Ioannis (Yannis) Psycharis (p), Konstantinos Politis, Leonidas Doukissas, Panagiotis Pantazis

Ben Wilson

This paper aims to trace the evolution of income inequality by quantiles of income distribution within the Greek regions during the first two decades of the new century by employing both parametric and nonparametric methods of statistical analysis. In order to examine inequality for all quantiles across different regions, nonparametric tests, such as the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test adapted in a multiple testing framework will be used. The comparative analysis by quantile makes it possible to provide empirical evidence regarding the degree of differences in income distribution between regions, to examine how the Great Recession has impacted on the income distribution and how the evolution of income inequality of Attica could be compared with the volume and evolution of income inequality for the rest regions of the country. Furthermore, by employing estimators based on the Generalized Pareto distribution and its extensions, this paper aims to examine the adequacy of these models when applied both to Greece as a whole and to individual regions. Consideration will be given not only to the top incomes, since these seem to fit better to Pareto curves, but also to low and mid-income classes trying to fit a different distribution in this case. The results provide a different view of inequality across space and over time and call for appropriate and more targeted policies in order to address the spatiotemporal interregional and intraregional income inequalities.

Geoffroy Duparc-portier (p), Gioele Figus, Peter McGregor, Graeme Roy

Ioannis (Yannis) Psycharis

This paper assesses the spatial and distributional impacts of trade liberalisations and explores the capacity of different levels of government to redistribute the gains from trade. While existing research has examined these impacts in isolation, few have considered the role of government levels in addressing the combined effects. Using a computable general equilibrium of the UK regions subdivided into five quintiles of household income, we simulate a positive trade shock and compare the effectiveness of income-neutral redistributions at both the national and regional levels.

Our findings demonstrate that trade liberalisations have expansionary effects in all regions. The gains are distributed unevenly, increasing regional and national Gini coefficients and worsening interregional inequalities. These findings are consistent with existing literature on spatial and distributional impacts of trade liberalisation in developed countries.

Redistributing the gains from trade at national and regional levels to achieve the pre-liberalisation income distribution is relatively inexpensive although it erodes a small proportion of the initial gains from trade. The size of the erosion is quantitatively similar for both national and regional redistributions. National redistributions regain the national pre-liberalisation Gini coefficient. The regional Gini coefficients remain above the pre-liberalisation levels in some regions. Regional redistributions ensure that pre-liberalisation Gini coefficients are regained whilst nearly reducing the national Gini coefficient to its pre-liberalisation value.

This research demonstrates that national policies may not be suited to achieve regional objectives. Regional policies should supplement national ones to ensure that both national and regional distribution objectives are met following trade liberalisations.

Stephan Brunow (p), Michaela Fuchs, Carsten Ochsen

Geoffroy Duparc-portier

Card, Heining, and Cline (2013) [CHK] have constructed a method to measure the unobserved individual and firm heterogeneity in a mincer type wage regression. We consider these effects and analyze their contribution to the gender wage gap in Germany using an Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition. Since the gender wage gap analysis is based on cross-section data due to time-invariant covariates, the consideration of unobserved heterogeneity is an important improvement in the determination of endowment and coefficient effects to explain the wage gap. We use the Integrated Employment Biography Sample provided by the Institute for Employment Research. The data includes detailed information on employment histories and provides a rich set of covariates at the regional level. Overall, we have about 2.2 million observations. First results show that the CHK effects enhance the explained part of the wage gap by increasing the endowment effect. This means that the male-female wage differences can partly be explained by differences in individual characteristics that are not observable but approximated by the CHK effects. In addition, females consider more often than male employers that pay, on average, lower wages. These results hold even if we consider the complete set of covariates, including individual occupational, task, and industry information. We also provide a discussion of potential endogeneity of the CHK effects. Overall, they do not increase but reduce endogeneity problems. Since the effects have a robust empirical impact, it follows that former studies not considering these effects do potentially suffer more from endogeneity bias.

Miriam Marcen (p), Marina Morales

Stephan Brunow

This study provides a thorough examination of the evolving gender gap in time allocated to housework in the aftermath of the Covid-19 crisis. Analyzing data from the American Time Use Survey (2015-2022), our findings reveal a significant trend towards greater equality in the distribution of household tasks among couples, extending beyond the initial stages of Covid-19. Although the immediate response post-pandemic was not substantial, the subsequent period witnessed a notable decrease of 57% in the gender gap related to housework time. Our research demonstrates an increase in men's domestic contributions, particularly in tasks related to interior cleaning. The pandemic's impact on housework time varied across personal characteristics, with younger individuals without a college degree and those without school-aged children making significant strides in closing the gender gap. Further findings indicate that parents maintained a similar share of childcare responsibilities as before the pandemic. A supplementary analysis highlights the intensity of Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions (NPIs) as a potential mechanism for changing gender roles. We show a more significant closure of the gender gap in household labor in areas with more intense NPIs. Our study presents suggestive evidence indicating that the ability to telework is also reducing the gender gap in domestic labor among couples.

Elena Pupaza, Lisa Harber-Aschan, Ben Wilson (p)

Miriam Marcen

More than 2.5 million refugees have settled in Europe over the last ten years and their long-run adaptation is a fundamental societal challenge. A key indicator of adaptation is whether immigrants’ children experience inequalities or social disadvantage. Yet much less is known about refugees’ children as compared with children of other immigrants. We respond to this gap with a case study of Swedish-born children of Iranians, whose parents arrived as refugees to Sweden from 1987-1993. We use whole-population data and a quasi-experimental research design—based on the "Sweden-wide" refugee dispersal policy—to examine socioeconomic inequality in adulthood and how this is impacted by childhood neighborhood context. We show that co-ethnic networks only have a significant impact on socio-economic outcomes—education, unemployment and income—for female children of Iranian refugees living in Sweden, indicating a different socialization processes for male and female children of refugees.