Inequality & Distribution

How can we reconnect economic success to socioeconomic outcomes?

The Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Global Working Group (HCEO) is an interdisciplinary collaboration incorporating biological, sociological and psychological perspectives into traditional economic questions of inequality and human capital.

Inequality and distribution—areas underserved by mainstream economics—sit at the heart of The Institute’s work. This program brings together researchers from a variety of disciplines to develop alternative approaches to the problem of inequality.

Rana Dasgupta shares his view of the contradictions and tensions of India’s economic and political scenes.

The interaction between social structure and markets remains a central theme in the social sciences. In some instances, markets can build on and enhance social networks’ economic role; in other contexts, markets appear to be in direct competition with social networks. The impact of markets on inequality and welfare is also varying: while markets can sometimes offer valuable outside options to marginalised individuals, in other situations only well connected and better off individuals can benefit from them.

When the adoption of a new labor‐saving technology increases labor productivity, it is an open question whether the economy adjusts in the medium‐term by decreasing employment or increasing output. This paper studies the effects of cheaper electricity on the labor market during the Great Depression.

The ongoing explosion of the incomes of the richest households and the erosion of middle-class employment opportunities for most of the rest have become integrally related in the now-normal operation of the U.S. economy.

How can we better protect Main Street from the externalities of Wall Street?

The turmoil of Brexit and the populist challenge across Europe are consequences of austerity policies that have brought misery to millions of ordinary voters. In this interview first published last January, Servaas Storm warned of the dangers of economic decision making divorced from democracy and from the social consequences of its prescriptions

This research project posits that increasing income concentration and erosion of the middle class are interrelated results of a change in the dominant corporate resource-allocation regime from “retain-and-reinvest” to “downsize-and-distribute,” manifested by massive distributions to shareholders and the disappearance of “collective and cumulative” careers.