Pandemics and Income Inequality: What Do the Data Tell for the Globalization Era?

Tiejun Chen; Giray Gozgor; Chun Kwong Koo

doi:10.3389/fpubh.2021.674729

Pandemics and Income Inequality: What Do the Data Tell for the Globalization Era?

Front Public Health. 2021 May 28:9:674729. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2021.674729. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Tiejun Chen¹, Giray Gozgor², Chun Kwong Koo³

Affiliations

¹ School of Management, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou, China.
² Faculty of Political Sciences, Istanbul Medeniyet University, Istanbul, Turkey.
³ HeXie Management Research Centre, Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, Suzhou, China.

Abstract

This paper empirically investigates the effects of pandemics uncertainty on income inequality We consider a new measure of pandemics uncertainty, the World Pandemic Discussion Index (WPDI), and the post-tax (net) Gini coefficient We focus on the panel data of 141 countries from 1996 to 2020. The results from the Feasible General Least Squares estimations indicate that the WPDI is negatively related to income inequality in 107 non-OECD countries. However, the WPDI is positively associated with income inequality in 34 OECD economies. This evidence remains robust when considering different models, including several controls, and implementing various sensitivity analyses.

Keywords: COVID-19 crisis; Feasible General Least Squares estimations; Income inequality; WPDI; World Pandemic Discussion Index; pandemics uncertainty.

MeSH terms

Income*
Internationality
Pandemics*
Uncertainty