This
paper examines whether crime and inequality are linked. The expected positive connection can be
explained by 3 theories of crime:
-Economic Theory :
There will be crime if people with low market return are opposed to people with
high market return.
-Social Disorganization Theory :
Crime will originate from lack of social control.
-Strain Theory: The
more people that cant display their success through materialistic wealth are
surrounded by people who can, the likelier they will commit crime.
These theories are best looked at
as compliments (focusing on 1 key aspect) rather than substitutes.
The
study, using data from the FBI Uniform Crime Reports, shows that both types of
crime can be linked to inequality. Nevertheless, inequality has a stronger
effect on violent crime than on property crime (which is more caused by
poverty)
Different
types of crime are caused by different population characteristics: the
percentage of nonwhite has a strong effect on murder and car theft, the
percentage of female-headed families effects all sorts of crime.
The
results match with the results from the 3 theories :
Economic
theory works well for poverty crime (less for violent crime). The results about
female-headed families confirm the Social disorganization theory. The role of
inequality keeps up with strain theory.
Conclusion:
inequality has a huge impact on violent crime
CAN EDUCATION EXPENDITURES REDUCE INCOME INEQUALITY? KEVIN SYLWESTER CAN EDUCATION EXPENDITURES REDUCE INCOME INEQUALITY? KEVIN SYLWESTER
This paper
tries to find an answer to the question if income inequality can be solved by more education expenditures
by the government. Several experiments
were conducted in the past. They can be divided into 2 groups:
- Increased support for public
education lowers income inequality (Schultz,
Glomm and Ravikumar, )
- Increased support for public
education does not benefit the poor (Sylwester,
Jiminez, Ram)
Unclear effect of public education
expenditures.
The author
of the paper conducted a new experiment, and used a different approach to find
out if education lowers income inequality or vice versa
Data: 50 Gini coefficients, this is a number between
0 and 1 that measures the strength of inequality. 0= perfectly equal, 1=
perfectly unequal
The Gini coefficient
is strongly correlated with other measures of income inequality and has been
calculated for most of the countries
The author
found these conclusions: more public
education expenditures lowers income inequality, but the effect is only noticeable
after several years because it takes a few years before the education is
completed. Another conclusion is that education spending will be more effective
in OECD countries.
Nevertheless;
no answer to these questions :
-What type of education expenditure is most
effective?
The Drivers of Chinese CO2 Emissions from 1980 to 2030
Being a developing country, China is one of the highest growing economies in the World. In times when global warming and green development are one of the main issues and concerns on every Eurotop, we should ask ourselves what the influence is and will be on the energy consumption and on the carbon emissions of China. Even more, we should wonder how far we stand solving these problems.
The authors of this paper are fully convinced and clear about the future situation of China. Theyve come up with three scenarios. Compared to 2002, even the most optimistic model shows a threefold increase of the emissions by 2030. By then, Chinas emissions number will be the largest in the world. However, one of Chinas goals is to reduce their level of emissions to its 2000 level. Unfortunately, the authors conclude that its quite unlikely for China to reach this goal; even with the most efficient improvements and best available technology ever.
An important part of Chinas GDP consists of their export rate; which means the latter is strongly related to their Chinese emissions. In the near future all goods will need to be produced in the most environmentally protective way possible. To avoid further isolation and arrear compared to the other developed countries, China will need to find incentives to stimulate producing goods in a greener way; which can go from carbon taxes on automobiles to subsidiaries, . Its certain that politics will play a crucial role in this matter.
Guan, D., Hubacek, K., Weber, C.L., Peters, G.P. and Reiner, D.M. (2008) The drivers of Chinese CO2 emissions from 1980 to 2030. Global Environmental Change, 18 (4). pp. 626-634.
Full text PDF: http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/5405/1/hubacekk9.pdf
These days theres no escaping. Each time you visit a city, its hard to ignore the ethnic and religious diversity. Globalization nowadays plays a crucial role in this matter. Economically spoken this diversity seems to create a positive situation and evolution. However, todays critics of globalization claim it increases the possibilities of international conflicts since this is a worldwide phenomenon. Therefore it seems interesting to find out what the exact influence on the economic development really is. This is what this paper is about.
In the introduction the authors discuss the main conclusion of this paper. It states that in many situations the ethnic heterogeneity generates conflicts and could eventually lead and end up in a civil war. Its obvious that such situation hasnt got a positive impact on a countrys economy. At least thats what many other authors agree with.
The results of this paper indeed confirm that heterogeneity has a negative impact on growth. However, the authors opinions strongly differ when it comes to the core of this problem. While some mention the relationship in between the potential conflict and eventually negative rent seeking activities, others clearly state the negative influences on the rate of investments, the increase of public consumption and the possibilities of a civil war.
J.G. Montalvo, M. Reynal-Querol / Journal of Development Economics 76 (2005) 293323
Full text PDF: http://www.aiecon.org/advanced/suggestedreadings/PDF/sug25.pdf
Income Inequality and School Bullying: Multilevel Study of Adolescents in 37 Countries.
Income Inequality and School Bullying: Multilevel Study of Adolescents in 37 Countries.
A multilevel study in 37 countries investigated
whether there is an association between income inequality and school bullying.
The study resulted in clear but regrettable results: there is a significant
positive correlation between the inequality rates and rates of school
bullying. However males and females were studied separately because bullying
manifests differently in both sexes (physical vs. verbal), the results are
comparable: high income inequality corresponded with more frequent bullying.
Countries like Turkey and Russia with high inequality
rates have four to five times higher bullying rates than Scandinavian countries
such as Sweden and Denmark where income inequality is less significant. In
countries with greater income inequality, children already experience at young
age the status competition of their parents in the society. Children often
reflect this impression to their daily environment and start bullying in order
to claim their status position at school. Adolescents characterized as bullies
are at greater risk of antisocial problems: most of adolescent bullies end up
in crime before age 24.
In addition, the study shows that bullying situations affect
the social and emotional development of the children involved. These findings
suggest that adolescents in areas of wide income inequality should be a focus
of antibullying campaigns.
Frank J. Elgar, Ph.D.,
Wendy Craig, Ph.D., William Boyce, Antony Morgan, M.Sc., and Rachel
Vella-Zarb, B.A. Journal of Adolescent
Health 45 (2009) 351359
Wider income gaps, wider waistbands? An ecological study of obesity and income inequality.
Wider income gaps, wider waistbands? An ecological study of obesity and income inequality.
Obesity seems to be(come) a major
problem forour society. Throughout the
developed countries, the obesity rate has increased significantly or has even
doubled in just a few years. Where once the rich were fat and the poor were
thin, in developed countries these patterns are now reversed, even though this
may be a bit counterintuitive.
Previous studies have already
examined the level of inequality which resulted in a high level of inequality
in the USA in comparison with very low inequality rates in Japan and the
Scandinavian countries. Also the obesity rate was examined with comparable
results: a low rate in Japan compared to a high rate in the USA.
Purpose of this study was to investigate the association between income inequality and the
obesity rate. Therefore, 21 eligible developed countries were compared to each
other. The data on income inequality came from the United Nations, obesity rate
data came from the International Obesity TaskForce, an international
association for the study of obesity.
The results were almost as expected:
indeed, there is found a positive correlation between income inequality and
obesity. However, this is only a slight correlation. In my point of view the
question can be raised whether the obesity rate would decrease significantly if
unequal societies evolve to more egalitarian societies.
Kate E Pickett, Shona Kelly, Eric Brunner, Tim Lobstein & Richard G
Wilkinson, 2005. Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, 59, 670-674.
Inequality as a cause of environmental degradation.
Inequality as a cause of environmental degradation.
The paper consists of two large parts. On the one hand environmental degradation is represented as a function of the balance of power between the winners and the losers and on the other hand inequality is seen as the main reason of causing the degradation.
The first part mainly describes the different ways that the winners use to impose the costs on the losers and by winners they mean the people who derive benefits from the negative activity on the environment and by losers they mean the people who bear the costs. One thing really seemed important to me and that was the fact that the activity is socially justified as long as the positive consequences for the winners compensated the costs of the losers.
In the second part they illustrate the relationship between inequality and environmental degradation on the basis of a well explained graph. The wealthy people will tend more to pollute the air in an environment where a lot of poor people live because the poors ability and willingness to pay is too low to avoid it. This will result into a bigger difference between rich and poor and leads to a vicious circle.
James K. Boyce, 1994, inequality as a cause of environmental degradation, ecological economics,66,169-178
The author wants to investigate the influence of structural and cultural processesas well as the influence of gender differences on the committing of crimes.
The first part of the text shows us that something called socioeconomic status (SES) has an influence on violent delinquency. It concludes that boys from lower SES families have a higher chance to get involved in crime. The reason for this is because boys are less supervised by their parents and the parents of lower SES families are more likely to use coercive measures such as commands, restrictions, threats and physical punishment to solve problems.
Another important factor is the interactions that the youthhas with others who are engaged in violent delinquency. Its obvious that there exists a positive correlation between being connected with people who have a history of violence and the opportunity to get into crime.
The second part of the text deals with the gender differences.
Girls who have learned the traditional definitions(= the idea of woman in the middle ages) of gender will be less violent than the girls who havent. By contrast the boys who accept these definitions may be more likely to use physical force and aggression.
We could conclude that the ability to commit a crime or to be violent differs from person to person.
HEIMER, K. and COSTER, S. D. ,1999, the gendering of violent delinquency, Criminology, 37, 277318
