Inequality & Distribution

What we’re reading: A weekly scan of published items relevant to the Institute’s work

The corrosive social and economic effects of what have now become ‘normal’ unemployment levels require new solutions, and tradewithout full employment exacerbates the problem

As empirical evidence continues to roll in, can the theoretical orthodoxy continue to hold their ground?

Does the technology revolution require a new social policy?

The paper argues that household budgets are the best starting point for investigating a number of big questions related to the evolution of the living standards during the last two-three centuries.

Amid the ongoing research interest in questions of inequality, it is important to examine the question of access to housing — and how that has changed over the decades. The specific question I have sought to answer, here, is whether the real cost (measured against income) of buying the average home has risen.

Benner’s recent work with Manuel Pastor suggests the somewhat counterintuitive result that geographic regions with the most equitable distributions of wealth and influence also tend to have the highest growth.

Dean Corbae is a leader of the Markets network and Professor of Finance, Investment, and Banking at the Wisconsin School of Business, where he also holds an appointment in the Department of Economics. His current research focuses on consumer credit and bankruptcy, foreclosures, and banking industry dynamics.

We have developed over a number of years and now make publicly available a new and unprecedented data resource for understanding levels of living, poverty, inequality and inclusivity of growth and development around the world.

European Union countries are facing an epic challenge of integrating more than 1 million refugees from conflict zones in the Middle East and beyond.

John Eric Humphries is a member of the Inequality: Measurement, Interpretation, and Policy (MIP) network and a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow in the Department of Economics at the University of Chicago. He is the co-author of the book, The Myth of Achievement Tests, The GED and the Role of Character in American Life, along with James J. Heckman and Tim Kautz. Humphries is also a 2013 alum of the Summer School on Socieconomic Inequality.

When billionaires pay less, we all pay more.

A new film shows what economic apartheid looks like through the eyes of schoolchildren.

What can we learn from the Vietnamese, Cuban, Rwandan, and Syrian refugees crisis?

It’s no secret that wealth inequality has grown, both in the US and abroad over the past several decades. What has been particularly notable about the work of Emmanuel Saez is the quantification of that inequality.