ABSTRACT

In this paper, we construct a composite social well-being index to investigate disparities between 30 African countries. We do this because previous inequality studies relied on income measures; however, when it comes to Africa, specifically, income is not an adequate measure to capture well-being. Furthermore, we apply the recentered influence function (RIF) method to regress the variance of social well-being on likely influencing factors. Lastly, we use the Blinder–Oaxaca decomposition technique to investigate the gap between countries with higher, and those with lower levels of social well-being. The results indicate that there are high levels of inequality; however, the inequality in social well-being is less stark than in income. Factors that are significantly related to inequality are employment, gender equality, exports, CO₂ emissions, population density, public protests, capital investment, and internet access. The gap that exists between higher and lower social well-being countries is mainly due to the endowment effect.

摘要

在本文中，我们构建了一个复合社会福利指数来调查 30 个非洲国家之间的差异。我们这样做是因为之前的不平等研究依赖于收入衡量标准；然而，特别是在非洲，收入不足以衡量幸福感。此外，我们应用重新中心影响函数（RIF）方法来回归社会福利对可能影响因素的方差。最后，我们使用 Blinder-Oaxaca 分解技术来调查社会福利水平较高和较低的国家之间的差距。结果表明不平等程度很高；然而，社会福祉的不平等不如收入不平等。与不平等显着相关的因素是就业、性别平等、出口、二氧化碳₂排放、人口密度、公众抗议、资本投资和互联网接入。社会福利高低国家之间存在的差距主要是由于禀赋效应。