Introduction to Heterogeneity Series: Understanding Causes and Implications of Various Inequalities
Economic analysis is often geared toward understanding the average effects of a given policy or program. Likewise, economic policies frequently target the average person or firm. While averages are undoubtedly useful reference points for researchers and policymakers, they don’t tell the whole story: it is vital to understand how the effects of economic trends and government policies vary across geographic, demographic, and socioeconomic boundaries. It is also important to assess the underlying causes of the various inequalities we observe around us, be they related to income, health, or any other set of indicators. Starting today, we are running a series of six blog posts (apart from this introductory post), each of which focuses on an interesting case of heterogeneity in the United States today.
Did the Value of a College Degree Decline during the Great Recession?
In an earlier post, we studied how educational attainment affects labor market outcomes and earnings inequality. In this post, we investigate whether these labor market effects were preserved across the last business cycle: Did students with certain types of educational attainment weather the recession better?
Household Consumption Mobility over the Life‑Cycle
Health Inequality
However important income inequality is, it is only a partial representation of the inequality in well-being among individuals, households, counties, and other communities.
A Discussion of Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty‑First Century: By How Much Is r Greater than g?
Maxim Pinkovskiy describes the arguments that Thomas Piketty makes to conclude that wealth inequality will rise and that global capital taxation is needed to stop it, and offers a critical discussion of the arguments.
The Capitol Since the Nineteenth Century: Political Polarization and Income Inequality in the United States
Even the most casual observer of American politics knows that today’s Republican and Democratic parties seem to disagree with one another on just about every issue under the sun
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