This paper proposes that Colonialism is a major explanation behind today’s differences in Income Inequality among countries. We argue that colonies that received an important number of European settlers were characterized by a concentration of economic and political power in the hands of these last ones. Moreover, European settlers later achieved independence from the metropolis and were able t...

This paper argues that new immigrants cluster in culturally homogenous groups in the host country because of imperfect information. However, the pulling-effect exists provided that the cultural communities are not too large. With a panel of migration flows to the major OECD countries from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, it is shown that the existence of similar cultural communities does attract...

Factors shaping international migration, over the last half century, from and into the countries and territories of Sub-Saharan and North Africa, as well as the economic and some social implications of those movements, are examined. Existing analyses of these issues are critically reviewed, including topics particularly pertinent to the African context and evidence on crosscutting themes studie...

We introduce non-homothetic preferences into an R&D based growth model to study how demand forces hape the impact of inequality on innovation and growth. Inequality affects the incentive to innovate via a price effect and a market size effect. When innovators have a large productivity advantage over traditional producers a higher extent of inequality tends to increase innovators’prices and mark...

Previous research on the determinants of international migration has largely focused on objective factors, such as income. We instead use subjective well-being (SWB) to explain international migration desires, an expressed willingness to migrate. We find that individuals with higher SWB have lower international migration desires. At the individual level, the SWB-migration relationship appears t...

This paper challenges the current belief that income inequality has a negative relationship with economic growth. It uses an improved data set on income inequality which not only reduces measurement error, but also allows estimation via a panel technique. Panel estimation makes it possible to control for time-invariant country-specific effects, therefore eliminating a potential source of omitte...

This paper provides an overview of methodologies used to analyze inter-regional income inequality, and a critical survey of empirical studies that deal with Russian regions. It discusses implications of the growth theory regarding dynamics of inter-economy income inequality. Methodologies for empirically analyzing income inequality are classified as the cross-section approach, time series appro...