Income Inequality and its Important Determinants in India

Abstract

Income inequality is considerably high and still growing, which may cause a significant loss of India’s human development and economic performance in the post-pandemic period. Thus, using cointegrating models viz; FMOLS, DOLS, CCR, and ARDL models, we scrutinize short-run as well as long-run impact of natural disaster, economic development, technological innovation, and human capital on income inequality in India. Results show that the natural disasters and economic development worsen income inequality in both short- and long-run. Further, India’s human capital also aggravates income inequality in the short run. In contrast, India’s technological innovation and human capital in the long run improve income distribution significantly. Finally, the policy suggestions are mentioned in the conclusion section. Our results are consistent and robust with alternative modelling.