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Based on data from the Eurosystem Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS), we revisit the question of how differences in household characteristics can account for cross-country differences in wealth inequality. We first show that commonly used RIF-decompositions are typically tested positive for specification error due to the large differences in household characteristics between countries. We then present an alternative analysis for which we introduce a convenient graphical representation of the wealth distribution. Our results show that not only differences in wealth inequality but also differences in distributional shape can be largely accounted for by differences in homeownership across countries, but that, for some country comparisons, differences in household incomes also matter.

We study the determinants of wage inequality and its fluctuations in six Central-Eastern European nations using European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions microdata from 2010 to 2019. Wage disparity in these countries changed in distinct ways. Inequality in Czechia and Romania is generally steady, has fallen consistently in Poland and Slovakia, and has increased in Bulgaria. Inequality has been steadily reducing in Hungary but has recently increased significantly. Therefore, this paper questions these countries' primary causes of wage inequality changes. In addition to providing a detailed description of inequality trends in these countries, we focus on examining the demographic and micro-level determinants alongside the minimum wage changes. We estimate these effects using RIF regression and RIF decompositions for various inequality measures. The changes in wage inequality in these countries were driven mainly by wage structure effects regardless of the increase or decrease in wage inequality. Changes in the returns to education and returns to permanent employment contracts are crucial in explaining decreased wage inequality. The increases in wage inequality in Hungary and Bulgaria are defined mainly by the changes in the estimated constants instead of micro-level determinants. The changes in the minimum wage explain most of the unknown factors in Bulgaria, and the spillover effects of the minimum wage may explain most of the unknown factors in Hungary. Our results can support the skill-biased technological change hypothesis in the case of Slovakia, Romania, Czechia, and Bulgaria.

Background This study examines how significant is the changes in child stunting in Sub-Saharan African countries (SSA). Then, it investigates factors that contributed to the reduction in child stunting in those countries. For each country, we distinguish the contribution of compositional effects and structural effect. Methods This paper uses data from Demographic and Health Surveys of 12 sub-Saharan African countries conducted between 2000 and 2020. The z-test to compare two independent proportions was used to assess changes in child stunting and explanatory variables over the period. Recentred influence function (RIF) decomposition method was used to decompose changes in stunting over the year in each country, and to determine the contribution of each variable to the changes. Results The prevalence of child stunting declines significantly in 11 countries over the year. The decline varies from 6.8% in Cameroun to 19% in Mali. The average year of education of the child’s mother and father, and the proportion of households with access to an improved drinking water source have contributed to the reduction in child stunting. This result was found in all the countries. Improvements in living standards, child vaccination, antenatal care attendance, delivery to health care centres, maternal education, improved drinking water sources, and improved sanitation make the largest contribution to the composition component, hence reducing child stunting. Conclusions This study sheds light on what has contributed to the achieved improvement in child nutritional status and suggests how to possibly accelerate the reduction in undernutrition in countries that lag.

Gender pay gaps persist as a significant feature of labor markets in developing countries, with disparities varying across the wage distribution and between urban and rural areas. Using data from the 2012, 2015, and 2017 Labor Force Surveys, we investigate wage discrimination and its implications for women's labor force participation, incorporating corrections for potential selection bias. Beyond the traditional Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition, we employ the Recentered Influence Function decomposition to analyze gaps across the distribution. Our results show that wage gaps are more pronounced at the lower end of the distribution, suggesting that women face significant challenges in securing equal compensation and advancing in their careers. However, once they reach leadership positions, they tend to earn comparable wages. Complementary Oaxaca-Blinder decompositions reveal a significant gender wage gap in urban areas, with women earning 8.3% and 3.4% less than men in 2012 and 2017, respectively. The unexplained gap, often associated with potential discrimination, decreased from 25% to 11% over the period. In rural areas, the gap reached 41.8% in 2012 and 25.4% in 2017, indicating a narrowing trend. Our results highlight the need for targeted public policies to address the structural barriers women face, particularly in low-paid jobs and rural labor markets.

We analyse the long-run evolution of the labour income distribution for Chile. To this end, we use thirteen waves of the CASEN household socioeconomic survey from 1990 to 2017. During this period hourly earnings inequality measured by the Gini coefficient fell from 0.47 to 0.40. We use a RIF regression approach similar to Ferreira et al. (2021) for Brazil to decompose changes in average earnings and earnings inequality. We do not find observable variables that explain -either through an endowment effect or through a structural price change- a significant part of the decrease in hourly earnings inequality.

China has witnessed remarkable ongoing digitalization with the rapid spread and adoption of the Internet. However, this remarkable development remains uneven between urban and rural populations, and hence result in different impact on their income. Employing data China General Social Survey 2018, this study explores how internet usage affects income gap between the urban and rural China. Relying on the instrumental variables approach to regression analysis, we prove that internet usage contributes to higher increase in annual income for the urban employed compared to their rural counterparts. The RIF decomposition regression results then reveal the effects of differential urban-rural internet usage ratios, explaining the widened income gap between the urban and rural employed in various income levels. The difference in the returns to urban and rural internet usage narrowed the urban-rural income gap for low - and high- income employed, but further contributed to the urban-rural income gap for the middle-income employed.

This article aims to analyze the parental reproduction of occupations and their effects on income according to the diverse socioeconomic conditions of Brazil. Logistic regressions and wage decomposition using RIF -Recentered Influence Function—were applied to the microdata of the 2019 National Continuous Household Sample Survey. We found that sons tend to follow the occupation of fathers and daughters that of mothers; rural dwellers from traditional families and from poorer classes with low levels of education are more likely to reproduce their parents' occupation. Parental reproduction of occupations among the poor leads to lower remuneration for individuals compared to those who choose other occupations and to the maintenance of economic poverty. Impacts are greatest in the smallest quantile of wage distribution and for the poor.

This paper performs a comparative investigation of the effects of the Great Recession on the labour market structure and wage inequality in certain countries in Southern Europe (Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain). By exploring the intensity of the decline of middle-skill jobs during the years 2005–2013, which makes it possible to sketch what the labour market structure has set for itself (i.e., job polarisation, upgrading or neither), the objective is to relate these changes to wage inequality and its leading determinants. Through the Recentered Influence Function regression of the Gini index on EU-SILC data, Italy is compared to each selected country in order to evaluate how much of the spatial inequality gap is accounted for by the endowment in employee characteristics (composition effect) rather than the capability of each country’s labour market to reward these characteristics (wage structure) and, second, to identify those factors that are quantitatively more significant in making differentials. In brief, Italy is less unequal than the other Southern European countries. A larger amount of its “inequality advantage” depends on the wage structure. That is, the capacity of the country’s labour market in rewarding individual endowments is more important than the ways in which they are distributed across space.

La Mauritanie a introduit en 2002 un système de prépaiement des soins de santé maternelle, le forfait obstétrical. L’objectif de cette étude est de savoir si le forfait améliore la qualité de l’accès et réduit les inégalités dans le recours aux soins obstétricaux. Les données sont celles de l’enquête ménages MICS-Mauritanie de 2015. Deux méthodes ont été utilisées. La première est la méthode des indices de concentration. La seconde est la méthode de décomposition des inégalités par fonction d’influence recentrée qui estime des effets marginaux en tenant compte des caractéristiques des individus. Le forfait obstétrical permet aux femmes enceintes d’accéder à des soins de meilleure qualité et contribue à la réduction des inégalités d’accès.Classification JEL  : I13, I14, I18. Mauritania introduced in 2002 a pre-payment system for maternal health care: the obstetrical risk insurance scheme. The objective of this study is to find out whether this scheme improves the quality of access and reduces inequalities in the use of obstetric care. Data are from the 2015 MICS-Mauritania household survey. Two methods were used. The first is the concentration index. The second is the decomposition method of inequalities by a recentered influence function, which estimates marginal effects taking into account the characteristics of individuals. The obstetrical risk insurance scheme allows pregnant women to access better quality care and contributes to reducing inequalities in access.

This paper studies the relationship between the evolution of inequality and labor informality in Brazil during the 2000s. Despite the main goal of this paper is to present new evidence on the relation between informality and inequality, this should be analyzed together with other related factors. To make this analysis, and to establish the contribution of each factor, a number of econometric decompositions were performed. We use decomposition exercises based on the combination of reweighting techniques with recentered influence function (RIF) models. Results suggest that the process of formalization contributed to reducing the concentration of income by increasing the income of persons who belong to the lowest vintiles. En este artículo se presenta el estudio de la relación entre la evolución de la desigualdad y la de la informalidad laboral durante la década del 2000 en Brasil. Aunque la meta primordial del trabajo es dilucidar la contribución del proceso de formalización experimentado durante toda la década, esta se debe analizar junto con otros factores relacionados. Para realizar este análisis y establecer la contribución de cada factor se presenta una serie de ejercicios de descomposiciones econométricas a partir de microdatos de las encuestas de hogares. Los ejercicios de descomposición considerados se basan en la combinación de técnicas de reponderación junto con estimaciones de modelos de función de influencia recentrada (expresión que en inglés se traduce como recentered influence function y se conoce por la sigla RIF). Se encuentra que el proceso de formalización considerado en forma aislada tuvo una incidencia igualadora mediante el aumento de los ingresos de las personas que pertenecen a los ventiles más bajos.