Environmental Quality,Energy Consumption and Economic Inequality in China:Smooth Structural Shifts and Causal Linkages

The space-temporal evolution of economic inequality is examined with Markov chain test method,and the dynamic interrelationships among environmental quality,energy consumption,and economic inequality in China from the province-level are tested by focusing on accounting for structural shifts in causal linkages in this paper.We first employ the Toda-Yamamoto causality framework and then augment it with a Fourier approximation which captures structural changes as a smooth process.The empirical findings show that taking into account smooth structural shifts is important for the causal linkages between economic inequality and energy consumption,and also between environmental quality and energy consumption.The causality analysis with structural changes provides a causal linkage between economic inequality and energy consumption in 26 out 30 provinces and a causal linkage between environmental quality and energy consumption in 7 out 30 provinces,while the quantities are 22 out 30 and 5 out 30 respectively when not accounting for structural shifts.These findings are consistent with the fact that provincial economics in China have experienced structural changes in economy-environment-energy sectors.We also conduct additional analyses which point out that regional and cyclical dependency matter for the causal relationships,and the method of HP filtering can not effectively solve the problem of smooth shifts in economy-environment-energy causality.

Macroeconomic Asymmetries in the Eurozone Countries in the Time of Financial Crisis

This paper seeks to highlight the macroeconomic asymmetries and social impacts among eurozone countries which occurred during the time of the financial crisis,emphasising the urgent need to revise the framework of economic governance.The analysis focuses on the growing macroeconomic and social imbalances on a representative sample of selected eurozone member-states(Euro(€)North and Euro(€)South)which had posed a threat to economic sustainability and social coherence.

Fair and unfair inequality in China

The paper questions the normative value in the Chinese case of standard measures of aggregate income inequality such as the Gini coefficient.Evidence is adduced that people have narrow frames of reference and that they distinguish between income inequalities that they perceive to be fair and those that they perceive to be unfair.It is suggested that value judgements about what is fair or unfair can be guided by people’s own perceptions.People’s perceptions of unfairness can also be important to a government concerned to avoid social instability.The estimation of happiness functions can help to make the relevant distinctions.Examples are given of how fair and unfair inequalities might be identified,using either a criterion of people’s perceptions or one of informed judgements.Unfairness might be more strongly felt in inequalities of economic power than in inequalities of income,although the former can in turn result in inequalities of income.An argument is made for China researchers to extend inequality research and research instruments towards an economics of fairness and unfairness.