Person: Rodríguez Hernández, Juan Gabriel
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First Name
Juan Gabriel
Last Name
Rodríguez Hernández
Affiliation
Universidad Complutense de Madrid
Faculty / Institute
Ciencias Económicas y Empresariales
Department
Análisis Económico y economía cuantitativa
Area
Fundamentos del Análisis Económico
Identifiers
7 results
Search Results
Now showing 1 - 7 of 7
Item The COVID-19 shock on the labour market: Poverty and inequality effects across Spanish regions(2021) Palomino, Juan C.; Rodríguez Hernández, Juan Gabriel; Sebastián Lago, RaquelWe evaluate the distributional consequences of social distancing for the case of Spanish regions. Under 2 months of lockdown plus 10 months of partial functioning our study consistently finds potential wage losses that are sizeable and uneven across the wage distribution all around Spain, but with different intensity depending on the region’s productive structure. The increase of the headcount poverty index oscillates between 8.2 (Navarre) and 19.2 (the Balearic Islands) percentage points, while the Gini coefficient rises between 2.3 (Navarre) and 5.3 (the Balearic Islands) Gini points. We also find that inequality between regions increases, eroding regional cohesion in Spain.Item Wage inequality and poverty effects of lockdown and social distancing in Europe(2020) Palomino, Juan C.; Rodríguez Hernández, Juan Gabriel; Sebastián Lago, RaquelSocial distancing and lockdown measures taken to contain the spread of COVID-19 may have distributional economic costs beyond the contraction of GDP. Here we evaluate the capacity of individuals to work under a lockdown based on a Lockdown Working Ability index which considers their teleworking capacity and whether their occupation is essential or closed. Our analysis reveals substantial and uneven potential wage losses across the distribution all around Europe and we consistently find that both poverty and wage inequality rise in all European countries. Under four different scenarios (2 months of lockdown and 2 months of lockdown plus 6 months of partial functioning of closed occupations at 80%, 70% and 60% of full capacity) we estimate for 29 European countries an average increase in the headcount poverty index that goes from 4.9 to 9.4 percentage points and a mean loss rate for poor workers between 10% and 16.2%. The average increase in the Gini coefficient ranges between 3.5% to 7.3% depending on the scenario considered. Decomposing overall wage inequality in Europe, we find that lockdown and social distance measures produce a double process of divergence: both inequality within and between countries increase.Item Making the most of world talent for science? The Nobel Prize and Fields Medal experience(Scientometrics, 2022) Rodríguez Hernández, Juan GabrielOpportunities in science largely affect the accumulation of scientific knowledge and, therefore, technological change. However, there is little evidence of how much of people’s talent is actually wasted. Here we focus on scientists with the highest performance, the recipients of the Nobel Prize and Fields Medal. We found that the average age of scientists at the time of the breakthrough was higher for researchers from less developed countries. Moreover, individual opportunities in the world were extremely unequal by country of birth, gender significantly conditioned any participation in research, and the probability of becoming a top researcher more than doubled for individuals with parents belonging to the most favoured occupational categories. Thus, inequality of opportunity in science at the highest level was higher than in sports excellence (Olympic medals) and educational attainment. These findings would not be so negative if opportunities in science at the highest level had increased over time. Contrary to the expectations, our results show that opportunities in science, in contrast with humanities, have stagnated.Item COVID-19 restrictions in the US: wage vulnerability by education, race and gender(2021) Gambau Suelves, Borja; Palomino, Juan C.; Rodríguez Hernández, Juan Gabriel; Sebastián Lago, RaquelWe study the wage vulnerability to the stay-at-home orders and social distancing measures imposed to prevent COVID-19 contagion in the US by education, race, gender, and state. Under 2 months of lockdown plus 10 months of partial functioning we find that both wage inequality and poverty increase in the US for all social groups and states. For the whole country, we estimate an increase in inequality of 4.1 Gini points and of 9.7 percentage points for poverty, with uneven increases by race, gender, and education. The restrictions imposed to curb the spread of the pandemic produce a double process of divergence: both inequality within and between social groups increase, with education accounting for the largest part of the rise in inequality between groups. We also find that education level differences impact wage poverty risk more than differences by race or gender, making lower-educated groups the most vulnerable while graduates of any race and gender are similarly less exposed. When measuring mobility as the percentile rank change, most women with secondary education or higher move up, while most men without higher education suffer downward mobility. Our findings can inform public policy aiming to address the disparities in vulnerability to pandemic-related shocks across different socioeconomic groups.Item A non-parametric decomposition of redistribution into vertical and horizontal components(2001) Perrote Coste, Irene; Rodríguez Hernández, Juan Gabriel; Salas del Mármol, RafaelWe apply non-parametric methods to construct an index to measure horizontal inequity (HI). The index tackles the problem of arbitrary definition of similar individuals, and has important normative properties: HI is measured by the distance between the Lorenz curves of estimated and actual post-tax income distribution. This incorporates an ordinal view of HI. Moreover, the total effect of a tax system can be decomposed into welfare gain due to income redistribution free of HI and welfare loss due to HI. Indices such as in Aronson et al. (1994) and Lambert and Ramos (1997) can be seen as particular cases.Item Inheritances and wealth inequality: a machine learning approach(The Journal of Economic Inequality, 2022) Salas Rojo, Pedro; Rodríguez Hernández, Juan GabrielThis paper explores the relationship between received inheritances and the distribution of wealth (financial, non-financial and total) in four developed countries: the United States, Canada, Italy and Spain. We follow the inequality of opportunity (IOp) literature and − considering inheritances as the only circumstance− we show that traditional IOp approaches can lead to non-robust and arbitrary measures of IOp depending on discretionary cut-off choices of a continuous circumstance such as inheritances. To overcome this limitation, we apply Machine Learning methods (‘random forest’ algorithm) to optimize the choice of cutoffs and we find that IOp explains over 60% of wealth inequality in the US and Spain (using the Gini coefficient), and more than 40% in Italy and Canada. Including parental education as an additional circumstance −available for the US and Italy− we find that inheritances are still the main contributor. Finally, using the S-Gini index with different parameters to weight different parts of the distribution, we find that the effect of inheritances is more prominent at the middle of the wealth distribution, while parental education is more important for the asset-poor.Item Majority voting and Gini-based social welfare: testing the hypothesis of symmetry(Applied Economics Letters, 2015) Rodríguez Hernández, Juan Gabriel; Salas del Mármol, RafaelMajority voting accords with the class of social evaluation functions consistent with the Gini coefficient when income distributions are symmetric under a rank-dependent transformation (Rodríguez and Salas, 2014). Under this assumption, median income and the equally distributed equivalent income are the same, and the Gini coefficient is an affine function of the median–mean ratio. Despite the importance of these findings, the empirical plausibility of the symmetry hypothesis has not been tested yet. In this article, we contrast the symmetry assumption with an empirical exercise based on the Survey on Income and Living Conditions data set for the European Union in the period 2005–2007. We find that the symmetric condition is generally fulfilled.