Premium
Education and Income Inequality: New Evidence From Cross‐Country Data
Author(s) -
Gregorio José De,
Lee Jong–Wha
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
review of income and wealth
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.024
H-Index - 57
eISSN - 1475-4991
pISSN - 0034-6586
DOI - 10.1111/1475-4991.00060
Subject(s) - economics , income distribution , income inequality metrics , inequality , economic inequality , distribution (mathematics) , kuznets curve , educational attainment , demographic economics , panel data , government (linguistics) , labour economics , econometrics , economic growth , mathematical analysis , linguistics , philosophy , mathematics
This paper presents empirical evidence on how education is related to income distribution in a panel data set covering a broad range of countries for the period between 1960 and 1990. The findings indicate that educational factors—higher educational attainment and more equal distribution of education —play a significant role in making income distribution more equal. The results also confirm the Kuznets inverted–U curve for the relationship between income level and income inequality. We also find that government social expenditure contributes to more equal distribution of income. However, a significant proportion of cross–country variation in income inequality remains unexplained.