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The present study aims to determine the existence of simultaneous relationship between economic growth, income inequality, fiscal policy, and total trade of the 13 emerging market economies as a group for the period 1980–2010. After establishing the existence of simultaneity between the above relationships, a simultaneous panel model has been formulated and estimated incorporating the nonlinearity among the variables as suggested by the existing literature. An inverted U-shape relationship is evident between (1) economic growth, income inequality, and total trade in economic growth equation, (2) income inequality, economic growth, and per capita income in income inequality equation, and (3) total trade and economic growth in total trade equation. Thus, the existence of a two-way nonlinear relationship is highlighted between economic growth, income inequality, and total trade. Apart from these nonlinear relationships, positive and significant effect of (1) gross capital formation, inflation, population growth, human capital, fiscal policy, monetary policy, and domestic credit to private sector on economic growth; (2) civil liabilities on income inequality; (3) gross capital formation and inflation on total trade; (4) total trade, population growth of those aged 65 years and above, political system on fiscal policy is highlighted. Also, negative and significant effect of (1) fiscal policy on income inequality and (2) income inequality on fiscal policy is revealed.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze and compare the costs of price and income subsidies when the food security policy targets the urban poor. The result may help policymakers choose a desired subsidy scheme to ensure food security for the urban poor facing food price surge.

The analysis consists of three parts: constructing an empirical model on provincial panel data in 1993‐2009 estimating the impact of grain price on food security among urban residents by different income level; evaluating the potential costs of shifting to income subsidy aiming to maintain the real income levels of the low income, lowest income or the poor residents if grain price increases by 20 percent; and comparing with the cost of price subsidy to achieve the same policy goal.

The paper finds that, food price surge will hurt the urban poor much more seriously than the high income population; the rich residents may receive more benefit from price subsidy; and income subsidy has obviously a cost advantage while the targeted people benefit more.

The obvious value of the paper is to show that income subsidy is much more desired than price subsidy, if the policy goal is to help the poor during food price surge.

1. INTRODUCTION The recent proliferation of literature on the problems inherent in inflation, unemployment and incomes policy does not lag far behind the rate of inflation that initially prompted it. Before we get into the discussion of incomes and prices policies, it will be advisable to (a) present some evidence on the wage‐price‐unemployment behaviour in selected industrialised countries and (b) discuss theoretical and empirical results which have led to the conclusion that monetary and fiscal policies will not be adequate to meet the current inflationary problems. The first should provide substance to the claim that inflation has increased over time and has now become a more critical problem; the second should throw some light on the nature of current controversy on inflation and why mixed economies should need to supplement monetary and fiscal policies by other policies to provide themselves with a better trade‐off between inflation and unemployment. Accordingly, we will (1) describe recent wage‐price‐unemployment experience in selected industrialised countries, (2) discuss theoretical and empirical issues involved in the study of wage‐price‐unemployment behaviour, and (3) present the rationale advanced for an incomes policy, and discuss the past experiences of countries which have experimented with incomes policies and conclude with the suggestion that incomes policy and manpower policy be considered as complementary.

This paper examines the performance of nominal income targeting as a possible direction for monetary policy. The existing literature consists of historical counterfactual simulations to determine how economic performance might have differed if this policy had been adopted. To provide better assessment of the performance of nominal income targeting in practice, this paper focuses on Germany where this policy is implemented. The results highlight the importance of price stability in the design of German monetary policy. Furthermore, causality test results indicate a causal flow from money to nominal income. However, there is no evidence of a causal flow from nominal income to various definitions of money. These results confirm the Bundesbank’s claim that monetary growth runs ahead of fluctuations in nominal income in Germany. That is, the Bundesbank is able to target nominal income by using a monetary aggregate. These findings challenge the skepticism regarding the use of a monetary aggregate as the intermediate target, which has arisen mainly from the US experience.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the viability for Bolivia of attaining the United Nations millennium development goal established in year 2000, of halving extreme poverty by 2015.

The study is based in numerical simulation with a model of the Bolivian economy. The model pertains to the (widely defined) family of dynamic input‐output models, and represents in detail income distribution, by size and socioeconomic class.

The millennium development goal of halving extreme poverty by 2015 seems to be a difficult, but attainable goal for Bolivia. Given the expected debt reduction agreed with international creditors, the goal can be attained by a combination of investment and redistribution policies.

It is implied that a new approach to development strategy is adopted. A new policy consensus is assumed to supplant the Washington Consensus. The new consensus model is based on objectives such as policy autonomy, structural change, and distributive justice. Poverty reduction strategy is a combination of policies associated with these objectives, viz. foreign debt policy, investment policy, and income distribution policy.

The study shows that capital account regulation, investment planning and redistributive policies might conform effective strategies for attaining the millennium development goals.

The study represents a different approach to poverty reduction strategy, which explores the economy‐wide effects of new policy instruments, particularly on growth capacity, output structure, and income distribution.

This book is a policy proposal aimed at the democratic left. It is concerned with gradual but radical reform of the socio‐economic system. An integrated policy of industrial and economic democracy, which centres around the establishment of a new sector of employee‐controlled enterprises, is presented. The proposal would retain the mix‐ed economy, but transform it into a much better “mixture”, with increased employee‐power in all sectors. While there is much of enduring value in our liberal western way of life, gross inequalities of wealth and power persist in our society.

The objective of the research is threefold. First, the study examines the fiscal policy – income inequality nexus in SA. Second, the study addressed the potential asymmetric effects in fiscal policy – income inequality nexus in SA (i.e. we assessed the effects of fiscal policy on income inequality at different quantiles of the income inequality) using secondary data from 1980–2020. Third, the study also identifies the optimal fiscal policy instrument that achieve the greatest distributional objectives.

The study adopts the traditional ordinary least square (OLS) and the innovative Quantile estimation techniques.

The study found that fiscal policy marginally reduces the income inequality at the lower quantiles (t: 0.05). Specifically, the results show that government spending on health and education reduces income inequality at the lower quantiles (t: 0.05; t: 0.25), albeit exerts a statistically weak impact. On the other hand, the results show that at the upper quantiles, fiscal policy has no statistically significant impact on income inequality. However, we do not find either direct or indirect tax to have any impact on income inequality at any conventional level of significance. This suggests that government spending on health and education have the greater potential to reduce income inequality in South Africa. The research and policy implications are discussed.

The study addressed the asymmetric phenomenon in income inequality-fiscal policy nexus in South Africa.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-12-2023-0956

Regional minimum income (RMI) schemes have been a fundamental tool for fighting poverty in Spain at a regional level. However, the redistributive power of these schemes has not been as effective as was expected in reducing inequality during the last decades. On the other hand, the introduction of the new ‘Minimum Vital Income’ (MVI) by the Spanish Central Government represents a novel measure for fighting poverty, by guaranteeing minimum incomes from a national perspective as a policy response to the asymmetric impact of the COVID-19 crisis upon income distribution. Using EUROMOD,¹ this paper simulates both the distributional effects of the introduction of the MVI and what the effects on inequality and poverty in each Spanish region would be if the national scheme were to substitute the current regional schemes. The results referring to MVI introduction indicate that inequality and poverty would decrease in all dimensions: incidence, intensity, and inequality among the poor (Foster–Greer–Thorbecke poverty measures). Additionally, the negative effects of RMI elimination would be offset by the positive effects of MVI introduction for most regions, leading us to consider that the simulated scenario entails better redistributive results, as well as additional savings for Spanish Public Accounts, in a context of growing debt. Our findings can provide public policy-makers with useful information about the convenience of fighting poverty at a national level as regards distribution and revenue.