A new approach to the analysis of inequality in the distribution of cash incomes of the population of the Ural Federal District

About the author:

Vladimir T. Tarasov, Cand. Sci. (Econ.), Associate Professor, Department of Economics and Management, the Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (Cheboksary branch); tarvlad2015@yandex.ru; ORCID: 0000-0002-3539-5618

Abstract:

The article analyzes income inequality in the regions of the Ural Federal District using methodological innovations proposed by scientists from the Study Center of Sociocultural Changes at the Institute of Philosophy of the RAS and the Vologda Scientific Center of the RAS who introduced a family of income inequality centile coefficients into scientific circulation. These indicators characterize the ratio of incomes of the population various groups in the context of its depersonalized representative macrostrates.In the context of deepening economic inequality, the relevance of these innovations increases significantly, since in the current practice of identifying and analyzing the differentiation of the population incomes, a limited list of indicators is used, while the proposed new indicators make it possible to significantly expand the analytical possibilities of substantiating social policy. However, the complexity of the innovations application lies in the fact that the published statistical information does not allow directly calculating new characteristics. In this regard, the goal of the article is to substantiate and experimentally test a new toolkit that allows, on the basis of limited factual data, to determine the decile distribution of the regions population by the level of monetary income and to form the possibility of further calculating income weights and centile indicators of inequality. Experimental calculations were performed using the example of the Ural Federal District regions for 2000-2018. As a result of calculations and subsequent analysis, macrostrains of the supposed middle class with a stable share of monetary incomes in their total volume are identified that are stable over a long time. At the same time, the growth of inequality was mainly due to the redistribution of incomes from the low-income group in favor of the population part with the highest incomes.

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