CEPAL Review No 124 APRIL 2018
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APRIL • 2018 More unequal or less? A review of global, regional and national income inequality Verónica Amarante and Maira Colacce 7 Estimation of factors conditioning the acquisition of academic skills in Latin America in the presence of endogeneity Geovanny Castro Aristizabal, Gregorio Giménez, Domingo Pérez Ximénez-de-Embún 33 The impact of fiscal decentralization on growth, inflation and inequality in the Americas Antonio N. Bojanic 57 Foreign direct investment and growth in developing countries: evidence from the countries of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States Kareem Martin and Nlandu Mamingi 79 The wealth gifted to the large-scale copper mining industry in Chile: new estimates, 2005-2014 Gino Sturla Zerene, Ramón E. López, Eugenio Figueroa B. and Simón Accorsi O. 99 Sectoral and regional determinants of firm dynamics in developing countries: evidence for low-, medium- and high-tech manufacturing in Argentina Carla Daniela Calá 121 Business cycles, expectations and inflation in Brazil: a New-Keynesian Phillips curve analysis Elano Ferreira Arruda, Maria Thalita Arruda Oliveira de Olivindo and Ivan Castelar 143 Trade facilitation and its effects on Chile’s bilateral trade between 2006 and 2014 Darcy Fuenzalida-O’Shee, Bárbara Valenzuela-Klagges and Alejandro Corvalán-Quiroz 159 Gender equity in the Argentine tax system: an estimation of tax burdens by household type Darío Rossignolo 177 Fiscal sustainability and the cyclically adjusted balance policy: methodology and analysis for Chile Mauricio G. Villena, Cristóbal Gamboni and Andrés Tomaselli 203 ISSN 0251-2920 APRIL • 2018 Alicia Bárcena Executive Secretary Mario Cimoli Deputy Executive Secretary a.i. RAÚL GARCÍA-BUCHACA Deputy Executive Secretary for Management and Programme Analysis Osvaldo Sunkel Chairman of the Editorial Board Miguel Torres Technical Editor Alicia Bárcena Executive Secretary Mario Cimoli Deputy Executive Secretary a.i. Raúl García-Buchaca Deputy Executive Secretary for Management and Programme Analysis Osvaldo Sunkel Chair of the Editorial Board Miguel Torres Technical Editor The CEPAL Review was founded in 1976, along with the corresponding Spanish version, Revista CEPAL, and it is published three times a year by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), which has its headquarters in Santiago. The Review has full editorial independence and follows the usual academic procedures and criteria, including the review of articles by independent external referees. The purpose of the Review is to contribute to the discussion of socioeconomic development issues in the region by offering analytical and policy approaches and articles by economists and other social scientists working both within and outside the United Nations. The Review is distributed to universities, research institutes and other international organizations, as well as to individual subscribers. The opinions expressed in the articles are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of ECLAC. The designations employed and the way in which data are presented do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the United Nations concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. To subscribe, please visit the Web page: http://ebiz.turpin-distribution.com/products/197587-cepal-review.aspx The complete text of the Review can also be downloaded free of charge from the ECLAC website (www.eclac.org). This publication, entitled CEPAL Review, is covered in the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), published by Thomson Reuters, and in the Journal of Economic Literature (JEL), published by the American Economic Association United Nations publication ISSN: 0251-2920 ISBN: 978-92-1-121984-5 (print) ISBN: 978-92-1-058622-1 (pdf) LC/PUB.2018/5-P Distribution: General Copyright © United Nations, April 2018 All rights reserved Printed at United Nations, Santiago S.17-01090 Requests for authorization to reproduce this work in whole or in part should be sent to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Publications and Web Services Division, [email protected]. Member States of the United Nations and their governmental institutions may reproduce this work without prior authorization, but are requested to mention the source and to inform ECLAC of such reproduction. Contents More unequal or less? A review of global, regional and national income inequality Verónica Amarante and Maira Colacce . 7 Estimation of factors conditioning the acquisition of academic skills in Latin America in the presence of endogeneity Geovanny Castro Aristizabal, Gregorio Giménez, Domingo Pérez Ximénez-de-Embún . 33 The impact of fiscal decentralization on growth, inflation and inequality in the Americas Antonio N . Bojanic . 57 Foreign direct investment and growth in developing countries: evidence from the countries of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States Kareem Martin and Nlandu Mamingi . 79 The wealth gifted to the large-scale copper mining industry in Chile: new estimates, 2005-2014 Gino Sturla Zerene, Ramón E . López, Eugenio Figueroa B . and Simón Accorsi O . 99 Sectoral and regional determinants of firm dynamics in developing countries: evidence for low-, medium- and high-tech manufacturing in Argentina Carla Daniela Calá . 121 Business cycles, expectations and inflation in Brazil: a New-Keynesian Phillips curve analysis Elano Ferreira Arruda, Maria Thalita Arruda Oliveira de Olivindo and Ivan Castelar . 143 Trade facilitation and its effects on Chile’s bilateral trade between 2006 and 2014 Darcy Fuenzalida-O’Shee, Bárbara Valenzuela-Klagges and Alejandro Corvalán-Quiroz . 159 Gender equity in the Argentine tax system: an estimation of tax burdens by household type Darío Rossignolo . 177 Fiscal sustainability and the cyclically adjusted balance policy: methodology and analysis for Chile Mauricio G . Villena, Cristóbal Gamboni and Andrés Tomaselli . 203 Guidelines for contributors to the CEPAL Review . 233 ECLAC recent publications . 235 Explanatory notes - Three dots (...) indicate that data are not available or are not separately reported. - A dash (-) indicates that the amount is nil or negligible. - A full stop (.) is used to indicate decimals. - The word “dollars” refers to United States dollars, unless otherwise specified. - A slash (/) between years (e.g. 2013/2014) indicates a 12-month period falling between the two years. - Individual figures and percentages in tables may not always add up to the corresponding total because of rounding. More unequal or less? A review of global, regional and national income inequality Verónica Amarante and Maira Colacce Abstract This article presents a multi-perspective discussion of trends in income inequality. Recent evidence from many sources shows that global income inequality is high and relatively stable, with the main changes being driven by developments in China and India. In developed countries, the trend has been towards higher levels of inequality over the last thirty years; and this has also been true of developing countries in the past decade, with the exception of Latin America, which is analysed here in detail. In the region, income became less unevenly distributed between 2002 and 2014, mainly because inequality within countries declined in most cases; but the latest measurements suggest that this trend is faltering. Keywords Economic growth, income, income distribution, equality, measurement, developed countries, developing countries, China, Latin America JEL classification D31, D61 Authors Verónica Amarante is Chief of the Office of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) in Montevideo. Email: veró[email protected]. Maira Colacce is a consultant with the ECLAC office in Montevideo. Email: maira. [email protected]. 8 CEPAL Review N° 124 • April 2018 I. Introduction An apparently simple question, which has been posed several times in various fields, is whether economic inequality is greater in our days than it was a few decades ago. In other words: are modern societies becoming more economically equal, or are individual living standards increasingly tending to diverge? Answering a question of this magnitude is complex, and it needs to be approached from different angles to obtain a comprehensive and concrete response. This article seeks to provide inputs to this endeavour, by summarizing recent evidence from various international studies on the subject and delving deeper into specific aspects on which new evidence is presented. To that end, the article draws on a variety of sources, although individual inequality, of either income or consumption, is always analysed on the basis of household surveys. This means ignoring other approaches, such as the inequality of wealth, or other data sources that make it possible to identify the incomes of the wealthiest people with greater precision. The article starts by reviewing the evidence on the status and trend of global inequality, which entails considering the income or consumption of all individuals in the world as if there were no political boundaries between countries. As differences between individuals arise from inequality both between countries and within them, the study is complemented by a discussion of national experiences. Here a distinction is made between the evolution of inequality in developed and developing countries, since the respective trends have diverged in recent