality is more than just economics. Being born outside the 1% has a dramatic impact on a person's potential: reducing life expectancy, limiting education and work prospects, and even affecting mental health. What is to be done? In Inequality and the 1% leading social thinker Danny Dorling lays bare the extent and true cost of the division in our society and asks what have the superrich ever done for us. He shows that inquality is the greatest threat we face and why we must urgently redress the balance.

Excerpt: Fiscal Politics
Excerpt: Fiscal Politics

Author: Vitor Gaspar

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 2017-03-24

Total Pages: 41

ISBN-13: 1475588690

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This paper discusses how politics affects policies on the fiscal front. The literature on the political economy of fiscal policy dates back to the nineteenth century when the Italian and Swedish schools of public finance began to analyze how governments choose policies. During the twentieth century, the Public Choice school continued this work and focused on the political incentives and constraints in policy formulation. Elections mainly affect the stabilization and redistribution functions of the government. Proximity of elections can influence the government’s budget decisions in various ways. Ideology heavily influences fiscal policies that pertain to redistribution. Leftwing parties draw their support from workers and the middle- and low-income segments of the population. Thus, they pay particular attention to income inequality, redistribution, social benefits, and interventionist supply-side policies in the form of public provision of human and physical capital. Although the cabinet’s ideology is an important predictor of fiscal policy, it does not always play the same role, especially when the government’s credibility is at stake and they need to reassure financial markets.

Inequality, Class, and Economics
Inequality, Class, and Economics

Author: Eric Schutz

Publisher: NYU Press

Published: 2022-01-24

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13: 1583679413

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"The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the economic inequalities pervading every aspect of society - and then multiplied them to a staggering degree. In Inequality, Class, and Economics, Eric Schutz illuminates the pillars undergirding the monstrous polarities which define our times revealing them as the structures of power that constitute the foundations of the class system of today's capitalism. Employers' power is the linchpin of that system, but the power of professionals in all fields, the power exerted by some businesses over others, political power, and the power of cultural institutions - especially mass media and education - are also critical for the class system today. Each of these social power structures is examined closely and shown both to sustain, and to be sustained by, economic inequality. Employing both traditional and novel approaches to public policy, Inequality, Class, and Economics denounces economists' studied avoidance of the problem of class as a system of inequality based in unequal opportunity, and exhorts us to tackle the heart of the problem at long last."--Back cover.

Confronting Inequality
Confronting Inequality

Author: Jonathan D. Ostry

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2019-01-08

Total Pages: 182

ISBN-13: 0231527616

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Inequality has drastically increased in many countries around the globe over the past three decades. The widening gap between the very rich and everyone else is often portrayed as an unexpected outcome or as the tradeoff we must accept to achieve economic growth. In this book, three International Monetary Fund economists show that this increase in inequality has in fact been a political choice—and explain what policies we should choose instead to achieve a more inclusive economy. Jonathan D. Ostry, Prakash Loungani, and Andrew Berg demonstrate that the extent of inequality depends on the policies governments choose—such as whether to let capital move unhindered across national boundaries, how much austerity to impose, and how much to deregulate markets. While these policies do often confer growth benefits, they have also been responsible for much of the increase in inequality. The book also shows that inequality leads to weaker economic performance and proposes alternative policies capable of delivering more inclusive growth. In addition to improving access to health care and quality education, they call for redistribution from the rich to the poor and present evidence showing that redistribution does not hurt growth. Accessible to scholars across disciplines as well as to students and policy makers, Confronting Inequality is a rigorous and empirically rich book that is crucial for a time when many fear a new Gilded Age.

Leapfrogging Inequality
Leapfrogging Inequality

Author: Rebecca Winthrop

Publisher: Brookings Institution Press

Published: 2018-05-15

Total Pages: 146

ISBN-13: 0815735715

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Exemplary stories of innovation from around the world In an age of rising inequality, getting a good education increasingly separates the haves from the have nots. In countries like the United States, getting a good education is one of the most promising routes to upper-middle-class status, even more so than family wealth. Experts predict that by 2030, 825 million children will reach adulthood without basic secondary-level skills, and it will take a century for the most marginalized youth to achieve the educational levels that the wealthiest enjoy today. But these figures do not even account for the range of skills and competencies needed to thrive today in work, citizenship, and life. In a world where the ability to manipulate knowledge and information, think critically, and collaboratively solve problems are essential to thrive, access to a quality education is crucial for all young people. In Leapfrogging Inequality, researchers chart a new path for global education by examining the possibility of leapfrogging—harnessing innovation to rapidly accelerate educational progress—to ensure that all young people develop the skills they need for a fast-changing world. Analyzing a catalog of nearly 3,000 global education innovations, the largest such collection to date, researchers explore the potential of current practices to enable such a leap. As part of this analysis, the book presents an evidence-based framework for getting ahead in education, which it grounds in the here-and-now by narrating exemplary stories of innovation from around the world. Together, these stories and resources will inspire educators, investors, leaders of nongovernmental organizations, and policymakers alike to rally around a new vision of educational progress—one that ensures we do not leave yet another generation of young people behind.

Capital in the Twenty-First Century
Capital in the Twenty-First Century

Author: Thomas Piketty

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2017-08-14

Total Pages: 817

ISBN-13: 0674979850

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What are the grand dynamics that drive the accumulation and distribution of capital? Questions about the long-term evolution of inequality, the concentration of wealth, and the prospects for economic growth lie at the heart of political economy. But satisfactory answers have been hard to find for lack of adequate data and clear guiding theories. In this work the author analyzes a unique collection of data from twenty countries, ranging as far back as the eighteenth century, to uncover key economic and social patterns. His findings transform debate and set the agenda for the next generation of thought about wealth and inequality. He shows that modern economic growth and the diffusion of knowledge have allowed us to avoid inequalities on the apocalyptic scale predicted by Karl Marx. But we have not modified the deep structures of capital and inequality as much as we thought in the optimistic decades following World War II. The main driver of inequality--the tendency of returns on capital to exceed the rate of economic growth--today threatens to generate extreme inequalities that stir discontent and undermine democratic values if political action is not taken. But economic trends are not acts of God. Political action has curbed dangerous inequalities in the past, the author says, and may do so again. This original work reorients our understanding of economic history and confronts us with sobering lessons for today.

The Great Leveler
The Great Leveler

Author: Walter Scheidel

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2018-09-18

Total Pages: 525

ISBN-13: 0691184313

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How only violence and catastrophes have consistently reduced inequality throughout world history Are mass violence and catastrophes the only forces that can seriously decrease economic inequality? To judge by thousands of years of history, the answer is yes. Tracing the global history of inequality from the Stone Age to today, Walter Scheidel shows that inequality never dies peacefully. Inequality declines when carnage and disaster strike and increases when peace and stability return. The Great Leveler is the first book to chart the crucial role of violent shocks in reducing inequality over the full sweep of human history around the world. Ever since humans began to farm, herd livestock, and pass on their assets to future generations, economic inequality has been a defining feature of civilization. Over thousands of years, only violent events have significantly lessened inequality. The "Four Horsemen" of leveling—mass-mobilization warfare, transformative revolutions, state collapse, and catastrophic plagues—have repeatedly destroyed the fortunes of the rich. Scheidel identifies and examines these processes, from the crises of the earliest civilizations to the cataclysmic world wars and communist revolutions of the twentieth century. Today, the violence that reduced inequality in the past seems to have diminished, and that is a good thing. But it casts serious doubt on the prospects for a more equal future. An essential contribution to the debate about inequality, The Great Leveler provides important new insights about why inequality is so persistent—and why it is unlikely to decline anytime soon.