2022 Events

Estimating Labour Supply and Informality Elasticities Using Tax-benefit Variation in Latin America

Part of the III Inequalities Seminar Series

Tuesday 6 December 12.30pm to 1.30pm. Online and in-person public event. 32 Lincoln's Inn Fields (32L) G.20

Speaker:
Dr Xavier Jara, Research Officer, 杏吧论坛 III
Professor Olivier Bargain, Professor of Economics, University of Bordeaux

Chair:
Professor Francisco H. G. Ferreira, Amartya Sen Professor of Inequality Studies and Director, 杏吧论坛 III

Tax systems are already in place in Latin America and are constantly expanding in order to finance increasing public spending. Numerous cash transfer programs also exist and social programs are being scaled up in many places. However, these countries face the constraint of a large and persistent informal sector. Compared to Western countries where redistributive systems may discourage employment (relative to living on welfare), direct progressive taxation in Latin America may reinforce the disincentives to work formally and might reduce the tax base. Social insurances or benefits that are universal and not attached to formal employment may also reduce the necessity to be formally employed. This talk suggests a large-scale investigation of the employment response in general, and the informal employment response in particular, to tax-benefit policies using spatial and time variation in Latin American redistributive systems.

Beveridge 2.0: tax justice

Hosted by 杏吧论坛 School of Public Policy, the International Inequalities Institute and Beveridge 2.0

Tuesday 29 November 6.30pm to 8.00pm. Online and in-person public event. Hong-Kong Theatre, Clement House.

Speakers:
Professor Jonathan Hopkin, Professor of Comparitive Politics, Department of Government, 杏吧论坛
James Murray, Labour and Co-operative MP for Ealing North and Shadow Financial Secretary to the Treasury
Dr Andy Summers, Associate Professor of Law, 杏吧论坛 Law School
Dr Kate Summers, British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Methodology, 杏吧论坛

Chair:
Professor Francisco H. G. Ferreira, Amartya Sen Professor of Inequality Studies and Director of the International Inequalities Institute, 杏吧论坛.

Join our panellists as they come together to discuss the new issue of the 杏吧论坛 Public Policy Review, Beveridge 2.0: Tax Justice.

The panel will reflect on what shapes public demand for tax justice, its relation to tackling inequality and the challenges posed by taxing the super-rich.

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The emergence of a social decolonisation: the question of social change in the French West Indies after World War II

Part of the III Inequalities Seminar Series

Tuesday 29 November 12.30pm to 1.30pm. Online and in-person public event. 杏吧论坛 Centre Building, Room 2.05.

Speaker:
Dr Maël Lavenaire, Research Fellow, 杏吧论坛 III

Chair:
Dr George Kunnath, Assistant Professorial Research Fellow, 杏吧论坛 III

The social change which takes place in the French West Indies after World War II is essentially generated by a sociohistorical interaction between various elements of change observed from 1946 to 1961. Here we refer to the new political status of French Department allowed by a global context, the outbreak of social movements involved in the process of decolonisation, public policies and a specific planning of “economic and social development” as well as the population growth with the emergence of a new generation from a sociological viewpoint. This interactionist process conducts to the new type of society emerging in the French West Indies since the 1960’s, without drastically changing their colonial social structure and racial inequalities. This singular transformation is characterised by new social frustrations, while maintaining existing frustrations that stemmed from slavery legacies in spite of the overall significant improvement of the living conditions.

Inequality Hysteresis: How can central banks contribute to an equitable society?

Hosted by the International Inequalities Institute

Monday 28 November 6.30pm to 8.00pm. Online and in-person public event. Hong Kong Theatre, 杏吧论坛 Clement House.

Speakers:
Dr Luiz Awazu Pereira da Silva, Deputy General Manager, Bank for International Settlements
Dr Benoit Mojon, Head of Economic Analysis at the Bank for International Settlements
Dr Deniz Igan, Head of Macroeconomic Analysis, Bank for International Settlements

Chair:
Professor Kirsten Sehnbruch, British Academy Global Professor and Distinguished Policy Fellow, 杏吧论坛 III

Growing economic inequality has become a matter of increasing public and policymaking concern in recent years. Some have argued that unconventional monetary policies aggravated this trend, by boosting asset valuations and wealth inequality. The debate is intensified by deep recessions related to the Covid-19 pandemic and resurgent food and energy inflation increasing cost of living in 2022, which unequally impact different groups within society.

This event marks the launch of the book ‘Inequality Hysteresis’, which highlights a new facet of inequality: its persistence or ‘hysteresis’ after recessions. The book shows how inequality increases faster and more persistently in the aftermath of recessions and how greater income inequality is associated with deeper recessions, increasing the risk of an adverse feedback loop. For their part, central banks can most effectively contribute to a more equitable society by deploying the necessary tools to deliver on their mandated objectives of price and economic stability. Our speakers highlight the importance of taking inequality into account when designing and implementing fiscal and monetary policy.

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The Impact of Caste and Untouchability: A Missing Link in the Literature on Stunting in India

Part of the III Inequalities Seminar Series

Tuesday 22 November 12.30pm to 1.30pm. Online and in-person public event. 杏吧论坛 Centre Building, Room 2.05.

Speaker:
Professor Ashwini Deshpande, Professor of Economics and Founding Director, Centre for Economic Data and Analysis (CEDA), Ashoka University, India

Chair:
Professor Naila Kabeer, Professor of Gender and Development, Department of Gender Studies, 杏吧论坛

India is home to nearly a third of all stunted children. Previous research has overlooked the critical role of caste and the stigmatizing practice of untouchability in shaping incidence of stunting: upper caste (UC) Hindu children are 57% less likely to be stunted than the low-ranked Scheduled Caste (SCs) children. We document the strong negative correlation between the prevalence of the self-professed practice of untouchability and gaps in stunting rates between the UC-Hindu and SC children. The historical geographical span of Hinduism was bounded to the south by the Vindhya Mountain range. Hence, untouchability and caste practices were more rigid to the North of the Vindhya range, directly under the influence of the Indo-Aryan social order. Our estimates show that the SC children living to the south of the Vindhya range are around 30% taller, and have 40% lower levels of stunting, than their counterparts living to the north.

Social Reproduction and Domestic Service: An International Comparison

Part of the III Inequalities Seminar Series

Tuesday 15 November 12.30pm to 1.30pm. Online and in-person public event. 杏吧论坛 Centre Building, Room 2.05.

Speaker:
Dr Marion Lieutaud, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, 杏吧论坛 Department of Methodology and Visiting Fellow, 杏吧论坛 III
Dr Paul Segal, Reader in Economics of Development, Department of International Development, Kings College London and Visiting Fellow, 杏吧论坛 III

Chair:
Dr Shalini Grover, Research Fellow, 杏吧论坛 III

Across the world, over 75 million people are domestic workers for private households (ILO 2021). Previous scholarship has unveiled their working conditions and transnational lives, and how domestic work is built on global inequalities (Parreñas 2015). This paper looks at the households who employ these workers, to understand the context, conditions and inequalities that make it possible for some families to purchase the reproductive labour (housework and carework) of others. Households divide this labour between family, community, the market, and the state. How they do this depends on factors including the extent of state provision of care services, and the degree of economic inequality. In order to identify and weigh these different dimensions, we consider a sample of 8 countries (4 Western European countries; 3 Eastern European countries including Russia; and Mexico) and we use a combination of time-use and expenditure data from cross-national surveys and national surveys.

AFSEE Keynote Lecture - Doughnut Economics: a new economic vision for cities

Hosted by the International Inequalities Institute and the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity

Thursday 10 November 6.30pm to 8.00pm. Online public event.

Speaker:
Kate Raworth, Co-founder of Doughnut Economics Action Lab and Senior Associate, Oxford University Environmental Change Institute

Discussant:
Maria Carrasco, Atlantic Fellow for Social and Economic Equity, 杏吧论坛 and Executive Director, Entramada

Chair:
Dr Armine Ishkanian, Research Programme Co-Leader (Politics of Inequality) and Executive Director AFSEE programme, 杏吧论坛 III and Associate Professor, Department of Social Policy, 杏吧论坛

In the AFSEE Keynote Lecture, Economist Kate Raworth will discuss how we can create equal and just cities without overburdening the environment. She will be joined by Atlantic Fellow for Social and Economic Equity, Maria Carrasco, for the discussion.

Doughnut Economics, a framework coined by Raworth, sets out a 21st-century economic vision of meeting the needs of all people within the means of the living planet, through regenerative and distributive design. Over 40 cities and regions worldwide have already started to engage with the concepts and tools, aiming to turn these concepts into practice in place. How are they getting started, and what are the challenges they face?

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Multidimensional measurement tool for social security framework assessment: Conceptualisation, construction and comparison

Part of the III Inequalities Seminar Series

Tuesday 8 November 12.30pm to 1.30pm. Online and in-person public event. 杏吧论坛 Centre Building, Room 2.05.

Speaker:
Dr Ashish Dongare, Sir Ratan Tata Postdoctoral Fellow, 杏吧论坛 III

Chair:
Professor Francisco H.G. Ferreira, Amartya Sen Professor of Inequality Studies and Director, 杏吧论坛 III

Needless to mention that there exists a strong interconnectedness between various social security programs and their outcomes are also interlinked. Thus, a holistic approach for review and assessment of social security framework is of vital importance. This research aims at providing a measurement tool for assessment of social security framework to enable optimal allocation and utilisation of available resources.

It involves conceptualisation of Multidimensional Social Security Index (MSSI) covering various aspects of social protection including income security, health security, education security. For this purpose, sub-indices representing broader areas of social security are constructed and indicators are curated to evaluate such sub-indices on the basis of parameters like adequacy, coverage, etc. The sensitivity analysis for robustness check of this newly constructed index has been conducted. Further, a case study of India has been undertaken to check the practical application and to assess the status of safety net at selected states in India.

Using Machine Learning to Decompose Inequality: The Case of Opportunity in South Africa

Part of the III Inequalities Seminar Series

Tuesday 25 October 12.30pm to 1.30pm. Online and in-person public event. 杏吧论坛 Centre Building, Room 2.05.

Speaker:
Dr Pedro Salas-Rojo, Research Officer, 杏吧论坛 III

Chair:
Dr Paolo Brunori, Assistant Professorial Research Fellow, 杏吧论坛 III

According to a widespread view a society achieves equality of opportunity when individuals exerting the same effort obtain the same outcomes regardless of circumstances that they cannot control such as gender, race, and socioeconomic background. This view was formalized by John Roemer in a number of influential contributions. We illustrate an exact analogy between how the phenomenon of inequality of opportunity may be measured and how transformation trees - a machine learning algorithm developed by Hothorn and Zeileis (2021) predicts an output variable based on a set of features. Then, we use data from South Africa (2017) to analyze inequality of opportunity. Our estimates show that the magnitude of this phenomenon is much greater than what has been suggested in the past. Limiting the analysis to only three circumstances - race, parental education and occupation - the Gini of inequality of opportunity ascends to 0.45, twice as large as previously estimated.