دانلود رایگان مقاله انگلیسی اشتغال صنعتی و نابرابری درآمد: داده های پانل - الزویر 2018

Abstract

Over the last decades, the Western world has seen millions of relatively well-paid manufacturing jobs disappear. Some have shifted to low-income countries, while other have been permanently lost due the introduction of labor-saving technologies. Concurrently, many comparatively low-wage jobs have been created in services, for example in fast food and retailing. This paper uses a dynamic panel of 27 high and middle income countries from 1991 to 2014 to estimate the effects of declining industrial employment shares on income inequality. The analysis shows that industrial employment is significantly negatively associated with income inequality. Additionally, the results suggest that it is the middle-earners that have borne the largest burden in terms of inequality increases.

5 Concluding remarks

Using a panel of 27 high-and middle income-countries from 1991 to 2014, the purpose of this paper has been to investigate the effect of deindustrialization on income inequality.

The results indicate a strong negative relationship between industrial employment and inequality. This means that the decline of the manufacturing sector is an important explanation behind the increased inequality noted in most advanced economies. Similarly, for newly industrialized countries, a growing manufacturing sector may contribute to ameliorating societal income disparity. However, the numerical effect is relatively minor. Holding other variables constant, a one-percent decrease in industrial employment increases inequality by less than a twentieth of a percent. This coefficient estimate is approximately half of that reported by Jaumotte et al. (2008), but higher than the one in Galbraith and Kum (2005).

When using the ratio of the top 10% to the bottom 40% income percentiles, the Palma ratio, as the dependent variable instead of the Gini coefficient, the results were slightly weaker. This indicates that it is, in relative terms, the middle of the income distribution that has borne the largest burden of increased inequality, and not the top and bottom earners. This gives support to the job polarization hypothesis among middle earners. However, because of the relatively small numerical effect, the notion that large amounts of displaced manufacturing workers have been forced to take low-paid fast food jobs is somewhat exaggerated. Notwithstanding numerical values, the increase in inequality due to the erosion of traditional working- and middle-class jobs in manufacturing should be of significant concern for policymakers.