IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pre/wpaper/202255.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Economic Disasters and Inequality

Author

Listed:
  • Bruno Coric

    (University of Split, Faculty of Economics, Cvite Fiskovica 5, 21000 Split, Croatia; CERGE-EI Foundation Teaching Fellow, 110 Jabez Street No. 1004, Newark, NJ 07105, USA)

  • Rangan Gupta

    (Department of Economics, University of Pretoria, Private Bag X20, Hatfield 0028, South Africa)

Abstract

This paper analyses the dynamic effects of economic disasters, captured by cumulative decline in output of at least 10 percent over 1 or more years, on disposable income inequality of a sample of 99 countries over the annual period of 1960 to 2017. Based on impulse response functions derived from a robust local projections method, we find that economic disasters increase inequality by 4%, with the overall effect being statistically significant and highly persistent over a period of 20 years following the shock. When we repeat the analysis by categorizing the 99 countries based on income groups and regions, we find that the strongest effects are felt by high-income countries (8%), and in Europe, Central Asia and North America (16%) taken together, as primarily driven by ex-socialist economies. Though of lesser magnitude, statistically significant increases in inequality are also observed for low-, and upper-middle-income economies, and the regions of Latin America and Caribbean, Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and South Asia, and to some extent also for Sub-Saharan Africa. Our findings have important policy implications.

Suggested Citation

  • Bruno Coric & Rangan Gupta, 2022. "Economic Disasters and Inequality," Working Papers 202255, University of Pretoria, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:pre:wpaper:202255
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bruno Ćorić & Vladimir Šimić, 2021. "Economic disasters and aggregate investment," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 61(6), pages 3087-3124, December.
    2. Henk Berkman & Ben Jacobsen & John B. Lee, 2017. "Rare disaster risk and the expected equity risk premium," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 57(2), pages 351-372, June.
    3. Anthony B. Atkinson & Salvatore Morelli, 2011. "Economic crises and Inequality," Human Development Research Papers (2009 to present) HDRP-2011-06, Human Development Report Office (HDRO), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
    4. Coen N. Teulings & Nikolay Zubanov, 2014. "Is Economic Recovery A Myth? Robust Estimation Of Impulse Responses," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(3), pages 497-514, April.
    5. Coric, Bruno, 2021. "Economic Disasters: A New Data Set," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 39(C).
    6. Bodea, Cristina & Houle, Christian & Kim, Hyunwoo, 2021. "Do financial crises increase income inequality?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    7. Bruno Ćorić, 2018. "The long-run effect of economic disasters," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(5), pages 296-299, March.
    8. Bouri, Elie & Gupta, Rangan & Nel, Jacobus & Shiba, Sisa, 2022. "Contagious diseases and gold: Over 700 years of evidence from quantile regressions," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 50(C).
    9. Frederick Solt, 2020. "Measuring Income Inequality Across Countries and Over Time: The Standardized World Income Inequality Database," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 101(3), pages 1183-1199, May.
    10. Robert J. Barro & José F. Ursúa, 2012. "Rare Macroeconomic Disasters," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 4(1), pages 83-109, July.
    11. Robert J. Barro & Jose F. Ursua, 2008. "Macroeconomic Crises since 1870," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 39(1 (Spring), pages 255-350.
    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. Bruno Ćorić & Rangan Gupta, 2023. "Economic disasters and inequality: a note," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 56(5), pages 3527-3543, October.
    2. Balcilar, Mehmet & Gupta, Rangan & Nel, Jacobus, 2022. "Rare disaster risks and gold over 700 years: Evidence from nonparametric quantile regressions," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    3. Bonato, Matteo & Cepni, Oguzhan & Gupta, Rangan & Pierdzioch, Christian, 2023. "Climate risks and state-level stock market realized volatility," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    4. Rangan Gupta & Tahir Suleman & Mark E. Wohar, 2019. "The role of time‐varying rare disaster risks in predicting bond returns and volatility," Review of Financial Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 37(3), pages 327-340, July.
    5. Rafiq, Shuddhasattwa, 2022. "How did house and stock prices respond to different crisis episodes since the 1870s?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    6. Funke, Manuel & Schularick, Moritz & Trebesch, Christoph, 2016. "Going to extremes: Politics after financial crises, 1870–2014," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 227-260.
    7. Demirer, Riza & Gupta, Rangan & Suleman, Tahir & Wohar, Mark E., 2018. "Time-varying rare disaster risks, oil returns and volatility," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 239-248.
    8. Thanoj K. Muddana & Komal S.R. Bhimireddy & Anandamayee Majumdar & Rangan Gupta, 2024. "Forecasting Gold Returns Volatility Over 1258-2023: The Role of Moments," Working Papers 202421, University of Pretoria, Department of Economics.
    9. Bruno Coric & Blanka Peric Skrabic, 2020. "Income Tax Evasion: Recovery from Economic Disasters," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp676, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.
    10. Rafiq, Shuddhasattwa, 2020. "Projecting post-crisis house and equity prices since the 1870s:not all crises are alike," MPRA Paper 103164, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Fernández-Villaverde, Jesús & Levintal, Oren, 2024. "The Distributional Effects of Asset Returns," CEPR Discussion Papers 18855, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    12. Òscar Jordà & Moritz Schularick & Alan M. Taylor, 2011. "When credit bites back: leverage, business cycles, and crises," Working Paper Series 2011-27, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    13. Robert Barro & Tao Jin, 2021. "Rare Events and Long-Run Risks," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 39, pages 1-25, January.
    14. Arnaud Mehl, 2013. "Large global volatility shocks, equity markets and globalisation: 1885-2011," Globalization Institute Working Papers 148, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
    15. Barhoom Faeyzh, 2023. "Revisiting the Financial Development and Income Inequality Nexus: Evidence from Hungary," Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Economics and Business, Sciendo, vol. 11(1), pages 227-257, October.
    16. Mateo Hoyos, 2024. "Tariffs and Growth: Heterogeneity by Economic Structure," Working Papers DTE 638, CIDE, División de Economía.
    17. Lorenzo Pozzi & Barbara Sadaba, 2023. "Macroeconomic Disasters and Consumption Smoothing: International Evidence from Historical Data," Staff Working Papers 23-4, Bank of Canada.
    18. Òscar Jordà & Moritz Schularick & Alan M. Taylor, 2013. "When Credit Bites Back," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 45(s2), pages 3-28, December.
    19. Ferry Syarifuddin & Maman Setiawan, 2022. "The Relationship between COVID-19 Pandemic, Foreign Direct Investment, and Gross Domestic Product in Indonesia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(5), pages 1-16, February.
    20. Bruno Ćorić & Vladimir Šimić, 2021. "Economic disasters and aggregate investment," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 61(6), pages 3087-3124, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    inequality; economic disasters; local projection method;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C22 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models; Diffusion Processes
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming

    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:pre:wpaper:202255. 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: Rangan Gupta (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/decupza.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.