Dangerous liaisons? Applying the social harm perspective to the social inequality, housing and health trifecta during the Covid-19 pandemic

Global rates of excess mortality attributable to the Covid-19 pandemic provide a fresh impetus to make sense of the associations between income inequality, housing inequality and the social gradient in health, suggesting new questions about the ways in which housing and health are treated in the framing and development of public policy. The first half of the paper uses a social harm lens to examine the threefold associations of the social inequality, housing and health trifecta and offers new insights for policy analysis which foregrounds the production, transmission, and experience of various types of harm which occur within the home. The main body of the paper then draws upon the outcomes of an international systematic literature mapping review of 213 Covid-19 research papers to demonstrate three specific harms associated with stay-at-home lockdowns: (i) intimate partner and domestic violence, (ii) poor mental health and (iii) health harming behaviours. The reported findings are interpreted using a social harm perspective and some implications for policy analysis are illustrated. The paper concludes with a reflection on the efficacy of social harm as a lens for policy analysis and suggests directions for further research in housing studies and zemiology.

The role of digital transformation in the socio-economic recovery post COVID-19

Several measures have been taken to reduce the impact of COVID-19 pandemic. One of these measures is the broad digital transformation that has rapidly and unexpectedly forced the deployment of digital technologies into corporations' business models and organizational structures. This digital transformation has affected all the socio-economic aspects. In response to the COVID-19 global pandemic, this paper explores the impact of the implementation of digital transformation on the socio-economic recovery by employing cross-sectional regression analysis on 99 countries in year 2020. The paper analyzes the impact of digital transformation on each of economic growth, health care, and income inequality. The results reveal that the digital transformation has a positive and significant impact on the GDP per capita in which a 1% increase in digital transformation results in 1.52% increase in GDP per capita, a positive and significant impact on income equality in which a 1% increase in digital transformation leads to 0.05% increase in income equality, and a negative and significant impact on infant mortality rate, in which a 1% increase in digital transformation results in 0.85% decrease in infant mortality rate which reflects its positive impact on the health care. Hence, the digital transformation has a positive and significant effects on different socio-economic aspects.

On the Accessibility of Financial Services and Income Inequality: An International Perspective

Income inequality has long been an important issue in development economics. Ap-plying international data from 119 countries between 2004 and 2018, this study discusses the relationship between the accessibility of financial services and income inequality. Using the den-sity of the bank branch network to represent the accessibility of financial services, we discover that income inequality is negatively related to the accessibility of financial services, especially in less developed countries and regions. In this nexus, the poverty ratio serves as an intermediary variable. The significance of the nexus is weaker in countries where fintech is more popularized, indicating the substitution effect between fintech and traditional banking services. Nevertheless, the substitution effect is limited, and bank branches will keep playing an important role in deliv-ering financial services. For countries with inadequate banking services, bank branches should be increased to encourage residents to participate in the financial system, while it is no longer necessary to add a large number of branches in countries where fintech has been popularized. Faced with the trend of financial digitalization and the economic shock caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, banks should launch more online services and increase intelligent machines in the branches. By doing so, financial services are more resilient to social changes, so as to alleviate the inequality of income distribution in the long term.

Taking Class Seriously

This article critically analyzes the human rights perspective upon what has emerged as one of the most significant socioeconomic and political challenges confronting many millions of people residing within high-income, liberal-democratic societies: rising poverty and socioeconomic inequality. This article argues that international and domestic human rights law and the social and political imaginaries of the wider human rights community largely fail to adequately diagnose and effectively respond to poverty and inequality within high-income, liberal-democratic societies. As a political and ethical doctrine founded upon a normative commitment to social justice, human rights should be taking the lead in efforts to condemn, understand, and develop responses to the poverty and inequality which blight the lives of many millions of people within many of the world's most affluent and, allegedly, most "liberal” societies. Human rights law has historically not done so. We, as a community, have not done so. This article offers a specific explanation for this continuing failure, by focusing upon the absence of any concerted recognition of or engagement with social class as it contributes to and compounds our exposure to poverty and inequality. Human rights remain largely blind to the many ways in which social class is intricately connected to poverty and inequality. The human rights community within high-income, liberal-democratic societies characteristically fails to take class seriously. Building upon previous writing in this area, this article explains why class is rarely recognized or engaged with by the human rights community. This article also sets out the basis for how we might begin the task of overcoming this highly damaging class blindness, to set the stage for what the author asserts as an urgent need if human rights is to provide the kind of political and ethical leadership required to effectively engage with poverty and inequality in affluent societies: the degentrification of human rights.

Igniting an Intersectional Shift in Public Policy Research (and Training)

Tout au long des années 2010, l'une des principales préoccupations en ce qui concerne les politiques publiques et les débats sur celles-ci était la compréhension des sources d'inégalité, de même que le rôle du gouvernement dans la lutte contre l'inégalité des revenus. Bien que des progrès aient été réalisés, d'importantes lacunes subsistent en matière d'inégalité – lacunes qui vont bien au-delà de l'inégalité des revenus et que la pandémie de COVID-19 a mises en évidence. L'expérience de la pandémie nous rappelle que les individus qui forment la société vivent des expériences distinctes et que l'attention à l'inégalité et à la diversité doit s'intégrer étroitement à des cadres stratégiques actualisés. Après la COVID-19, alors que les gouvernements s'engagent à ce que la relance soit équitable et dans le contexte d'un désir généralisé pour une société plus juste, une approche inclusive de l'analyse des politiques est nécessaire afin de remédier aux défaillances de longue date de l'économie et de la société. Les cadres stratégiques actualisés doivent être plus représentatifs des expériences et des luttes des populations marginalisées et sous-représentées, et leur accorder plus d'attention. L'intersectionnalité est un outil analytique ancré dans le paradigme de la justice sociale qui met au jour les liens entre les notions d'identité et les systèmes de pouvoir à travers lesquels elles se déploient. L'intersectionnalité tient compte de la façon dont nos identités se forment : à l'intersection de divers construits sociaux, tels que la race, la capacité, la classe et le genre, et dans des contextes et des structures de pouvoir plus vastes, comme le marché du travail et les institutions gouvernementales. L'intégration complète de l'intersectionnalité à l'analyse des politiques permettrait de mettre en place une structure d'analyse des politiques qui ferait avancer les programmes politiques centrés sur la diversité, l'inclusion et l'équité.Alternate :Throughout the 2010s, a major focus of public policy and public policy debates was about understanding the sources of inequality and understanding the role of government in addressing income inequality. While progress has been made, significant gaps in inequality remain-gaps that go well beyond income inequality and that were emphasized throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. The experiences of the pandemic have served as a reminder that individuals in society have distinct experiences, and that attention to inequality and diversity needs to be seriously incorporated into modernized policy frameworks. As governments commit to a fair recovery from COVID-19 amid a broad desire for a more just society, a more inclusive approach to policy analysis is required to address longstanding failures in the economy and society. Modernized policy frameworks need to be more representative of and attentive to the experiences and struggles of marginalized and underrepresented populations. Intersectionality is an analytical tool rooted in the social justice paradigm that makes clear the links between notions of identity and the systems of power through which they play out. Intersectionality considers the ways in which our identities are formed at the intersections of various social constructs, such as race, ability, class, and gender, and within broader contexts and structures of power, such as the labour market and government institutions. Fully integrating intersectionality into policy analysis could create a policy analysis structure that would advance policy agendas of diversity, inclusion, and equity.

Introduction: The Socioeconomic Impacts of COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacted a historic toll on Americans' health and longevity. It has also shaped socioeconomic inequalities along the lines of gender, race, ethnicity, nativity, and class in America. The effects of COVID-19 are evident in the stratified experiences of Americans in work, unemployment, and unpaid labor;in stark inequalities in wealth and income;in the historic expansions and retrenchments in social welfare spending;and in the increase in violence and changes in the criminal justice system. While there has been an outpouring of research on the social and economic consequences of COVID-19, far less work draws together research across these varied, but interrelated, domains. In this introduction, we provide a broad narrative of how the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded in America and reshaped, in some instances fleetingly and in others more permanently, the landscape of socioeconomic inequality in America.

Protecting the Most Vulnerable: Policy Response and Eviction Filing Patterns During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting economic crisis exposed the U.S. rental housing market to extraordinary stress. Policymakers at the federal, state, and local levels established eviction moratoria and a number of additional direct and indirect renter-supportive measures in a bid to prevent a surge in evictions and associated public health risks. This article assesses the net efficacy of these interventions, analyzing changes in eviction filing patterns in 2020–2021 in thirty-one cities across the country. We find that eviction filings were dramatically reduced over this period. The largest reductions were in places that previously experienced highest eviction filing rates, particularly majority-Black and low-income neighborhoods. Although these changes did not ameliorate racial, gender, and income inequalities in relative risk of eviction, they did significantly reduce rates across the board, resulting in especially large absolute gains in previously high-risk communities.

Impact of Direct Taxation on Economic Growth: Empirical Evidence Based on Panel Data Regression Analysis at the Level of Eu Countries

Through fiscal policy, the government can influence businesses and individuals in order to regulate their behaviour. The research used panel data from all 27 EU countries covering the period 2008–2020 to investigate the impact of direct taxation on economic growth at the level of two main clusters of countries concerning fiscal efficiency. Therefore, the analysis employed cluster methods to classify the main EU countries in both groups of countries with a high level of fiscal efficiency and those with a rather limited level of fiscal efficiency. The study employs fixed effect models and dynamic GMM methods to investigate the effect of direct taxation components (personal and corporate income taxes) on economic growth. The analysis also considers the informal economy's role in relation to the official economy. The empirical results revealed that corporate income taxes significantly negatively impact economic growth for both clusters of high- and limited fiscal efficiency countries. Additionally, personal income tax was associated with lower economic growth for countries in the limited fiscal efficiency group. Thus, from the perspective of policymakers, lowering direct taxation can increase disposable income, stimulate consumption and economic growth, encourage investment leading to job creation, increase competitiveness, and reduce tax evasion and avoidance, thereby leading to a more efficient tax system.

Walking Together Indicator (WTI): Understanding and Measuring World Inequality

Socio-economic inequality may be addressed at a different scale. Its impact at a micro and macro level on very many social issues is well-known, as well as its effects on global development being extensively reported in literature, where inequality is often seen as a clear barrier on the path to a sustainable development. That becomes extremely critical in light of major global challenges, such as climate change. The quantification of inequality in the different contexts, its interpretation, as well as its impact on society at a different level are object of major interest and discussion within the scientific community. Inspired by the famous African proverb "if you want to go fast go alone;If you want to go far go together", we propose an indicator-Walking Together Indicator (WTI), based on a simple model to foster transparency and broad communication. It relies on the statistical standard deviation to facilitate the measurement of inequality looking at single metrics (e.g., GDP) as well as considering broad categories (e.g., Economy) composed of multiple indicators. Despite evident limitations, simplifications (context-less comparison among countries) and approximations (significant lack of data), the study conducted on well-known macro indicators presents a fundamental coherence in the result. Indeed, it shows a reducing inequality in the main trends. On the other side, the performed computations also point out a relevant exception for the main economic indicator, which is characterised, overall, by an increasing inequality among the considered countries. Such a contrasting trend is partially explainable looking at the simplifications in the model, which neither considers dependencies among indicators nor assumes weighting. The indicator provides a very encouraging and optimistic figure. However, the recent pandemic has shown a world running at different speeds. It advises a more conservative interpretation of the indicator as the exception related to economy is relevant.

Serving the low-income consumer in a rich economy: Dollar General racks up sales

PurposeThe conceptualization of the Base of Pyramid (BOP) proposes that low-income markets can lead to profitable opportunities for businesses. The purpose of this study is to identify key success factors of a BOP business strategy based on a case study of the discount retailer, Dollar General, in the USA.Design/methodology/approachThe research design used in this research is an in-depth case study of Dollar General in the USA. Qualitative methods are applied in both the primary and secondary data collection and during the follow-on data analysis of Dollar General.FindingsDollar General's strategic profile is achieved through the combination of the following four actions which are tailored to compete effectively at the BOP in the USA: creating the neighborhood discounter, raising aspirational appeal, reducing service and eliminating internationalization.Research limitations/implicationsThe case is specific to Dollar General in a US cultural context.Practical implicationsThe case of Dollar General demonstrates how a discounter retailer should not only follow a low-cost strategy to compete at the BOP. Its ability to craft a distinctive strategy is coherent with meeting the logistical, rational and emotional needs of the low-income consumer in the USA.Social implicationsMany businesses have neglected rural areas of the USA as being unprofitable. The ability for businesses such as Dollar General to serve the BOP segment can foster the socio-economic well-being of communities.Originality/valueThe overwhelming body of the BOP literature is based on emerging markets. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is one of the few studies to investigate BOP business strategy in the USA.

Driving Factors and Scale Effects of Residents' Willingness to Pay for Environmental Protection under the Impact of COVID-19

In recent years, environmental degradation and the COVID-19 pandemic have seriously affected economic development and social stability. Addressing the impact of major public health events on residents' willingness to pay for environmental protection (WTPEP) and analyzing the drivers are necessary for improving human well-being and environmental sustainability. We designed a questionnaire to analyze the change in residents' WTPEP before and during COVID-19 and an established ordinary least squares (OLS), spatial lag model (SLM), spatial error model (SEM), geographically weighted regression (GWR), and multiscale GWR to explore driver factors and scale effects of WTPEP based on the theory of environment Kuznets curve (EKC). The results show that (1) WTPEP is 0–20,000 yuan before COVID-19 and 0–50,000 yuan during COVID-19. Residents' WTPEP improved during COVID-19, which indicates that residents' demand for an ecological environment is increasing;(2) The shapes and inflection points of the relationships between income and WTPEP are spatially heterogeneous before and during COVID-19, but the northern WTPEP is larger than southern, which indicates that there is a spatial imbalance in WTPEP;(3) Environmental degradation, health, environmental quality, and education are WTPEP's significant macro-drivers, whereas income, age, and gender are significant micro-drivers. Those factors can help policymakers better understand which factors are more suitable for macro or micro environmental policy-making and what targeted measures could be taken to solve the contradiction between the growing ecological environment demand of residents and the spatial imbalance of WTPEP in the future.

Growth, income and wealth accumulation in rich countries

This paper discusses estimates of the distribution of national income and wealth produced by the World Inequality Lab in its World Inequality Report 2022. The methodology combines all existing microeconomic data on incomes (surveys, tax data) with macroeconomic data (the system of national accounts). While growth has slowed in rich countries, private wealth accumulation has continued to accelerate and public wealth continued to decline in an era of rising asset prices. The importance of «pre-distributive» policies for income inequality, and «popular wealth» for wealth inequality is emphasised, as well as the differing effects of the financial and Covid crises. In an age of big data it is time for countries to reconcile sources to provide official distributional estimates consistent with macroeconomic growth. © 2023,Ekonomiaz. All Rights Reserved.

Relative financial deprivation, financial anxiety and financial satisfaction: the role of access to Islamic financing among MSME owners amidst COVID-19

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to augment the present literature on the relationship between relative financial deprivation (RFD), financial anxiety (FA), access to Islamic financing (AIF) and financial satisfaction (FS) of micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME) owners. Principally, the study examines the moderating role of AIF on the RFD–FS and FA–FS relationships.Design/methodology/approachQuantitative survey approach was used to collect data through self-administered questionnaires from MSME owners. Partial least square (PLS) structural equation modelling (SEM) version 3.2.7 was used to analyse 208 retrieved questionnaires.FindingsThe results confirm that the RFD–FS relationship is negatively significant, but the FA–FS relationship is not significant. However, the direct relationship between AIF and FS is positively significant. Conversely, AIF failed to moderate the RFD–FS and FA–FS relationships.Practical implicationsThe study specifies that the existence of RFD will decrease the FS of MSME owners, and therefore, RFD should be eliminated at all costs. However, the greater the AIF, the stronger will be the FS of MSME owners. Thus, policymakers and owners of MSMEs should emphasize on AIF to foster FS. Nevertheless, AIF could not redirect the negative impact of RFD and FA on MSME owners' FS.Originality/valueThis study, to the best of the authors' knowledge, is the first to examine the moderating role of AIF on the RFD–FS and FA–FS relationships among MSME owners. Notwithstanding the importance of small business owners for economic development, the literature on MSME entrepreneurs FS has been neglected. This study also uncovers new theoretical knowledge by revealing the inability of AIF to alter the RFD–FS and FA–FS relationships.

Potential mechanisms by which cash transfer programmes could improve the mental health and life chances of young people: A conceptual framework and lines of enquiry for research and policy

Mental health is inextricably linked to both poverty and future life chances such as education, skills, labour market attachment and social function. Poverty can lead to poorer mental health, which reduces opportunities and increases the risk of lifetime poverty. Cash transfer programmes are one of the most common strategies to reduce poverty and now reach substantial proportions of populations living in low- and middle-income countries. Because of their rapid expansion in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, they have recently gained even more importance. Recently, there have been suggestions that these cash transfers might improve youth mental health, disrupting the cycle of disadvantage at a critical period of life. Here, we present a conceptual framework describing potential mechanisms by which cash transfer programmes could improve the mental health and life chances of young people. Furthermore, we explore how theories from behavioural economics and cognitive psychology could be used to more specifically target these mechanisms and optimise the impact of cash transfers on youth mental health and life chances. Based on this, we identify several lines of enquiry and action for future research and policy.Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press.

Crowd work in STEM‐related fields: A window of opportunity from a gender perspective?

After the Global Financial Crisis (2008) many people found new job opportunities on crowd platforms. The COVID‐19 crisis reinforced this trend and virtual work is expected to increase. Although the working conditions of individuals engaged on these platforms is an emerging topic, of research, the existing literature tends to overlook the gendered dimension of the gig economy. Following a quantitative approach, based on the statistical analysis of 444 profiles (platform Freelancer.com in Spain and Argentina), we examine the extent to which the gig economy reproduces gender inequalities such as the underrepresentation of women in STEM‐related tasks and the gender pay gap. While the findings reveal lower participation of women than men, this gap is not higher in Argentina than in Spain. Moreover, gender variations in hourly wages are not as marked as expected, and such differences disappear once STEM skill levels are controlled for. Asymmetry in individuals' STEM skill level provides a better explanation than gender of the hourly wage differences. This finding opens a window of opportunity to mitigate the classical gender discrimination that women face in technological fields in traditional labor markets. Finally, the paper identifies some issues concerning the methodological bias entailed by the use of an application programming interface in cyber‐research, when analyzing gender inequalities.

A Macroeconomic Model of Healthcare Saturation, Inequality and the Output–Pandemia Trade-off

COVID-19 became a global health emergency because it threatened the collapse of health systems as demand for health goods and services and their relative prices surged. Governments responded with lockdowns and transfers. Empirical evidence shows that lockdowns and healthcare saturation contribute to explain the cross-country variation in GDP drops even after controlling for COVID-19 cases and mortality. We explain this output–pandemia trade-off as resulting from a shock to subsistence health demand that increases with capital utilization and economic activity in a model with entrepreneurs and workers. The health system saturates as the gap between supply and subsistence narrows, which worsens consumption and income inequality. An externality distorts utilization, because firms do not internalize that lower utilization reduces healthcare saturation. Lockdowns and transfers to workers are the optimal policy response. Quantitatively, strict lockdowns and large transfers yield sizable welfare gains because they neutralize the utilization externality and prevent a sharp rise in inequality. Welfare and output costs vary in response to small parameter changes or deviations from optimal policies. Weak lockdowns coupled with weak transfers programs are the worst alternative and yet are in line with what several emerging and least developed countries implemented.

REDUCTION OF POVERTY AND MATERIAL DEPRIVATION IN THE EU COUNTRIES: WHAT MATTERS THE MOST?

Poverty reduction belongs to the long-term priorities of public policy actions in most countries. In 2010, the European Union and its member states aimed to reduce the number of people living at risk of poverty by 2020. However, most EU countries failed to achieve their targets concerning poverty reduction, partly because of the challenges they had to cope with (slow economic recovery after the crisis, migration, COVID-19). In 2022, poverty risks were increasing in the EU countries once again. Therefore, research focused on determinants of poverty can help policymakers to identify the areas in which policy measures will be useful for poverty reduction or at least its stabilisation in the EU countries. The paper introduces an analysis examining five determinants of poverty (related to employment, incomes, education, and social protection), when poverty was understood in terms of incomes as well as material deprivation. The panel regression analysis was done for cross-sectional data covering EU 26 countries and the period 2010–2019. Statistical results revealed the statistically significant relationships between poverty risks (measured with the use of at-risk-of-poverty rate and rate of material deprivation), and employment, work intensity, and income inequality (representing the determinants of poverty). Findings indicated that particularly the policy measures adopted within the employment and labour market policies must be used in the fight against poverty in EU countries. © 2023, Bulgarska Akademiya na Naukite. All rights reserved.

Towards a Multidimensional Model for Evaluating the Sustainable Effect of FDI on the Development of Host Developing Countries: Evidence from Africa

This study aims to comprehensively evaluate the sustainable impact of FDI on the development of host African countries. Previous empirical studies seem to have overestimated the impact of FDI by limiting its effects to one aspect or sub-aspect of sustainable development. This study focuses on the sustainable/net effect of FDI on development in Africa. To achieve this, a multidimensional model that combines two opposing views (mainstream theory of economic development and dependent theory) was tested. Panel data of 35 African countries with the PMG/ARDL approach were used to probe the sustainable effect of FDI from 1990 to 2020. The key findings of this study reveal that the overall estimated sustainable effect of FDI on real GDP per capita is statistically minuscule for the entire sample. Thus, the effect of FDI on the development of host African countries is not inherently more important. The most striking result that emerged from the data is that environmental degradation is the dominant variable that adversely influences overall development in Africa. Another striking finding that emerged from the data is that income inequality, in general, has a significant negative impact on real GDP per capita in the long run. More importantly, the results of this study confirm that CO2, GINI, and GOV play important roles in the relationship between FDI and African development. Estimates of the error correction term for each specific country are negative and statistically significant. The fastest speed of adjustment was observed in Morocco, while the lowest was recorded in South Africa. Furthermore, this study presents different policy implications based on the long-term results.

Designing the fiscal-monetary nexus: policy options for the EU

In recent decades, and in particular since the shift towards independent central banks, there has been no explicit coordination of fiscal and monetary policy. In the Eurozone, this lack of coordination represents an important flaw, especially since the Eurozone is not an optimal currency area. Complementing monetary union with a transfer union represents one possible solution. This paper argues that the negative impact of post-2008 and post-Covid-19 unconventional monetary policy on income inequalities provides a second reason to coordinate fiscal and monetary policy. Among various institutional arrangements to implement such coordination, the paper defends the idea that the European Central Bank should be sensitive to distributive considerations when formulating its monetary policy. Such an arrangement would help both to contain the distributive side-effects of monetary policy and to at least partially remedy the flaw at the heart of the Eurozone as long as an outright transfer union remains unfeasible.

The decline of paid overtime working in Britain

The share of paid‐for overtime hours within total paid‐for hours worked in Britain has declined from 5.4% to 2.0% between 1997 and 2020. We investigate this decline, focussing on its distribution across full‐time (f/t) and part‐time males and females and across 19 one‐digit industries. It is established that f/t males are dominant in the decline both of overtime working and overtime hours. We explore the implications of the decline on the share of overtime pay within total pay as well as on the gender pay gap. We test for economic, structural and cyclical influences on overtime working via a two‐part regression model that allows us to differentiate between the incidence of overtime working and weekly overtime hours of overtime employees. We examine how paid‐for overtime has varied with collective bargaining coverage, low pay, the 2008 financial crisis, the arrival of Covid‐19, job mobility and the public/private sector dichotomy. Combined marginal effects of changes in the incidence of overtime working and weekly overtime hours are also provided. The influence of the decline of collective bargaining in the last two decades on overtime working is highlighted using Blinder–Oaxaca decompositions.