In economics, the Gini coefficient, also known as the Gini index or Gini ratio, is a measure of statistical dispersion intended to represent the income inequality, the wealth inequality, or the consumption inequality within a nation or a social group. It was developed by Italian statistician and sociologist Corrado Gini.
The economy of South Africa is the second largest in Africa and the most industrialized, technologically advanced, and diversified economy in Africa. South Africa is an upper-middle-income economy, one of only eight such countries in Africa. Following 1996, at the end of over twelve years of international sanctions, South Africa's nominal gross domestic product (GDP) almost tripled to a peak of US$416 billion in 2011. In the same period, foreign exchange reserves increased from US$3 billion to nearly US$50 billion, creating a diversified economy with a growing and sizable middle class, within two decades of ending apartheid.
Economic inequality is an umbrella term for a) income inequality or distribution of income, b) wealth inequality or distribution of wealth, and c) consumption inequality. Each of these can be measured between two or more nations, within a single nation, or between and within sub-populations.
In economics, income distribution covers how a country's total GDP is distributed amongst its population. Economic theory and economic policy have long seen income and its distribution as a central concern. Unequal distribution of income causes economic inequality which is a concern in almost all countries around the world.
In economics, a cycle of poverty or poverty trap is caused by self-reinforcing mechanisms that cause poverty, once it exists, to persist unless there is outside intervention. It can persist across generations, and when applied to developing countries, is also known as a development trap.
Sir Anthony Barnes Atkinson was a British economist, Centennial Professor at the London School of Economics, and senior research fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford.
Branko Milanović is a Serbian-American economist. He is most known for his work on income distribution and inequality.
In the United States, poverty has both social and political implications. In 2020, there were 37.2 million people in poverty. Some of the many causes include income inequality, inflation, unemployment, debt traps and poor education. The vast majority of people living in poverty are less educated and end up in a state of unemployment; higher incarceration rates have also been observed. Although the US is a relatively wealthy country by international standards, poverty has consistently been present throughout the United States, along with efforts to alleviate it, from New Deal-era legislation during the Great Depression, to the national war on poverty in the 1960s and poverty alleviation efforts during the 2008 Great Recession.
Rural poverty refers to poverty in rural areas, including factors of rural society, rural economy, and political systems that give rise to the poverty found there. Rural areas, because of their spread-out populations, typically have less well maintained infrastructure and a harder time accessing markets, which tend to be concentrated in population centers.
Abhiroop Mukhopadhyay is an Indian economist. He is currently a professor in the Economics and Planning Unit at the Indian Statistical Institute, New Delhi. Abhiroop received his doctorate from Pennsylvania State University in 2004. He also received his master's degree in economics from the Delhi School of Economics in 1997. Abhiroop has previously been the Sir Ratan Tata Senior Fellow at the Institute of Economic Growth, an academic visitor at the India Observatory, London School of Economics, London; a visiting researcher at the Chr. Michelson Institute (Bergen), Groupement de Recherche en Economie Quantitative d'Aix Marseille, Marseille and at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid; research associate at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy. He was awarded the Mahalanobis Medal(http://www.tiesindia.net/awards.html) 2018 by The Indian Econometric Society.
John Micklewright is Professor Emeritus of Economics and Social Statistics at UCL Social Research Institute, University College London.
Intra-household bargaining refers to negotiations that occur between members of a household in order to arrive at decisions regarding the household unit, like whether to spend or save, whether to study or work.
Sanjiv M. Ravi Kanbur, is T.H. Lee Professor of World Affairs, International Professor of Applied Economics, and Professor of Economics at Cornell University. He worked for the World Bank for almost two decades and was the director of the World Development Report.
David H. Autor is an American economist, public policy scholar, and professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he also acts as co-director of the School Effectiveness and Inequality Initiative. Although Autor has contributed to a variety of fields in economics his research generally focuses on topics from labor economics.
Effects of income inequality, researchers have found, include higher rates of health and social problems, and lower rates of social goods, a lower population-wide satisfaction and happiness and even a lower level of economic growth when human capital is neglected for high-end consumption. For the top 21 industrialised countries, counting each person equally, life expectancy is lower in more unequal countries. A similar relationship exists among US states.
Francis Wilson was a South African economist.
The Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey is an Australian household-based panel study which began in 2001. It has been used for examining issues such as the incidence of persistent poverty; assets and income in the transition to retirement; the correlates and impact of changes in physical and mental health; and an international comparison of wealth and happiness. The survey is widely used by Australian and international researchers in the fields of economics, social science and social policy and by the Australian Government. The HILDA survey is managed by a small team from the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research at the University of Melbourne and the national fieldwork is carried out by ACNielsen and Roy Morgan Research. The survey is funded by the Australian Government through the Department of Social Services.
Haroon Bhorat is Professor of Economics and Director of the Development Policy Research Unit (DPRU) at the University of Cape Town. His area of research has concentrated on labour economics and poverty/income distribution mainly in his native South Africa, and recently, been expanded to other parts of Africa - in which he is world-renowned authority.
Ingrid Woolard is dean at Stellenbosch University's faculty of economic and management sciences and professor of economics at Stellenbosch University. She was a professor of economics at the University of Cape Town and a Research Associate of the Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit (SALDRU). Her research focuses primarily on Labour markets, social protection and assistance, poverty and inequality, tax policy, fiscal policy, unemployment, and survey methodology.
South Africa has one of the most extensive social welfare systems among developing countries in the world. In 2019, an estimated 18 million people received some form of social grant provided by the government.
