... Draft Why Income Equality is Important Arthur MacEwan[1] March 2009 “The social system is not an unchangeable order beyond human control but a pattern of human action.”—John Rawls (1971, p. 102) In recent years “poverty reduction” has become the watchword in development agencies, in international lending institutions, and among development economists generally. The focus on poverty reduction reached a high point perhaps with the articulation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and with the extensive analytic work that has accompanied the MDGs.[2] Yet, much of the discussion of poverty reduction and economic development in low and middle income countries has either ignored the issue of income distribution or has tended to view income distribution only in terms of its impact on economic growth. Poverty and inequality, however, are intimately bound up with one another.[3] Both as an analytic issue and as a policy issue, there are severe limitations in attempting to deal with poverty – or, more broadly, with economic well-being – without also examining income inequality. Indeed, it is questionable that we can even define poverty independently of income distribution. In this essay, I want to develop the argument that economists and economic policy-makers should focus much greater attention on inequality as measured by the distribution of income (and wealth). The traditional focus simply on absolute levels of income as a measure of poverty...
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...“Australia is a Classless Society” Discuss. It is this ideal that has in fact attracted many migrants to Australia over the course of its history. This essay will discuss some of the theories and definitions of class, then examine how they relate to Australian society, and whether Australia does indeed have a class system, arguing that in many ways, it does. It will discuss people’s perception of classes and their position in them, mobility between classes, and the impact of class on health, education and crime. It will show that there is a direct correlation between class and the level of crime, the health of an individual and the level of education attained. At its federation in 1901 the new nation of Australia was founded on principles of equality, although as Belinda Probert points out in her lecture ‘Class in 2001’, (Probert, 2001) this equality did not extend to women, Aborigines or people from non Anglo races. This egalitarian belief was founded on the notion of a fair and decent wage, an ideal proposed by Justice Higgins of the Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration in 1907, when he set the first minimum weekly wage. This wage 1 was to reflect the cost of living, the amount of money required by an average person for the basic necessities of life; food and water, housing and clothing. This was called the Harvester Judgment. What is class? It is a division in society of a group of people who all have a similar social and economic status. For Karl Marx this...
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...16 homicides per 100,000 people, and about one in three of its residents are African American. However, there are several neighborhoods in Chicago’s south side which are more than 90% black and have murder rates of more than 30 homicides per 100,000 people. In addition to the tragic loss of life from these homicides, I also believe the high homicide rates in Chicago’s black neighborhoods are a symptom of the racial income inequality which still persists nationally to this day. According to a 2014 study by the Pew Research Center, the average white family has an annual household income of $71,300 while the average black family has an annual household income of only $43,300. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, there is generally a strong correlation between the number of people living below the poverty line in a region and that region’s violent crime rate. While I recognize the fact that it’s dangerous to conclude that there’s a causal relationship between two variables just because there’s a correlation between them, I still believe racial income inequality is at least partially to blame for the high murder rates in Chicago’s black...
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...awareness about the widening gap between rich and poor has sparked social and political issues around the world (Treanor, Oct 13, 2015). The gap between rich and poor has grown larger in last few decades, and the problem is getting worse (Treanor, N.P). The reason why the widening gap between rich and poor is a problem is that the wider gap often lead to greater inequality among people, yet society has not found a way to solve this inequality (Treanor, Oct 13, 2015). To make it easier to demonstrate how income difference results in social inequality, CEOs, for example, who gives workers minimum compensation, work in top floor of high rise office buildings where they can overlook an entire city, whereas some people work more than 40...
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...Crime, Punishment and Poverty Name 21 December 2015 Social Problems SOC 203 Ramel Oliphant Crime, Punishment and Poverty Many people do not believe that crime and poverty go hand and hand, but both are a permanent fixture within our society. While reading this you will learn more about crime, punishment and poverty. Throughout this paper we will cover such topics as; criminal sanctions and victimization and how they work to form a system of disadvantage that continues the cycle of stratification and poverty; how families, neighborhoods and other racial groups become impacted by the criminal incarceration of any individual; the disproportionate rate at which African Americans are incarcerated at a greater rate than their Whites counterparts and how economic deprivation plays a factor in criminal punishment. Persons convicted of crimes are faced with another battle due to the criminal sanctions they will face once released. It is sad that factors such as racial, geographical and social status of both the criminal and victim are used to decide the punishment. Both the criminal and the victim face hardships in the future and they must both learn to overcome such injustices. Things such as financial, physical, emotional and mental stability will eventually have an impact of both the criminal and the victim at different times and different capacities. Studies has shown that quality education is not widely available to people living in poverty which ultimately...
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... four banks were attacked in an hour-and-a-half; one daytime raid took place just steps from the Lincoln Center in downtown Manhattan. The week before, San Diego had seen four bank holdups in a single day. Criminologists wondered if the holiday spree was the first sign of a looming crime wave in recession-battered America. Take an uptick in poverty and economic misery, toss in budget cuts to police departments across the country, and that should be a blueprint for chaos—right? Except, as it turns out, the exact opposite occurred. According to FBI statistics, crime rates went down across the board in 2009. Way down. Murder, rape, robbery, assault, auto theft—plummeted, one and all. Then, this week, the FBI released preliminary data for the first six months of 2010, and again the same pattern emerged. Violent crimes and property crimes alike have been falling in every region of the country. What gives? Have experts just completely misunderstood what causes people to commit crimes? There's certainly no shortage of theories for why crime rates have gone down over the past two years. The simplest is that crime just isn’t closely related to economic conditions. Consider, after all, the two big crime epidemics in the twentieth century—the first took root in the late 1960s, during a period of healthy growth; the other came during the economic doldrums of the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. The only constant here, it seems, is that both outbreaks were fueled by a major expansion of drug...
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...Citation: S.E. Costanza and Ronald Helms. "Street Gangs and Aggregate Homicides: An Analysis of Effects During the 1990s Violent Crime Peak" Homicide Studies 16(3): 280-307. June 11, 2012. Online. June 12, 2013. City-level violence escalated and peaked during the 1990’s, which possibly caused a similarly high homicide rate. Many studies have linked gang activity with higher rates of violent crimes. This study uses empirical research to link gang violence with homicide rates. A majority of studies only looked at the micro level of gang attribute violence and homicide correlation. Costanza focused on the macro level using 154 U.S. cities to determine if active gangs directly correlated with homicide rates. Criminologist in the 1990’s paid special attention to the structural factors contributing to the all-time peak of violence in the young men demographic. Researchers have remained focused on the patterns of homicide within the context of the violence peak in the 90’s. Costanza chose to “focus explicitly on the plausible empirical link between street gangs and homicide offending in central cities throughout the Unites States”. The factors that lead to an increase in homicide include the drug market, guns, and gang presence. Recent studies have shown that it is a combination of factors, as opposed to just financial opportunity, that lead to gang membership. The reason for the lack of macro level studies of gang violence has been due to the lack of gang related studies. Maxson...
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...crime This paper focuses on the information about the crimes. Different theories about the criminology are described. Main focus will be on the criminology and its two theories. Criminology is the study of factors about the crimes that lead to its phenomena. This crime may be of individual or social nature. It includes making laws, breaking laws and attempts to break the laws. Criminology focuses on the social, cultural and individual causes of the illegal behavior. Criminology is directly related to sociology and psychology in all disciplines that deal with a group or individual behavior. However an act that is immoral or indecent can be criminal act unless it is not outlawed by the state. Criminology consists of our organized ways of thinking and talking about crime, criminals and crime control (Garland and Sparks, 2000, 192). Personal and neighborhood income are the strongest predictors of violent crime" (cited in "Wasting America's Future (Arloc Sherman, 1994, p88). Demonstrates that glaring social and economic inequalities in our society impose correspondingly high costs in the form of street crime. (John Hagan & Ruth D. Peterson, Crime and Inequality, 1995, Stanford U, p4) Causes of Crimes: Causes of crime may be environmental, hereditary or psychological. Environmental causes are ruled out as independent causes of crimes. But psychological conditions are said to be determinant of an individual’s reaction to persuasive environmental influence. Criminologist...
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...Unemployment and crime: New evidence for an old question Kerry L. Papps Victoria University of Wellington Rainer Winkelmann* IZA and Centre for Economic Policy Research, London December 1999 This paper uses panel data techniques to examine the relationship between unemployment and a range of categories of crime in New Zealand. The data cover sixteen regions over the period 1984 to 1996. Random and fixed effects models are estimated to investigate the possibility of a causal relationship between unemployment and crime. Hypothesis tests show that two-way fixed effects models should be used. The main result of the paper is that there is some evidence of significant effects of unemployment on crime, both for total crime and for some subcategories of crime. We are grateful to Rachel Bambery, New Zealand Police National Headquarters, for her assistance in obtaining crime and population statistics. The staff of the University of Canterbury Library also gave invaluable help in unraveling the complexities of New Zealand unemployment and income data. The paper has benefited from useful comments by two anonymous referees, Simon Kemp, Jacques Poot and participants of the CEPR conference on “Metropolitan Economic Performance”, Lisbon, October 1998. *Corresponding author: IZA, P.O. Box 7240, 53072 Bonn, Germany; winkelmann@iza.org. “I know only of three ways of living in society: one must be a beggar, a thief, or a wage earner.” HONORÉ de MIRABEAU (1749-1791) 1. Introduction ...
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...STANLEY ASUMANU 33371253 WHAT GUIDANCE CAN ECONOMIC MODELS OF CRIME AND AVAILABLE STATISTICAL EVIDENCE OFFER TO POLICYMAKERS TRYING TO REDUCE CRIME? The study of the causes and effects of crime was predominant in sociology and psychology. Economic analysis of crime did not take effect until the late 1960s when Gary Becker gave thought into the rationality of crime: “Crime and Punishment: An Economic Approach”. Becker’s work was then followed by George Stigler’s “The Optimum Enforcement of Laws” and Isaac Ehrlich’s “Participation of Illegitimate Activities: A Theoretical and Empirical Investigation” in 1970 and 1973, respectively (Merlo, 2004). Since then, the separation between economics and criminology has broken down as theoretical and empirical economic research on crime has increased (Machin et al. 2014). The issue to be discussed is how these economic models can guide policy makers to reduce crime. Gary Becker (1968) focused his attention to question “how many resources and how much punishment should be used to enforce different kinds of legislation?” Criminals are rational (Becker 1986). They considered the costs and benefits of committing a crime. Essentially, crime should be made unprofitable rather than incurring costs to eliminate it. Becker (1968) considered the economic importance of crime despite several economists neglecting it due to the immoral aspect of crime. Crime incurs costs; tangible such as medical cost, lost output, cost of creating...
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...Is Crime Based on an Individual’s Socio-Economic Status? Kevin Dash Dr. Allan Conkey, Research Methods: CMRJ505 September 29, 2013 TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract 3 Introduction 4 Literature Review 6 Hypothesis/Problem Statement 8 Research Design/Methodology 8 Definitions 14 References 15 Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to determine if someone’s social / economic status will increase the likely-hood they will commit crimes. The research conducted will not only focus on low-income individuals, but mid-range and higher-income individuals as well. The importance of this topic can better assist communities and their local government with the increase in prevention of crime in the long-run. Introduction: Over the years there have been numerous studies conducted showing that crimes are more prevalent in communities where the resident’s socio-economic status is lower than other parts of the same community. People who do not make much money or do not have high paying jobs, are more likely to find a source of income elsewhere, majority of the time that source is an illegal one. Thefts, robbery, armed robbery, dealing illegal drugs, are all common types of crimes that are committed in order for an individual to gain more wealth. With these types of crimes, the use of a weapon – most commonly a gun – is used to enact the most fear in the victim and make...
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...Inequality and Growth in a Panel of Countries* Robert J. Barro, Harvard University June 1999 Abstract Evidence from a broad panel of countries shows little overall relation between income inequality and rates of growth and investment. However, for growth, higher inequality tends to retard growth in poor countries and encourage growth in richer places. The Kuznets curve—whereby inequality first increases and later decreases during the process of economic development—emerges as a clear empirical regularity. However, this relation does not explain the bulk of variations in inequality across countries or over time. *This research has been supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation. An earlier version of this paper was presented at a conference at the American Enterprise Institute. I am grateful for excellent research assistance from Silvana Tenreyro and for comments from Paul Collier, Bill Easterly, Jong-Wha Lee, Mattias Lundberg, Francisco Rodriguez, Heng-fu Zou, and participants of a seminar at the World Bank. 2 A substantial literature analyzes the effects of income inequality on macroeconomic performance, as reflected in rates of economic growth and investment. Much of this analysis is empirical, using data on the performance of a broad group of countries. This paper contributes to this literature by using a framework for the determinants of economic growth that I have developed and used in previous studies. To motivate the extension of this...
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...revolutions in the Middle East demanding word and social justice, and the high levels of unemployment in the region. The Middle East is still suffering from a high poverty rating, and a huge wage gap between the social classes. Rich people literally are getting richer while the poor are facing more problems and disasters as time goes by. Many questions remain unanswered: What are the reasons behind poverty in the Middle East? Why do rich people get richer while the poor get poorer? How do the rich people benefit from the current situation? How laws are fixed to protect only the rich? Are governments involved in these acts? Poverty rate in MENA has been slightly declining since 1990 to 2005, 17 percent of the region's population live below $2/day in 2005. The region faces various challenges in poverty reduction, such as the persistency of poverty, as poverty in this region is impacted by a hasty economic growth, which is above 2 percent per capita. This is a result of the nature of poverty, which is concentrated on groups that benefit the last ones from that economic growth: the uneducated, rural residents, families with a lot of members. Another challenge the region is facing is the increasing inequality, which is increasing steadily. Which has serious implications for reducing poverty. Inequality is experienced during economic recessions, and even after periods of turmoil, due to unequal distribution of wealth from the economic growth. Gender also resembles a challenge for poverty reduction...
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...“liberty and justice for all.” Yet, the United States houses 25 percent of the world’s inmates even though it only houses five percent of the world’s population (Martensen, 2012). Additionally the fundamental concept of the United States Criminal Justice System is that an individual is “innocent” until proven guilty. This makes one question whether, people in the United States are really held to this standard, or are certain people more prone to crime in the land of opportunity and freedom? Our society is built around the societal norms of the dominant white group and racial and ethnic inequalities are intertwined in every aspect of our society causing minority groups to struggle against a society built around white privilege. Prevalence Minorities in comparison to their population in the United States are incriminated at a higher rate than Whites. Spohn (2000) stated that “a majority of the studies reviewed…found that African Americans and Hispanics were more likely than Whites to be sentenced to prison, even after taking crime seriousness and prior criminal records into account” (as cited in Hartney & Vuong, 2009, p.10). In 2010, racially the United States population identified as being comprised of 196.8 million Whites who identified as White alone (69.1%), 38.9 million Blacks or African Americans (12.6%), and 50.5 million Hispanics (16.3%) (2010 Census Brief, 2011). However, Of those federally sentences in the custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, 36.7 % or 68,180...
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...An Assignment On Relationship between GDP & HDI Submitted ToCourse Instructor Of B-University of DhakaDepartment of Banking | Submitted ByMd. Yasir ArafatId No. 62B.B.A 13th BatchDepartment of BankingUniversity of Dhaka | Date of Submission08.o7.09 | Introduction to GDP A region's gross domestic product, or GDP, is one of the ways of measuring the size of its economy. The GDP of a country is defined as the total market value of all final goods and services produced within a country in a given period of time (usually a calendar year). It is also considered the sum of value added at every stage of production (the intermediate stages) of all final goods and services produced within a country in a given period of time. Components of GDP Each of the variables C (Consumption), I (Investment), G (Government spending) and X − M (Net Exports) (where GDP = C + I + G + (X − M) as above) C (Consumption) is private consumption in the economy. This includes most personal expenditures of households such as food, rent, medical expenses and so on but does not include new housing. I (Investment) is defined as investments by business or households in capital. Examples of investment by a business include construction of a new mine, purchase of software, or purchase of machinery and equipment for a factory. Spending by households (not government) on new houses is also included in Investment. In contrast to its colloquial meaning, 'Investment' in GDP does not mean purchases...
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