Inequality & Distribution

A budget approach cloaked in the aura of science and technical jargon became a tool of manipulation.

Since Aristotle the question about the potential relationship between economic inequality and democratic changes has been studied and debated – but scientifically our ability as researchers to assess and understand how such complex social phenomena may be related is much more limited than recognised.

Can education stop the country’s backward slide?

The Cambridge UK vs USA capital theory debates of the 1960s showed that the workhorse mainstream growth model relies on unsustainable assumptions. Its standard interpretation is not consistent with the last four decades of data.

Lance Taylor explains how missing the big picture is too common in the field.

The United States economy has come apart, with the rich getting richer and workers’ incomes not advancing at all.

Exploring inequality, gender, and the North-South divide.

How much does the standard theory of externalities and public goods really say?

I describe the American economy in the twenty-first century as a dual economy in the spirit of W. Arthur Lewis.

This is almost certainly the highest level of relative, and certainly absolute, global inequality at any point in human history. Is there anything we can do to reverse or mitigate this trend?

We investigate the claim that the way in which debtor households service their debts matters for macroeconomic performance.

Sometimes a radical path is the most practical way out of a mess.

A panel featuring Thomas Piketty, Kevin Murphy, and Steven Durlauf

The Institute recently sponsored several panels at the Kiel Global Economic Symposium. In particular, the panel on Income Distribution and Mobility struck us as likely to be of especially wide interest. We are grateful for the participation of all the scholars on them and are pleased to present summaries of their presentations here.

Adair Turner discusses his new book, Between Debt and the Devil: Money, Credit, and Fixing Global Finance.