Inequality & Distribution

This research project deepens our understanding of labor market conditions during the Great Depression by assemling data at the national, state, and industry level for jobs created, jobs destroyed, unemployment, employment, and the labor force.

This research project examines how the spatial pattern of inequality in US cities shapes the provision of public transit and more broadly the prospects for a more equitable and sustainable transportation policy.

This research project investigates how gender and race affect the earnings of African American, Latina, and Asian American women in the United States over five decades, from 1970 to 2010.

This research project employs ideas from statistical physics to deal with income and wealth inequality, financial instability, and the distribution of energy consumption around the world.

The tension between efficiency and equilibrium is a central feature of economic systems. In many contexts, social networks mediate this trade-off: an individual’s network position determines equilibrium play, and social relations allow coordination on an efficient norm.

Bill Mitchell presents a coherent analysis of how money is created, how it functions in global exchange rate regimes, and how the mystification of the nature of money has constrained governments, and prevented states from acting in the public interest.

The recently observed surge in wealth doesn’t equate to growth of productive capital. Joseph E. Stiglitz, Branko Milanovic, Paul Krugman and Duncan Foley discuss these issues and more.

There is widespread and growing concern about the availability of good jobs in the U.S. economy. Inequality has been growing for thirty years and is now at levels not seen since the 1920s. Stable and remunerative employment has become harder for U.S. workers to find.

Household economic surveys, such as the German Socio-Economic Panel, notoriously underestimate the degree of income and wealth inequality at the upper end of the distribution.

Rising inequality reduced income growth for the bottom 95 percent of the US personal income distribution beginning about 1980.

An Open Letter to Tim Cook, CEO of Apple

Apple should be returning profits to workers who have invested their time and effort into generating its products and to taxpayers who have funded the investments in the physical infrastructure and human knowledge so critical to Apple’s success.

The paper referenced in this post, “Financialization and U.S. Income Inequality, 1970–2008,” recently was awarded the 2014 Outstanding Article Award from the Inequality, Poverty, and Mobility section of the American Sociological Association.

Anyone who has spent time in a developing country knows the importance of social connections. Among their many roles, these connections help individuals land jobs, and provide them with credit and other forms of support.