IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/lis/liswps/557.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Middle Class in Less Developed American Nations

Author

Listed:
  • Steven Pressman

Abstract

This study uses the Luxembourg Income Study to examine the size of the middle class across several less developed American nations. One main finding is that in the mid 2000s the size of the middle class in Latin America does not seem to depend on demographic factors. A second finding is that, in contrast to most developed nations, government tax and spending policies do little to increase the size of the middle class in less developed America. Finally, as in the developed world, labor market factors do not have much impact the size of the middle class in Latin America. The main exceptions here seem to be Brazil and Mexico, where employment appears to increase the size of the middle class.

Suggested Citation

  • Steven Pressman, 2011. "The Middle Class in Less Developed American Nations," LIS Working papers 557, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    • Handle: RePEc:lis:liswps:557
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.lisdatacenter.org/wps/liswps/557.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Anthony F. Shorrocks, 1983. "The Impact of Income Components on the Distribution of Family Incomes," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 98(2), pages 311-326.
    2. Peter Gottschalk & Sheldon Danziger, 2005. "Inequality Of Wage Rates, Earnings And Family Income In The United States, 1975–2002," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 51(2), pages 231-254, June.
    3. Easterlin, Richard A, 2001. "Income and Happiness: Towards an Unified Theory," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 111(473), pages 465-484, July.
    4. Robert J. Barro, 1999. "Determinants of Democracy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(S6), pages 158-183, December.
    5. Birdsall, N. & Graham, C. & Pettinato, S., 2000. "Stuck in the Tunnel: Is Globalization Muddling the Middle Class?," Papers 14, Brookings Institution - Working Papers.
    6. Timothy Smeeding & Gunther Schmaus & Brigitte Buhmann & Lee Rainwater, 1988. "Equivalence Scales, Well-Being, Inequality and Poverty: Sensitivity Estimates Across Ten Countries Using the LIS Database," LIS Working papers 17, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    7. Burtless, Gary, 1999. "Effects of growing wage disparities and changing family composition on the U.S. income distribution," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 43(4-6), pages 853-865, April.
    8. Erzo F. P. Luttmer, 2005. "Neighbors as Negatives: Relative Earnings and Well-Being," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 120(3), pages 963-1002.
    9. Steven Pressman, 2007. "The Decline of the Middle Class: An International Perspective," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(1), pages 181-200, March.
    10. John Ermisch, 1988. "Econometric Analysis of Birth Rate Dynamics in Britain," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 23(4), pages 563-576.
    11. Ermisch, John, 1988. "Economic Influences On Birth Rates," National Institute Economic Review, National Institute of Economic and Social Research, vol. 126, pages 71-92, November.
    12. Ermisch, John, 1988. "Economic Influences On Birth Rates," National Institute Economic Review, National Institute of Economic and Social Research, vol. 126, pages 71-92, November.
    13. Easterly, William, 2001. "The Middle Class Consensus and Economic Development," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 6(4), pages 317-335, December.
    14. Lerman, Robert I & Yitzhaki, Shlomo, 1985. "Income Inequality Effects by Income," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 67(1), pages 151-156, February.
    15. repec:bla:revinw:v:34:y:1988:i:2:p:115-42 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Steven Pressman, 2009. "Keynes, Family Allowances and Post Keynesian Anti-Poverty Policy," LIS Working papers 525, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    2. Alberto Batinti & Joan Costa‐Font, 2020. "Do economic recessions “squeeze the middle class”?," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(3), pages 335-355, November.
    3. Mary C. Daly & Robert G. Valletta, 2000. "Inequality and poverty in the United States: the effects of changing family behavior and rising wage dispersion," Working Paper Series 2000-06, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    4. Carlos Sánchez-González & Rosa M. García-Fernández, 2020. "A Multivariate Indicator to Compute Middle Class Population," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 147(1), pages 1-14, January.
    5. Wen Hao Chen & Michael F rster & Ana Llena-Nozal, 2013. "Determinants of Household Earnings Inequality: The Role of Labour Market Trends and Changing Household Structure," LIS Working papers 591, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    6. Sofía Plata, 2020. "Impacto de la estructura fiscal en el tamaño de la clase media," Documentos de Trabajo (working papers) 0920, Department of Economics - dECON.
    7. Andrew Silva, 2020. "Gender, price, and quantity effects in U.S. earnings inequality: revisiting counterfactual density estimates," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 40(3), pages 2505-2520.
    8. Çakır, Mustafa Yavuz & Kabundi, Alain, 2013. "Trade shocks from BRIC to South Africa: A global VAR analysis," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 190-202.
    9. Oasis Kodila-Tedika & Simplice A. Asongu & Julio Mukendi Kayembe, 2016. "Middle Class in Africa: Determinants and Consequences," International Economic Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(4), pages 527-549, October.
    10. Walter Sosa-Escudero & Sergio Petralia, 2011. "Anatomy of Distributive Changes in Argentina," Chapters, in: Werner Baer & David Fleischer (ed.), The Economies of Argentina and Brazil, chapter 10, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    11. Cecilia García-Peñalosa & Elsa Orgiazzi, 2013. "Factor Components of Inequality: A Cross-Country Study," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 59(4), pages 689-727, December.
    12. Florencia Torche & Luis F. Lopez-Calva, 2013. "Stability and Vulnerability of the Latin American Middle Class," Oxford Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(4), pages 409-435, December.
    13. Ravallion, Martin, 2010. "The Developing World's Bulging (but Vulnerable) Middle Class," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 445-454, April.
    14. Nolan, Brian & Azzollini, Leo & Breen, Richard, 2022. "From Gender Equality to Household Earnings Equality: the role of Women's Labour Market Outcomes across OECD Countries," INET Oxford Working Papers 2022-13, Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford.
    15. Abebe Shimeles & Mthuli Ncube, 2015. "The Making of the Middle-Class in Africa: Evidence from DHS Data," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(2), pages 178-193, February.
    16. Florencia Torche & Luis F. Lopez-Calva, 2013. "Stability and Vulnerability of the Latin American Middle Class," Oxford Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(4), pages 409-435, December.
    17. Duha T. Altindag & Junyue Xu, 2009. "The Impact of Institutions and Development on Happiness," Departmental Working Papers 2009-17, Department of Economics, Louisiana State University.
    18. Diego F. Grijalva, 2017. "The rise of the middle class in Ecuador during the oil boom," Revista Cuadernos de Economia, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, FCE, CID, vol. 36(72), October.
    19. Jean-Philippe BERROU & Matthieu CLÉMENT & François COMBARNOUS & Dominique DARBON & Yves-André FAURE & Éric ROUGIER, 2019. "L’essor des classes moyennes dans les pays en développement et émergents : une étude comparative des enjeux d’identification, de caractérisation et de politiques publiques," Working Paper d25da1cf-d9d8-4336-9930-b, Agence française de développement.
    20. Carlo Vittorio FIORIO, 2008. "Understanding Italian inequality trends: a simulation-based decomposition," Departmental Working Papers 2008-26, Department of Economics, Management and Quantitative Methods at Università degli Studi di Milano.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:lis:liswps:557. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Piotr Paradowski (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lisprlu.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.