Booming stock markets and the collapse of house prices in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis have increased wealth inequality in the US to a new historical high. Meanwhile, the racial wealth gap has stayed put for over 70 years, with virtually no progress in reducing wealth inequality between black and white households.
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Columbia professor Suresh Naidu on Economics for Inclusive Prosperity, the new initiative he launched with Dani Rodrik and Gabriel Zucman, and why he believes economics shouldn’t be conflated with neoliberalism.
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In a recent Stigler Center conversation with Luigi Zingales, Rajan talked about his new book The Third Pillar and explained why today’s populists “are asking the right question” but providing only wrong answers.
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Inequality and climate change are both global problems that cannot be solved by a single country. Yet we are stuck with the political limitations of the nation-state.
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There is mounting evidence that income inequality and disparities in wealth have been rising in advanced economies in the recent decades. Using data on advanced and emerging economies, this column investigates the link between an economy’s financial structure—that is, the mix of bank-provided versus market-provided funds—and income inequality. Results show that the relationship is not monotonic. More finance reduces income inequality up to a point, but beyond that point inequality rises, especially if finance is expanded via market-based financing.
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A new study finds that the contribution of superstar firms to US productivity growth has decreased by more than 40 percent over the past 20 years.
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A new study tracks the influence of public policy on inequality and argues that the main rise in inequality has been a result of the decline in public sectors in the OECD countries.
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A new study looks at the long-run evolution of rent sharing between companies and workers in the UK and finds that rent sharing has significantly decreased between 2001 and 2016, particularly among companies that enjoy monopolistic markups.
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A new study finds that obtaining health insurance coverage leads to lower unpaid debt, fewer bankruptcies, fewer evictions, fewer late payments, and higher credit scores for individuals—especially the sick.
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Inequality in stock ownership has grown considerably over the past two decades and is far more pronounced than inequality in consumption or income. A new study charts how this is exacerbated by excess market power.
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The United States needs to rethink its trade policy. A new report offers a blueprint, consisting of ten major reforms.
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New research proposes two ways of using wealth taxes to reduce inequality and increase efficiency.
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