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Original Articles

Kuznets inverted-U hypothesis revisited: a time-series approach using US data

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Pages 677-681 | Published online: 04 Jul 2008
 

Abstract

Kuznets' inverted-U hypothesis implies that economic growth worsens income inequality first and improves it later at a higher stage of economic development. In addition to economic growth, other factors such as population growth, resource endowment, price instability, openness, currency devaluation, etc. have been identified as determinants of income inequality. Previous research used cross-sectional data to test not only the Kuznets' hypothesis, but also empirical validity of other factors and provided mixed conclusions. In this article we use time-series data from the US and recent advances in time-series modelling to show that economic growth worsens income inequality in the short-run and improves it in the long-run.

Notes

1For a theoretical exposition, see Vicente and Borge (Citation2000) and for review of the articles, see Bahmani-Oskooee et al. (2004).

2Similar arguments have also been advanced by Edwards (Citation1986).

3Note that the GINI data come from Deininger and Squire (Citation1996), ‘Measuring income inequality: a new database’. Available at www.worldbank.org/research/growth/dddeisqu.htm & World Development Report (The World Bank, Washington, DC). Real income, population & nominal effective exchange rate data come from International Monetary Fund, International Financial Statistics on CD-ROM (The IMF, Washington, DC).

4The critical value comes from Pesaran et al. (Citation2001, p. 300, Table CI, Case III).

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