In Understanding Economic Inequality, the author brings an economist’s perspective informed by new, groundbreaking research on inequality from philosophy, sociology, psychology, and political science and presents it in a form that it is accessible to those who want to understand our world, our society, our politics, our paychecks, and our neighbors’ paychecks better.
A Financial Times Book of the Year “The strongest documentation I have seen for the many ways in which inequality is harmful to economic growth.” —Jason Furman “A timely and very useful guide...Boushey assimilates a great deal of recent economic research and argues that it amounts to a paradigm shift.” —New Yorker Do we have to choose between equality and prosperity? Decisions made over the past fifty years have created underlying fragilities in our society that make our economy less effective in good times and less resilient to shocks, such as today’s coronavirus pandemic. Many think tackling inequality would require such heavy-handed interference that it would stifle economic growth. But a careful look at the data suggests nothing could be further from the truth—and that reducing inequality is in fact key to delivering future prosperity. Presenting cutting-edge economics with verve, Heather Boushey shows how rising inequality is a drain on talent, ideas, and innovation, leading to a concentration of capital and a damaging under-investment in schools, infrastructure, and other public goods. We know inequality is fueling social unrest. Boushey shows persuasively that it is also a serious drag on growth. “In this outstanding book, Heather Boushey...shows that, beyond a point, inequality damages the economy by limiting the quantity and quality of human capital and skills, blocking access to opportunity, underfunding public services, facilitating predatory rent-seeking, weakening aggregate demand, and increasing reliance on unsustainable credit.” —Martin Wolf, Financial Times “Think rising levels of inequality are just an inevitable outcome of our market-driven economy? Then you should read Boushey’s well-argued, well-documented explanation of why you’re wrong.” —David Rotman, MIT Technology Review
The book “Economic Inequality – Trends, Traps and Trade-offs” presents the unexplored issues of economic inequality, including case studies of various countries. Inequality is a chronic divisive factor of society. It is well known that inequalities (such as economic, social, cultural, religious, geographical, etc.) have been omnipresent in human society. Inequalities can be found within each family, each community, and each nation and thus globally. Inequality is a major cause of political, economic, social instability, and creates crisis and conflict within society. A major cause of inequality is unequal, uneven, biased, power centric distributions of human economic, social, political, cultural and spiritual human necessities.The edited book examines the major parameters of the socio-economic issues of inequality and focuses on the key economic issues of inequality, namely, income and wealth distribution, equity & equality of outcome, and equality of opportunities. Economic inequality is measured by wealth, income dsiproportions in distribution and consumption patterns in a specific area. Mostly, inequality is measured using various statistical tools including the Gini Coefficient, inequality adjusted human development index, 20:20 ratio, Palma ratio, Hoover index, Galt score, Coefficient of variation, Theil index, wage share etc. However, not all income can be measured by these tools. By using case studies, this book encourages us to reframe economic development through the lens of growing inequalities and disparities. Economic growth per se is disproportional, and the efforts of scholars, practitioners and policymakers should be directed to empower the marginalized of society in a way that ‘no one should left behind’ (UN Slogan).
This state-of-the-art volume presents comparative, empirical research on a topic that has long preoccupied scholars, politicians, and everyday citizens: economic inequality. While income and wealth inequality across all populations is the primary focus, the contributions to this book pay special attention to the middle class, a segment often not addressed in inequality literature. Written by leading scholars in the field of economic inequality, all 17 chapters draw on microdata from the databases of LIS, an esteemed cross-national data center based in Luxembourg. Using LIS data to structure a comparative approach, the contributors paint a complex portrait of inequality across affluent countries at the beginning of the 21st century. The volume also trail-blazes new research into inequality in countries newly entering the LIS databases, including Japan, Iceland, India, and South Africa.
Income inequality is rising. A quarter of a century ago, the average disposable income of the richest 10% in OECD countries was around seven times higher than that of the poorest 10%; today, it's around 9½ times higher. Why does this matter? Many fear this widening gap is hurting individuals, societies and even economies. This book explores income inequality across five main headings. It starts by explaining some key terms in the inequality debate. It then examines recent trends and explains why income inequality varies between countries. Next it looks at why income gaps are growing and, in particular, at the rise of the 1%. It then looks at the consequences, including research that suggests widening inequality could hurt economic growth. Finally, it examines policies for addressing inequality and making economies more inclusive.
Succinct, accessible, and authoritative, Thomas Piketty’s The Economics of Inequality is the ideal place to start for those who want to understand the fundamental issues at the heart of one the most pressing concerns in contemporary economics and politics. This work now appears in English for the first time.
Millions of Americans don't earn enough money to pay for decent housing, food, health care, and education. Meanwhile the rich keep getting richer. Learn how governments, businesses, and citizens are fighting to close the economic gap.
During the last few decades, the gap between the incomes, wealth and living standards of rich and poor people has increased in most countries. Economic inequality has become a defining issue of our age. In this book, leading political economist Frank Stilwell provides a comprehensive overview of the nature, causes, and consequences of this growing divide. He shows how we can understand inequalities of wealth and incomes, globally and nationally, examines the scale of the problem and explains how it affects our wellbeing. He also shows that, although governments are often committed to ‘growth at all costs’ and ‘trickle down’ economics, there are alternative public policies that could be used to narrow the gap between rich and poor. Stilwell’s engaging and clear guide to the issues will be indispensable reading for all students, general readers and scholars interested in inequality in political economy, economics, public policy and beyond.
This paper analyzes the extent of income inequality from a global perspective, its drivers, and what to do about it. The drivers of inequality vary widely amongst countries, with some common drivers being the skill premium associated with technical change and globalization, weakening protection for labor, and lack of financial inclusion in developing countries. We find that increasing the income share of the poor and the middle class actually increases growth while a rising income share of the top 20 percent results in lower growth—that is, when the rich get richer, benefits do not trickle down. This suggests that policies need to be country specific but should focus on raising the income share of the poor, and ensuring there is no hollowing out of the middle class. To tackle inequality, financial inclusion is imperative in emerging and developing countries while in advanced economies, policies should focus on raising human capital and skills and making tax systems more progressive.
Economic inequality has become a focus of prime interest for economic analysts and policy makers. This book provides an integrated approach to the topics of inequality and personal income distribution. It covers the practical and theoretical bases for inequality analysis, applications to real world problems and the foundations of theoretical approaches to income distribution. It also analyses models of the distribution of labour earnings and of income from wealth. The long-run development of income - and wealth - distribution over many generations is also examined. Special attention is given to an assessment of the merits and weaknesses of standard economic models, to illustrating the implications of distributional mechanisms using real data and illustrative examples, and to providing graphical interpretation of formal arguments. Examples are drawn from US, UK and international sources.
