Gelir eşitsizliği, ekonomik büyüme ve ticari açıklık iliskisi: Kenya örneği için Kuznets eğrisi yaklaşımı

The phenomenon yardstick of income inequality as an essential factor affecting a nation's development has been one of the key drawbacks of the global economy. Since the emergence of economic development strategies, the divergence between the wealthy and poor ratio has been broadly discussed by economists and is evidently drastic in Kenya as less than a percentage of their population acquires more wealth than the 99%. This paper, therefore, uses time series data between 1976-2015 to observe the fundamental relationship among income inequality, economic growth, and trade openness in Kenya by employing the Kuznets curve framework. The study aims to determine whether the Kuznets hypothesis is valid and applicable in Kenya. For this intent, two different Auto Regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) models are examined; one involving the trade openness variable and the other excluding it. The models are further used to analyze the long-run correlation among the macro variables and the Error Correction Model (ECM) for the short run relationship. By using core indicators such as the Gini coefficient for net income, GDP per capita, and trade openness, the results of the findings suggested a long-term cointegration between the dependent and independent variables. Further evaluation of findings with the introduction of trade openness detected an insignificant relationship between income inequality and economic growth. However, their relation was statistically significant both in the long and short run when openness was omitted. Obtained evidence from results not encompassing the openness variable aligned with the Kuznets dynamics thus validating its usage in the Kenyan economy. Keywords: Income Inequality, Kuznets Curve, Economic Growth, ARDL, Gini Index, Openness.