Current Issue

Interview with Anthony Atkinson

Bruno Rossmann:
Return to a Fair Tax System: The Example of Austria (in German)

Silvia Angelo, Andrea Grisold:
Gender Equality and Working Hours: The Obvious and the Hidden Connection (in German)

Pirmin Fessler, Peter Mooslechner:
Poor Debtors - Rich Debtors? Household Indebtedness and Financial Assets of Private Households Based on Micro Data (in German)

Kurt Bayer:
Does Globalization Make the World More Equitable?

Engelbert Stockhammer:
Wage Flexibility or Wage Coordination? Economic Policy Implications of the Wage-led Demand Regime in the Euro Area

Martin Schürz:
Searching for Clandestine Wealth (in German)

Manfred Nitsch, Frank Diebel:
Guanxi Economics: Confucius meets Lenin, Keynes, and Schumpeter in Contemporary China

Gunther Tichy:
The Economic Consequences of Demographic Change: Its Impact on Growth, Investment and the Capital Stock

Special Issue: Inequality on the Rise?

Peter Krause:
Redistributive Impacts of Government and Private Household Activities. Trends in Equivalized Household Net Incomes and Intra-household Earnings in Germany, 1985 - 2005

Sebastian Leitner, Mario Holzner:
Economic Inequality in Central, East and Southeast Europe

Branko Milanovic:
Rules of Redistribution and Foreign Aid: A Proposal for a Change in the Rules Governing Eligibility for Foreign Aid

Paul Davidson:
John Maynard Keynes
(Peter Spahn)

Wynne Godley, Marc Lavoie:
Monetary Economics. An Integrated Approach to Credit, Money, Income, Production and Wealth
(Till van Treeck)

McCombie, John, Rodriguez Gonzales, Carlos (eds.):
The European Union. Current Problems and Prospects
(Bernd Berghuber)

Birger P. Priddat (Hg.):
Neuroökonomie. Neue Th eorien zu Konsum, Marketing und emotionalem Verhalten in der Ökonomie
(Torsten Niechoj)

Brigitte Young (Hg.):
Die politische Ökonomie des Dienstleistungsabkommens (GATS). Gender in EU und China
(Christoph Scherrer)

Reviews of Conference Books of the Research Network Macroeconomics and Macroeconomic Policies

Eckhard Hein, Jan Priewe, Achim Truger (eds.):
European Integration in Crisis
Eckhard Hein, Arne Heise, Achim Truger (eds.):
European Economic Policies. Alternatives to Orthodox Analysis and Policy
(Stefan Ederer)

Philip Arestis, Eckhard Hein, Edwin Le Heron (eds.):
Aspects of Modern Monetary and Macroeconomic Policies
(Jan-Oliver Menz)

Eckhard Hein, Achim Truger (eds.):
Money, Distribution and Economic Policy. Alternatives to Orthodox Macroeconomics
(Lena Vogel)

Guanxi Economics: Confucius Meets Lenin, Keynes, and Schumpeter in Contemporary China

Manfred Nitsch and Frank Diebel

The micro-foundations of the Chinese growth model are analysed within a comprehensive monetary theory of economic development, based on Schumpeter, Keynes, and the contemporary monetary Keynesians. The Confucian traditions and the Leninist party power structure are identified as the main specific traits of the social formation in contemporary China. In the capitalist mode of production, money sets the stage, and the interplay between private creditors and debtors is bundled into a coherent, dynamic whole by the central bank in the economic sphere and by more or less democratic institutions in the political arena. Combining the reproductive, care-taking traits of socialism with the entrepreneurial dynamism of private property and, above all, with the design and enforcement of overall social and economic coherence through the "vanguard" Communist Party makes an unique and ingenious institutional Chinese set-up. The constitutive character of Guanxi - the magic word for trust, confidence, reliability, righteousness, mutual benefit and cosmic order - for the working of the whole Chinese economic system is identified and described.

JEL classifications: D01, E12, O16, P26

Keywords: China, Chinese Communist Party, economic growth, transitional economy, mode of production

The Economic Consequences of Demographic Change: Its Impact on Growth, Investment and the Capital Stock

Gunther Tichy

The traditional debate on the real and financial consequences of ageing is based on two assumptions: a deteriorating old-age dependency ratio and declining productivity of an ageing population. Both suppositions are questionable. Relevant for the future burden is not the old-age dependency ratio but the relation of the working to the non-working part of the population, which will deteriorate only slightly as the number of unemployed and of early pensioners will decline as a consequence of the shrinking working-age population. The productivity of an ageing society may increase even if individual productivity shrinks with ageing: this is a consequence of the increasing disability-free life expectancy and of factor-price induced higher capital intensity. The coming problems of ageing are, therefore, less threatening than suspected in the popular and in parts of the professional literature, especially under some supporting labour market policy.

JEL classifications: J14, J11, H55, E21

Keywords: demographic change, ageing society, productivity and saving of the elderly

Redistributive Impacts of Government and Private Household Activities. Trends in Equivalized Household Net Incomes and Intra-household Earnings in Germany, 1985 - 2005

Peter Krause

The paper examines the development of incomes in Germany at different welfare levels, together with current trends in poverty. The analyses are based on data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) study, which provides detailed annual information on incomes starting in the mid-1980s. Results show that increased inequality is mainly in pre-governmental income and thus not primarily the result of diminishing redistribution measures by the government. The results also indicate that the increasing labor market inequality is further intensified by decreasing redistributive activities of private households. Intra-household earnings analyses reveal that despite rising female labor market participation, intrahousehold inequality has remained remarkably stable. Earnings profiles between male and female household heads are now much more multifaceted than before, which might be regarded as a dynamic intra-household strategy of protection against growing market risks.

JEL classifications: D13, D31, H24, I31

Keywords: income distribution, poverty, inequality, redistribution by government and households, intra-household earnings ratio

Economic Inequality in Central, East and Southeast Europe

Sebastian Leitner and Mario Holzner

The article analyses the issue of economic inequality in the transition economies of Central, East and Southeast Europe. It consists of a literature review and a descriptive analysis as well as an econometric modelling exercise. In the first part we point at the fact that the rise in income inequality was triggered by the magnitude of transitional output loss and a reduction of formal employment. Rising wage inequality was at the core of total income dispersion, while government transfers had a redistributional function only in Central and Southeast European countries contrary to the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). In the econometric analysis it is found that for instance public utilities infrastructure liberalisation has increased inequality in transition, while price and trade liberalisation has decreased it. A high share of employment in industry and high government expenditures are connected with less inequality.

JEL classifications: D63, O15, P36

Keywords: income distribution, inequality, transition economies

Rules of Redistribution and Foreign Aid: A Proposal for a Change in the Rules Governing Eligibility for Foreign Aid

Branko Milanovic

When income is redistributed at national level, the minimum requirement is that the transfers should be progressive, that is flow from richer to poorer individuals. The same rule should hold at the global level: it is not sufficient that transfers be from a richer to a poorer country. But normally we do not know who are the taxpayers who finance international aid nor who are the beneficiaries of aid. We can nevertheless establish the rules such that the likelihood of a globally regressive transfer is minimized. This implies taking into account countries' national income distributions: penalizing countries with highly unequal distributions since there exists a non-trivial probability that the transfers may be received by people richer than rich countries' taxpayers. Some rules for changing eligibility criteria for aid are proposed.

JEL classifications: F35, D3

Keywords: aid, redistribution, global income distribution