Has Mexico imported its obesity epidemic from the United States? A new study suggests that the answer to this question is “yes.”
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Does Sweden’s Radical Right Reflect Too Much Social Inclusivity, Or Too Little?
Many have attributed the success of the far-right Sweden Democrats to Sweden’s open immigration policy. Instead, a new study shows that income inequality and labor-market conditions may have fueled the rise of the Swedish radical right.
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Inequality in the Middle East
Survey estimates suggest that inequality in the Middle East is not particularly high despite considerable political conflict. This column uses new ‘distributional national accounts’ data to show that the Middle East is in fact the most unequal region in the world, with both enormous inequality between countries and large inequality within countries. The results emphasize the need to develop mechanisms of regional redistribution and to increase transparency on income and wealth data.
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When It Comes to Gender Imbalances, Academia’s Ignorance Is Self-Serving
The Ravina vs. Columbia case illustrates that challenging the status quo can be immensely costly. We economists should collectively think about how we can further both human dignity and science by becoming better scientists in life, not just on paper, argues Renée Adams in this op-ed.
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Is Lionizing CEOs Dangerous for Society?
In an interview with ProMarket, Open University’s Peter Bloom talks about his provocative new book CEO Society and why he believes celebrating corporate CEOs too much erodes democratic values.
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Do Wages in High-Earning Sectors Always Reflect Skills?
Did the soaring wages in finance go in hand with a better selection of talented individuals into the sector? The evidence suggests no.
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How US Voters React to Immigration in the Voting Booth May Depend on Both Immigrants’ and Native Residents’ Skill Levels
A new working paper has revealed two strikingly divergent correlations between increases in high-skilled and low-skilled immigration and change in Republican vote share since 1994.
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Gabriel Zucman: “Some People in Economics Feel That Talking About Inequality Is Not What Economists Should Be Doing”
The rising scholar of taxation and inequality talks to ProMarket about the problems excessive economic power poses for open political systems, how states can tackle profit-shifting, and critics who have dismissed his work on distributional issues as “a French economics.”
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Education Quality Has Less to Do with Adult Outcomes Than You Might Think
A new paper assesses the contributions of education and labor markets to differences across regional labor markets in the United States and finds that differences in access to high-quality elementary and secondary schools are not a key channel driving the strength of the association between parents’ incomes and their children’s incomes when they reach adulthood.
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Excessive Zoning Makes Us Poorer and More Unequal
We normally think of income inequality as a function of differences in class or socioeconomic status. But much more than generally realized, geographic differences are a major source of inequality as well, argue Brink Lindsey and Steven Teles in this extract from their new book The Captured Economy.
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Why Democracy Fails to Reduce Inequality: Blame the Brahmin Left
A new paper by Thomas Piketty finds that major parties on both sides of the political spectrum have been captured by elites and warns of a future political system that pits “globalists” against “nativists.”
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Investing in Quality Early Childcare Is Good for Vulnerable Kids—and Good Economics, Too
Early childcare can be a major contributor to eliminating inequality of opportunity and even lay the foundations for a more productive workforce in the future.
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