IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/12725.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Growth and Inequality: The Case of Indonesia, 1960-1997

Author

Listed:
  • van der Eng, Pierre

Abstract

This paper investigates whether the ‘Kuznets hypothesis’, that economic growth from low levels of GDP per capita is initially associated with an increase in income inequality and later followed by a decline in inequality, is supported by evidence for a less-developed country, Indonesia. The paper outlines the relevant features of the process of rapid growth and structural change, in particular industrialisation since the 1960s. It notes the possible consequences of this process for changes in income distribution, and draws on disparate sets of statistical data to trace trends in income inequality in Indonesia. The paper concludes that the evidence for Indonesia suggests an increase in inequality during the 1970s and a subsequent decrease of inequality until 1997. A comparison of the evidence with historical data for the UK and Japan suggests that income inequality in Indonesia was relatively low.

Suggested Citation

  • van der Eng, Pierre, 2009. "Growth and Inequality: The Case of Indonesia, 1960-1997," MPRA Paper 12725, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:12725
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/12725/1/MPRA_paper_12725.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Abuzar Asra, 2000. "Poverty And Inequality In Indonesia," Journal of the Asia Pacific Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 5(1-2), pages 91-111.
    2. Fields, Gary S., 1994. "Data for measuring poverty and inequality changes in the developing countries," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 87-102, June.
    3. Manning,Chris, 1998. "Indonesian Labour in Transition," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521594127, January.
    4. Lindert, Peter H., 2000. "Three centuries of inequality in Britain and America," Handbook of Income Distribution, in: A.B. Atkinson & F. Bourguignon (ed.), Handbook of Income Distribution, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 3, pages 167-216, Elsevier.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Erni Panca Kurniasih, 2017. "Effect of economic growth on income inequality, labor absorption, and welfare," Economic Journal of Emerging Markets, Universitas Islam Indonesia, vol. 9(2), pages 181-188, April.
    2. Andy Sumner & Peter Edward, 2013. "From Low Income, High Poverty to High-Income, No Poverty? An Optimistic View of the Long-Run Evolution of Poverty in Indonesia By International Poverty Lines, 1984–2030," Working Papers in Economics and Development Studies (WoPEDS) 201310, Department of Economics, Padjadjaran University, revised Jun 2013.
    3. Mohammad KHUSAINI & Setyo TRI WAHYUDI & Zamrud SISWA UTAMA, 2018. "Does Trade Openness And Fiscal Policy Affect Inequality And Economic Growth? A Study In Indonesia," Regional Science Inquiry, Hellenic Association of Regional Scientists, vol. 0(2), pages 215-226, July.
    4. Abdul Jabbar Abdullah & Hristos Doucouliagos & Elizabeth Manning, 2015. "Is There A Kuznets' Process In Southeast Asia?," The Singapore Economic Review (SER), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 60(02), pages 1-22.
    5. Foldvari, Peter & van Leeuwen, Bas & Marks, Daan & Gall, Jozsef, 2013. "Indonesian regional welfare development, 1900–1990: New anthropometric evidence," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 11(1), pages 78-89.

    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. Kaika, Dimitra & Zervas, Efthimios, 2013. "The environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) theory. Part B: Critical issues," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 1403-1411.
    2. Thomas Piketty & Gilles Postel-Vinay & Jean-Laurent Rosenthal, 2006. "Wealth Concentration in a Developing Economy: Paris and France, 1807–1994," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(1), pages 236-256, March.
    3. Bourguignon, Francois, 2005. "The Effect of Economic Growth on Social Structures," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 27, pages 1701-1747, Elsevier.
    4. Sjoholm, Fredrik & Lipsey, Robert E, 2006. "Foreign Firms and Indonesian Manufacturing Wages: An Analysis with Panel Data," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 55(1), pages 201-221, October.
    5. Londoño, Juan Luis & Székely, Miguel, 1997. "Persistent Poverty and Excess Inequality: Latin America, 1970-1995," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 6092, Inter-American Development Bank.
    6. Modalsli, Jørgen, 2011. "Inequality and growth in the very long run: inferring inequality from data on social groups," Memorandum 11/2011, Oslo University, Department of Economics.
    7. Anthony B. Atkinson & Thomas Piketty & Emmanuel Saez, 2011. "Top Incomes in the Long Run of History," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 49(1), pages 3-71, March.
    8. Robert C. Allen, 2005. "Capital Accumulation, Technological Change, and the Distribution of Income during the British Industrial Revolution," Economics Series Working Papers 239, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    9. Alatas, Vivi & Cameron, Lisa, 2003. "The impact of minimum wages on employment in a low income country : an evaluation using the difference-differences approach," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2985, The World Bank.
    10. Aaberge, Rolf & Atkinson, Anthony B. & Modalsli, Jørgen, 2020. "Estimating long-run income inequality from mixed tabular data: Empirical evidence from Norway, 1875–2017," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 187(C).
    11. Robert Moffitt, 1999. "Explaining Welfare Reform: Public Choice and the Labor Market," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 6(3), pages 289-315, August.
    12. Weinhold, Diana & Nair-Reichert, Usha, 2009. "Innovation, Inequality and Intellectual Property Rights," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 37(5), pages 889-901, May.
    13. Peter Scott & James Walker, 2018. "The Comfortable, the Rich, and the Super-rich. What Really Happened to Top British Incomes During the First Half of the Twentieth Century?," John H Dunning Centre for International Business Discussion Papers jhd-dp2018-07, Henley Business School, University of Reading.
    14. Andy Sumner & Peter Edward, 2013. "From Low Income, High Poverty to High-Income, No Poverty? An Optimistic View of the Long-Run Evolution of Poverty in Indonesia By International Poverty Lines, 1984–2030," Working Papers in Economics and Development Studies (WoPEDS) 201310, Department of Economics, Padjadjaran University, revised Jun 2013.
    15. Navid Khan & Ke Xing & Salman Mahmood & Riaz Ahmad, 2024. "Key underlying concepts of shared prosperity: insights from a literature review," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 71(3), pages 727-751, September.
    16. Acemoglu, Daron & Johnson, Simon & Robinson, James A., 2005. "Institutions as a Fundamental Cause of Long-Run Growth," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 6, pages 385-472, Elsevier.
    17. Wojciech Kopczuk, 2015. "What Do We Know about the Evolution of Top Wealth Shares in the United States?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 29(1), pages 47-66, Winter.
    18. Angus Deaton, 2003. "Health, Inequality, and Economic Development," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 41(1), pages 113-158, March.
    19. Takahiro Akita & Alit Pirmansah, 2011. "Urban Inequality in Indonesia," Working Papers EMS_2011_04, Research Institute, International University of Japan.
    20. Albert Berry, 2008. "Growth, Employment And Distribution Impacts Of Minerals Dependency: Four Case Studies," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 76(s2), pages 148-174, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    income inequality; Kuznets hypothesis; Indonesia; economic development;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • N35 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy - - - Asia including Middle East
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
    • R12 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity; Interregional Trade (economic geography)

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:pra:mprapa:12725. 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.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.