T he recent rise in income inequality in the United States has received considerable attention in policy debates.1 This article discusses individual income inequality trends. In doing so, we summarize results presented in existing work. As in previous studies, the article shows that income inequality has increased since the 1960s—see, for example, Dı́azGiménez et al. (2002), Eckstein and Nagypal...

The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expresse...

In the United States, much social and environmental legislation required of nonfarm firms has eluded the farming industry. For the most part, the US government has used the “carrot” of payments rather than the “stick” of regulation to correct externalities in farming. Agriculture also has received large income transfers and favorable tax treatment to save family farms. The nation might have bee...

From 1969 to 1973, average expenditures for food at home reported by Retirement History Study respondents increased by almost the same proportion--30 percent--as did the food component of the consumer price index. Changes in these expenditures were not very responsive to changes in income, but income had greater power in explaining total food expenditures. The analysis was based largely on a re...

This paper explores determinants of participation, intensity and the magnitude of the rural nonfarm economy (RNFE) in Tajikistan. Conducting analysis at the district level, in addition to traditional individual and household levels, helps to test the impact of institutional determinants of the RNFE invariant at the micro level. We have found that rural residents in Tajikistan are mostly pushed ...

Even if economics supports specialization, nonfarm livelihood diversification is considered a viable adaptation strategy for smallholder farmers affected by different socioeconomic, institutional and ecological factors. Nonfarm varies across locations households. A cross sectional survey was conducted on 380 randomly selected farm households from the study area. This investigates determinants o...

By Thomas J . Woofter, Jr.* T H E CONCENTRATION OF children in families with low incomes was discussed in a previous article. Some of this analysis of the composition and income of nonfarm families receiving wages or salaries only is recapitulated in table 1. I t was pointed out that nearly half of the children (under 18 years of age) were in the one-seventh of the families which had three or m...

This paper examines the direct, first-rounds impact of two types of remittances—internal and external remittances—on income distribution and asset accumulation in rural Pakistan. Using income decomposition techniques on a threeyear panel household data set, the paper finds that internal remittances have a positive effect on equity and that external remittances have a negative effect. The study ...