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Apply to join the next cohort of Stone PhD Scholars.

Fellowships for Harvard PhD students in the social sciences working on inequality.

Stone Program in Wealth Distribution, Inequality & Social Policy

The james m. and cathleen d. stone program in wealth distribution, inequality, and social policy unites faculty, students, and researchers from across harvard university and beyond to better understand and address the causes and consequences of wealth concentration and economic inequality..

Funded by the James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Foundation, the new program at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy includes the work of the former Multidisciplinary Program in Inequality and Social Policy and adds new components, including a consortium of doctoral students in the social sciences whose research focuses on income and wealth inequality; policy-relevant and public-facing research that speaks to real-world problems; and public events to communicate research and engage members of the broader community.

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Letters & Science

Uc berkeley james m. and cathleen d. stone center on wealth and income inequality.

The James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Center on Wealth and Income Inequality at UC Berkeley was created to serve as a research hub for campus and beyond, enabling UC Berkeley’s world-leading scholars to deepen our understanding of the inequality in society and formulate new approaches to address the challenge of creating a more equitable society. The Center serves as the primary convening point at UC Berkeley for research, teaching and data development concerning the causes, nature, and consequences of wealth and income inequalities with a special emphasis on the concentration of wealth at the very top. 

2024 Summer Institute

We are accepting applications for early-stage PhD students to attend a Summer Institute at Berkeley.  Deadline to apply is February 15, 2024 .  Information and application are available at the Summer Institute website .

Emmanuel Saez

Emmanuel Saez is Professor of Economics and Director of the James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Center on Wealth and Income Inequality at UC Berkeley. He received his PhD in Economics from MIT in 1999. His research focuses on inequality and tax policy. Jointly with Thomas Piketty, he created the top income share series that show a dramatic increase in US inequality since 1980. The data have been widely discussed in the public debate. His most recent book "The Triumph of Injustice", joint with his colleague Gabriel Zucman, narrates the demise of US progressive taxation and how to reinvent it in the 21st century. He received numerous academic awards including the John Bates Clark medal of the American Economic Association in 2009, a MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship in 2010, and an Honorary degree from Harvard University in 2019. Read more

Hilary Hoynes

Hilary Hoynes, co-director of the  James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Center on Wealth and Income Inequality at UC Berkeley, is a Professor of Economics and Public Policy and holds the Haas Distinguished Chair in Economic Disparities at the University of California Berkeley where she also co-directs the Berkeley Opportunity Lab. Her research focuses on poverty, inequality, food and nutrition programs, and the impacts of government tax and transfer programs on low-income families. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Social Insurance, and a Fellow of the Society of Labor Economists. She has served as Co-Editor of the American Economic Review and the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy. She currently serves on the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Building an Agenda to Reduce the Number of Children in Poverty by Half in 10 Years. Read more

Gabriel Zucman

Gabriel Zucman is Associate Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley, co-director of the summer school at the James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Center on Wealth and Income Inequality at UC Berkeley, and director of the EU Tax Observatory. He is the author of articles published in peer-reviewed journals such as the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the American Economic Review, the Journal of Public Economics, and of two books. His research focuses on the accumulation, distribution, and taxation of global wealth and has renewed the analysis of the macro-distributional implications of globalization. In a series of papers and in his book The Hidden Wealth of Nations, he has developed methods to measure the wealth held in tax havens. This research finds that 8% of the world’s household financial wealth is held in tax havens, with large variation across countries—from a few percent in Scandinavia to 50% in Russia. Data leaked from offshore financial institutions (such as the “Panama Papers”) suggest that offshore wealth is highly concentrated.  Read more

Mathilde Muñoz

Mathilde Muñoz  is Assistant professor of economics and a faculty affiliate at the James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Center on Wealth and Income Inequality at UC Berkeley. Mathilde works on topics in public economics and international trade, with a particular interest for the distributional effects of globalization and tax competition. Her research has been awarded the Young Economist Award from the International Institute for Public Finance in 2019, the OECD Future of work fellowship in 2020 and the Arthur Sachs prize in 2021. Since 2020, she has been appointed by the European Commission as a national expert for international mobility and trade in services in France and Belgium, as part of the POSTING.STAT consortium. She will receive her PhD in Economics from Paris School of Economics in 2022 after spending the 2021-2022 year as the Arthur Sachs research fellow at Harvard Economics department. Read more

Eva Seto is Associate Director of the Social Science Matrix and administers the Summer Institute for the Stone Center at Berkeley. Her education and many years of experience working in research institutes on the Berkeley campus provide Matrix with knowledge about the social-science landscape on campus, as well as the management skills to help successfully administer the programs, centers, and projects of Matrix. Eva earned her M.A. and B.A in Economics from UC Berkeley.

Camille Fernandez

Camille is the Executive Director for the James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Center on Wealth and Income Inequality along with The Robert D. Burch and Center for Labor Economics. She has worked in the economics department in several roles, including serving as center manager for various centers. She is a former staff member of the UC Berkeley Police Department where she supported the department for 20 years.

Researchers

Jakob Brounstein

Jakob Brounstein is PhD Candidate in economics at UC Berkeley studying public and labor economics. He specializes in issues related to fiscality, tax avoidance/evasion, and inequality. His current work focuses on the tax externalities of homelessness policy and comprehensively estimating the changes in benefits absorbed and taxes collected in response to changes in individuals’ homelessness status. 

Cristóbal Otero

Cristóbal is a PhD Candidate in Economics at UC Berkeley. He holds a BA and an MA in Economics from Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. He also obtained an MSc in Philosophy of the Social Sciences from the London School of Economics. His fields of interest are public and labor economics. His current research focuses on the impact of corporate taxation on investment and wages. His website can be found here

Javier Feinmann

Javier Feinmann is an Argentinian economist pursuing his PhD in Economics at UC Berkeley. He earned his B.A. in Universidad de Buenos Aires and his M.A. in Universidad Torcuato di Tella, both in Buenos Aires. His current research agenda is at the intersection of Public, Labor and Development Economics, with a particular focus on inequality and the government's role in the economy. He works on topics related to tax evasion in developing countries.

Nina Roussille

Nina Roussille will join MIT’s Economics Department as an Assistant Professor in 2023, after spending the 2021-2022 academic year as an Assistant Professorial Research Fellow at LSE and the 2022-2023 academic year as a Postdoctoral Associate at MIT. Nina works on topics in labor, gender and public economics, with a particular interest for the distributional effects of labor market policies. She received her PhD in Economics from UC Berkeley in 2021 and previously worked as a pre-doctoral fellow at Harvard for the Opportunity Insight lab.

Wouter Leenders

Wouter Leenders is a PhD student at the Department of Economics at UC Berkeley. In his research he studies the distribution of wealth, income, and taxes, as well as the effect of government policies on these distributions. He obtained a BA in Economics from the University of Cambridge and an MSc in Economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Will Sandholtz

Will Sandholtz is a PhD student in the Department of Economics at UC Berkeley.  He primarily studies public finance and microeconomic theory.  Recently, he has researched how corporate tax rates affect the location of U.S. multinationals' profits and capital stock. Will also holds undergraduate degrees in economics and statistics from UC Berkeley.

Carmen Durrer

Carmen Durrer de la Sota is a research assistant at the World Inequality Lab and a graduate student at the Paris School of Economics. She holds a degree in social sciences from Sciences Po Paris.

Arthur Vasconcellos Pacheco Weiss

Arthur Vasconcellos Pacheco Weiss is a Pre Doc at Institute for Research on Labor & Employment. He holds a BA in Economics and in Theater and Performance Studies from UC Berkeley. He wrote his senior thesis on the impact of recreational marijuana legalization on the use of hard drugs and is now aiding in researching the impact of school reform in Brazil. His thesis will soon be available here .

Eva Davoine

Eva Davoine is a PhD student at Haas, UC Berkeley. She holds a BA and an MA in Economics from Sciences Po Paris and worked as a pre-doctoral fellow at the World Bank. Her current research is at the intersection of Public, Political and Development Economics. She is particularly interested in tax resistance movements and inequalities, both in developed and developing countries. 

Felipe Lobel

Felipe is a PhD candidate in the Economics Department at the University of California, Berkeley. His research lies on the intersection of Public, Labor and Development Economics. His work focuses on the effects of corporate taxation. He combines theory and data to deepen our understanding about firm dynamics, labor markets, and the design of redistributive policy. His research relies on data from the US, Honduras, and mostly Brazil. Find out more on his website .

by  Facundo Alvaredo (Editor) ,  Lucas Chancel (Editor) ,  Thomas Piketty (Editor) ,  Emmanuel Saez (Editor) ,  Gabriel Zucman (Editor)

The Stone Center Annual Lecture: Global wealth, gender and carbon injustice

The 2022 world inequality report, march 2022 the stone center annual lecture: global wealth, gender and carbon injustice.

Presentation by Lucas Chancel, editor of the 2022 World Inequality Report.

World Inequality Report 2022 - Introduction

Twitter: @ucbstone

The 2022 uc berkeley annual stone lecture: slouching towards utopia, 2022/23 visitors, apply for research support.

The James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Center on Wealth and Income Inequality awards grants for Berkeley students and faculty working on issues related to inequality. Grants have an annual funding cycle with an application deadline of late spring. An email will be sent each spring to the Berkeley community with the application announcement and the due date. Additional funding for students is available on an ongoing basis for travels, data purchases, and other research-related expenses; please contact us .

Research and Publications

Tax Evasion at The Top of the Income Distribution: Theory and Evidence

This paper studies tax evasion at the top of the U.S. income distribution using IRS micro-data from (i) random audits, (ii) targeted enforcement activities, and (iii) operational audits. Drawing on this unique combination of data, we demonstrate empirically that random audits underestimate tax evasion at the top of the income distribution. Specifically, random audits do not capture most tax evasion through offshore accounts and pass-through businesses, both of which are quantitatively important at the top.

A Wealth Tax on Corporations’ Stock

We propose to institute a new tax on corporations’ stock shares for all publicly listed companies headquartered in G20 countries. Every year, each company would have to pay 0.2 percent of the value of its stock in taxes. As the G20 stock market capitalization is around $90 trillion, the tax would raise approximately $180 billion each year.

Trends in U.S. Income and Wealth Inequality: Revising After the Revisionists

Recent studies argue that US inequality has increased less than previously thought, in particular,  due to a more modest rise of wealth and capital income at the top (Smith et al., 2019; Smith,  Zidar and Zwick, 2020; Auten and Splinter, 2019). We examine the claims made in these papers point by point, separating genuine improvements from arguments that do not appear to us well-grounded empirically or conceptually. Taking stock of this body of work, and factoring in other improvements, we provide a comprehensive update of our estimates of US income and wealth inequality

The Rise of Income and Wealth Inequality in America: Evidence from Distributional Macroeconomic Accounts

The fraction of national income that is reported in individual income tax data has declined from 70 percent in the late 1970s to about 60 percent in 2018. The gap is larger in survey data, such as the Current Population Survey, which do not capture top incomes well. This gap makes it hard to address questions such as: What fraction of national income is earned by the bottom 50 percent, the middle 40 percent, and the top 10 percent of the distribution? Who has benefited from economic growth since the 1980s?

Ending Corporate Tax Avoidance and Tax Competition: A Plan to Collect the Tax Deficit of Multinationals

Between 1985 and 2019, the global average statutory corporate tax rate has fallen from 49 percent to 23 percent, largely due to the rise of international tax competition. The biggest winners from globalization have received the largest tax cuts. In this paper we propose a solution to replace this race-to-the-bottom with a race-to-the-top. Multinational companies that have low effective tax rates in some foreign countries (what we call a “tax deficit”) would pay an extra tax in their home country. We explain how such a tax should be designed and how it could be collected.

Capital Gains Withholding

This paper studies tax evasion at the top of the U.S. income distribution using IRS micro-data from (i) random audits, (ii) targeted enforcement activities and (iii) operational audits. Drawing on this unique combination of data, we demonstrate empirically that random audits underestimate tax evasion at the top of the income distribution.

How to Get $1 Trillion from 1000 Billionaires: Tax their Gains Now

Billionaires pay low effective tax rates because they can defer taxes on their capital gains for decades or forever as income tax on gains is due only upon sale of assets. US billionaires. now own $4.25 Trillion, out of which $2.7 Trillion are gains that they haven’t paid tax upon yet. During COVID, billionaires' untaxed gains increased by $1.25 Trillion. We propose to end this tax deferral advantage by imposing a one-time tax on the stock of billionaires’ unrealized gains at the ordinary tax rate (39.6%+3.8% under Biden’s plan).

Increasing the Minimum Wage through Tax Policy

This document describes how to use tax policy to achieve the same economic goal as a minimum wage increase: increasing the net pay of low paid workers using extra taxes on their employers.

Photo info and Bio

EMMANUEL SAEZ

Courses and seminars.

Econ 230B: Graduate Public Economics (with downloadable lecture notes) Econ 131: Undergraduate Public Economics (with downloadable lecture notes) Econ 231: Public Economics Seminar and Lunch (Berkeley Calendar)

WEBSITES AND BOOKS

Papers by topic, new or recently revised, income and wealth inequality, empirical public policy studies.

NEW "Deadwood Labor? The Effects of Eliminating Employment Protection for Older Workers" with Benjamin Schoefer and David Seim, NBER Working Paper No. 31797, October 2023, revised March 2024 (VOX summary) (Slides) "Hysteresis from Employer Subsidies" with Benjamin Schoefer and David Seim, Journal of Public Economics 200, 2021, 104459 "Intertemporal Labor Supply Substitution? Evidence from the Swiss Income Tax Holidays" with Isabel Martinez and Michael Siegenthaler, American Economic Review 111(2), 2021, 506-546 (online appendix) (VOX summary) (Slides) "Progressive Wealth Taxation" with Gabriel Zucman, Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Fall 2019, 437-511 (Slides) (Tables and Figures in Excel format) (precursor "How Would a Progressive Wealth Tax Work? Evidence from the Economics Literature", February 2019) "Payroll Taxes, Firm Behavior, and Rent Sharing: Evidence from a Young Workers' Tax Cut in Sweden" with Benjamin Schoefer and David Seim, American Economic Review 109(5), 2019, 1717–1763 (online appendix) (older version NBER Working Paper No. 23976, October 2017) (VOX summary) (Slides) "Taxing the Rich More: Preliminary Evidence from the 2013 Tax Increase", Tax Policy and the Economy 31, 2017, 71-120 (old version, NBER Working Paper No. 22798, November 2016) (Slides) (Excel Data) (WCEG Summary) "Contribution Ceilings and the Incidence of Payroll Taxes" with Alvaredo, Facundo, Thomas Breda, and Barra Roantree, De Economist 165(2), 2017, 129-140 "How Elastic are Preferences for Redistribution? Evidence from Randomized Survey Experiments" with Ilyana Kuziemko, Michael Norton, and Stefanie Stantcheva, American Economic Review 105(4), 2015, 1478-1508 (Slides) (WCEG Summary) (Data and Programs) "What Policies Increase Prosocial Behavior? An Experiment with Referees at the Journal of Public Economics" with Raj Chetty and Laszlo Sandor, Journal of Economic Perspectives 28(3), 2014, 169-188 (VOX summary) (Slides) (Data and Programs) "Migration and Wage Effects of Taxing Top Earners: Evidence from the Foreigners' Tax Scheme in Denmark" with Henrik Kleven, Camille Landais, and Esben Schultz, Quarterly Journal of Economics 129(1), 2014, 333-378 (old version NBER Working Paper No. 18885, March 2013) (Slides) (VOX summary) "Using Differences in Knowledge Across Neighborhoods to Uncover the Impacts of the EITC on Earnings" with Raj Chetty and John Friedman, American Economic Review 103(7), 2013, 2683–2721 (Longer version NBER Working Paper No. 18232, July 2012, revised February 2013) (Slides) "Taxation and International Mobility of Superstars: Evidence from the European Football Market" with Henrik Kleven and Camille Landais, American Economic Review 103(5), 2013, 1892-1924 (Slides) (older version NBER Working Paper No. 16545, November 2010) (NBER Digest summary) (Data and Programs) "Teaching the Tax Code: Earnings Responses to an Experiment with EITC Recipients" with Raj Chetty, American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 5(1), 2013, 1-31 (older version NBER Working Paper No. 14836, April 2009) (NBER Digest summary) "Earnings Determination and Taxes: Evidence from a Cohort Based Payroll Tax Reform in Greece" with Manos Matsaganis and Panos Tsakloglou, Quarterly Journal of Economics 127(1), 2012, 493-533 (Slides) "The Elasticity of Taxable Income with Respect to Marginal Tax Rates: A Critical Review" with Joel Slemrod and Seth Giertz, Journal of Economic Literature 50(1), 2012, 3-50 (older version NBER Working Paper No. 15012, May 2009) "How Does Your Kindergarten Classroom Affect Your Earnings? Evidence from Project STAR", with Raj Chetty, John Friedman, Nathaniel Hilger, Diane Schanzenbach, and Danny Yagan, Quarterly Journal of Economics 126, 2011, 1593-1660 (with supplementary appendix) (Slides) (Kappan article summary) "Unwilling or Unable to Cheat? Evidence from a Tax Audit Experiment in Denmark" with Henrik Kleven, Martin Knudsen, Claus Kreiner, and Soren Pedersen, Econometrica 79(3), 2011, 651-692 (older version NBER Working Paper No. 15769, February 2010) (NBER Digest summary) "Do Taxpayers Bunch at Kink Points?" American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 2(3), 2010, 180-212 (earlier version NBER-TAPES conference draft, June 2002) (older version NBER Working Paper No. 7366, 1999) (Programs) "How Progressive is the U.S. Federal tax system? A Historical and International Perspective" with Thomas Piketty, Journal of Economic Perspectives , 21(1), 3-24, Winter 2007 (longer version NBER Working Paper No. 12404, July 2006) (All Tables and Figures in excel format) "Earnings Responses to Increases in Payroll Taxes" with Jeff Liebman, September 2006 "The Effects of Taxes on Market Responses to Dividend Announcements and Payments: What Can we Learn from the 2003 Dividend Tax Cut?" with Raj Chetty and Joe Rosenberg, NBER Working Paper No. 11452, June 2005 published in A. Auerbach and J. Slemrod, eds. Taxing Corporate Income in the 21st Century, Cambridge University Press, 2007 "The Effect of the 2003 Dividend Tax Cut on Corporate Behavior: Interpreting the Evidence" with Raj Chetty, American Economic Review, Papers and Proceedings , 96(2), 2006, 124-129 "Dividend Taxes and Corporate Behavior: Evidence from the 2003 Dividend Tax Cut" with Raj Chetty, Quarterly Journal of Economics , 120(3), 2005, 791-833 (longer version NBER Working Paper No. 10841, October 2004) (older preliminary version, NBER Working Paper No. 10572, June 2004) (Some Tables and Figures updated to 2006-Q2, November 2006) (NBER Digest summary) "Reported Incomes and Marginal Tax Rates, 1960-2000: Evidence and Policy Implications" Ed. J. Poterba Tax Policy and the Economy 18, 2004, 117-172 (longer version NBER Working Paper No. 10273, January 2004) (All Tables and Figures in Excel format) "The Effect of Marginal Tax Rates on Income: A Panel Study of 'Bracket Creep'" Journal of Public Economics , 87, 2003, 1231-1258 "The Elasticity of Taxable Income: Evidence and Implications" with Jon Gruber, Journal of Public Economics , 84, 2002, 1-32 (Longer version NBER Working Paper No. 7512 with Optimal Tax Simulations) (NBER Digest summary) (Programs)

Macro Business Cycle

Optimal taxation and transfer programs.

NEW "Distributional Tax Analysis in Theory and Practice: Harberger Meets Diamond-Mirrlees" with Gabriel Zucman, NBER Working Paper No. 31912, November 2023 FINAL "Rethinking Capital and Wealth Taxation" with Thomas Piketty and Gabriel Zucman, Oxford Review of Economic Policy 39, 2023, 575–591 (special issue "Taxing the Rich (More)") (Slides) "A Simpler Theory of Optimal Capital Taxation" with Stefanie Stantcheva, Journal of Public Economics 162, 2018, 120-142 (online appendix) (Slides) "Generalized Social Marginal Welfare Weights for Optimal Tax Theory" with Stefanie Stantcheva, American Economic Review 106(1), 2016, 24-45 (Slides) (Data and Programs) "Why Can Modern Governments Tax So Much? An Agency Model of Firms as Fiscal Intermediaries" with Henrik Kleven and Claus Kreiner, Economica 83(330), 2016, 219-246 (older NBER Working Paper version, August 2009) "Optimal Taxation of Top Labor Incomes: A Tale of Three Elasticities" with Thomas Piketty and Stefanie Stantcheva, American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 6(1), 2014, 230-271 (Slides) (VOX summary) (Data and Programs) "A Theory of Optimal Inheritance Taxation" with Thomas Piketty, Econometrica 81(5), 2013, 1851-1886 (longer version "A Theory of Optimal Capital Taxation", NBER Working Paper No. 17989, April 2012) (Slides) (excel file) (Data and Programs) "Optimal Labor Income Taxation" with Thomas Piketty, NBER Working Paper No. 18521, revised December 2012, published in Handbook of Public Economics, Volume 5, 2013, 391-474 "Optimal Progressive Capital Income Taxes in the Infinite Horizon Model" Journal of Public Economics 97, 2013, 61-74 "Optimal Minimum Wage Policy in Competitive Labor Markets" with David Lee, Journal of Public Economics 96, 2012, 739-749 (older version NBER Working Paper No. 14320, September 2008) "The Case for a Progressive Tax: From Basic Research to Policy Recommendations" with Peter Diamond, Journal of Economic Perspectives 25(4), Fall 2011, 165-190 "Dividend and Corporate Taxation in an Agency Model of the Firm" with Raj Chetty, American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 2(3), 2010, 1-31 (older version "An Agency Theory of Dividend Taxation" NBER Working Paper No. 13538, October 2007) "Optimal Taxation and Social Insurance with Endogenous Private Insurance", joint with Raj Chetty, American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 2(2), 2010, 85-116 (older version NBER Working Paper No. 14403, October 2008) "Means Testing and Tax Rates on Earnings", joint with Michael Brewer and Andrew Shephard, in The Mirrlees Review: Reforming the Tax System for the 21st Century , Oxford University Press, 2010 "The Optimal Income Taxation of Couples" with Henrik Kleven and Claus Kreiner, Econometrica 77(2), 2009, 537-560 (longer version CESifo Working Paper No. 2092, September 2007) (Earlier version NBER Working Paper No. 12685, November 2006) "Welfare Reform in European Countries: A Micro-Simulation Analysis", with Herwig Immervoll, Henrik Kleven, and Claus Kreiner, Economic Journal 117(1), 2007, 1-44 (older version, CEPR Discussion Paper No. 4324, March 2004) (Simulation File in Excel format, October 2005) (Press Release summary) "Redistribution Toward Low Incomes in Richer Countries", Chapter 13, in A. Banerjee, R. Benabou, and D. Mookherjee eds. Understanding Poverty (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 2006 "The Optimal Treatment of Tax Expenditures" Journal of Public Economics , 88(12), 2004, 2657-2684 "Direct or Indirect Tax Instruments For Redistribution: Short-Run Versus Long-Run" Journal of Public Economics , 88, 2004, 503-518 "Optimal Income Transfer Programs:Intensive Versus Extensive Labor Supply Responses" Quarterly Journal of Economics , 117, 2002, 1039-1073 "The Desirability of Commodity Taxation Under Non-Linear Income Taxation and Heterogeneous Tastes" Journal of Public Economics , 83, 2002, 217-230 "Using Elasticities to Derive Optimal Income Tax Rates" Review of Economic Studies , 68, 2001, 205-229

Retirement Savings

"Details Matter: The Impact of Presentation and Information on the Take-up of Financial Incentives for Retirement Saving", American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 1(1), 2009, 204-228 (Earlier Version CEPR Discussion Paper No. 6386, July 2007) "Saving Incentives for Low- and Middle-Income Families: Evidence from a Field Experiment with H&R Block", with Esther Duflo, William Gale, Jeffrey Liebman, and Peter Orszag, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 121(4), 1311-1346, 2006 (Longer version NBER Working Paper No. 11680) (NBER Digest summary) "Savings Incentives for Low- and Moderate-Income Families in the United States: Why is the Saver's Credit Not More Effective?", with Esther Duflo, William Gale, Jeffrey Liebman, and Peter Orszag, Journal of the European Economic Association, Papers and Proceedings, 5(2-3), 2007, 647-661 "The Role of Information and Social Interactions in Retirement Plan Decisions: Evidence From a Randomized Experiment" with Esther Duflo, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 118, 2003, 815-842 (Longer version NBER Working Paper No. 8885) "Implications of Information and Social Interactions for Retirement Saving Decisions", with Esther Duflo, Pension Research Council Working Paper 2003-13 published in O. Mitchell and S. Utkus, eds., Pension Design and Structure: New Lessons from Behavioral Finance, 2004 "Participation and Investment Decisions in a Retirement Plan: the Influence of Colleagues' choices" with Esther Duflo, Journal of Public Economics, 85, 2002, 121-148

Policy Proposals and Analysis

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Department of Sociology

• Multidisciplinary Program in Inequality & Social Policy PhD Scholars

The James M. and Cathleen D. Stone PhD Scholars in Inequality and Wealth Concentration The Malcolm Hewitt Wiener PhD Scholars in Poverty and Justice Harvard PhD students apply at the end of their first or second year of doctoral study (G-1 or G-2). Those selected as PhD Scholars begin the proseminar sequence and other program activities the following September (G-2 or G-3 year).

This program is designed for Harvard PhD students in the social sciences, including Harvard's PhD programs in African and African American Studies, Economics, Education, Government, Health Policy, Political Economy and Government, Psychology, Public Policy, Sociology, and Social Policy. It predominantly focuses on research from economics, political science, sociology, and social policy. Next cycle: April-June 2020 Applications for the 2019 PhD Scholar fellowships have now closed. Check back in April 2020 for the 2020 application materials.

• Download 2019 brochure
• Download 2019 application   (pdf)
• Recommendation waiver form  (pdf)

Application deadline Friday, June 14, 2019 - 5pm

Inequality & Social Policy Doctoral Fellow Alumni Weihua (Edward) An , Sociology Asad L. Asad , Sociology Christopher Bail , Sociology Monica C. Bell , Sociology & Social Policy Deirdre Bloome , Sociology & Social Policy Jesse Bradford , Sociology & Social Policy Brielle Bryan , Sociology & Social Policy Anmol Chaddha , Sociology & Social Policy Victor Tan Chen , Sociology & Social Policy Andrew Clarkwest , Sociology & Social Policy Carrie Conaway, Sociology & Social Policy Jeffrey Denis , Sociology Nicole Deterding , Sociology & Social Policy Ethan Fosse , Sociology Nathan Fosse , Sociology Cybelle Fox , Sociology & Social Policy Katherine N. Gan , Sociology & Social Policy Sara Sternberg Greene , Sociology & Social Policy Sarah Halpern-Meekin , Sociology & Social Policy June (Kim) Han , Sociology Seth D. Hannah , Sociology David J. Harding , Sociology & Social Policy Hope Harvey , Sociology & Social Policy Matissa Hollister , Sociology & Social Policy Joel Horwich, Sociology & Social Policy Kirsten Dinnall Hoyte, Sociology & Social Policy David Hureau , Sociology & Social Policy Jackelyn Hwang , Sociology & Social Policy Anthony A. Jack , Sociology Elisabeth Jacobs , Sociology Tomás Jiménez , Sociology Shelley McDonough Kimelberg , Sociology Barbara Kiviat , Sociology & Social Policy Carly R. Knight , Sociology Theodore S. Leenman , Sociology Therese Leung , Sociology Jeremy R. Levine , Sociology Christy Ley , Sociology Tracey (Shollenberger) Lloyd , Sociology & Social Policy Helen B. Marrow , Sociology & Social Policy Jal Mehta , Sociology & Social Policy Richard Mora , Sociology & Social Policy Christopher Muller , Sociology Gesemia Nelson , Sociology Bikila Ochoa , Sociology & Social Policy Melanie Penny Ochoa , Sociology & Social Policy Ann Owens , Sociology & Social Policy Sabrina Pendergrass , Sociology Kristin L. Perkins , Sociology & Social Policy Sanjay J. Pinto , Sociology & Social Policy Cassi L. Pittman , Sociology & Social Policy María G. Rendón , Sociology & Social Policy Eva Rosen , Sociology & Social Policy Wendy D. Roth , Sociology & Social Policy Daniel Schrage , Sociology Patrick Sharkey , Sociology & Social Policy Graziella Silva , Sociology Jessica Simes , Sociology Mario Luis Small , Sociology Benjamin Sosnaud , Sociology Susan Crawford Sullivan , Sociology Jennifer Sykes , Sociology & Social Policy Laura M. Tach , Sociology & Social Policy Jessica Danielle Tollette , Sociology Van C. Tran , Sociology & Social Policy Beth C. Truesdale , Sociology Ruth López Turley , Sociology Zoua M. Vang , Sociology Natasha Kumar Warikoo , Sociology Celeste Watkins-Hayes , Sociology Jessica S. Welburn , Sociology Nathan Wilmers , Sociology Christopher Wimer , Sociology & Social Policy Scott Winship , Sociology & Social Policy Alix Winter , Sociology & Social Policy Holly Wood , Sociology Daniel Wu , Sociology & Social Policy Queenie Zhu , Sociology & Social Policy Daniyal Zuberi , Sociology & Social Policy

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Postdoctoral Program

• 2024 Postdoc Program
• Expectations & Conditions
• Postdoc Application FAQs
• Each fellow is expected to pursue original research and, in particular, to make substantial progress on new work that is significantly distinct from the dissertation. Fellows are expected to complete a working paper that represents a new line of research by the end of the second year. Each fellow will have an opportunity during the fellowship period to convene a manuscript workshop inviting 2-4 outside scholars to review and comment on their research in progress.
• Fellows are expected to be in residence at Harvard for the duration of the fellowship, with the exception of the summer months.  Fellows who need to be off-site for longer than two weeks during regular term time must seek approval from the program director.
• The fellows will co-organize a research workshop that will convene IAI affiliates on a monthly basis for the purpose of presenting and discussing work in progress. Each fellow will present in the workshop at least once per year.
• Fellows are expected to participate in the activities of the Inequality in America Initiative, including but not limited to the research workshop.
• Fellows may be able to extend the postdoctoral fellowship to a non-stipendiary third year, subject to approval of the program director and conditional on the fellow securing funding, potentially through teaching at Harvard.

Q: How should I address the cover letter?

A: “To Whom It May Concern” is fine! (And no physical mailing address is necessary.)

Q: Should I reach out to any of the faculty affiliated with the initiative to discuss my application? 

A: No; due to the volume of applicants, faculty cannot meet with anyone during the application process.

Q: Does the work I propose have to be related to inequality in America specifically, or may I propose to study inequality globally, or in another country?

A: Because the focus of the initiative is inequality in America, your proposed research must also focus on that topic. However, cross-cultural comparative research will be considered, as will research on American inequality within a global context.

Q: Does "inequality in America" mean inequality anywhere on the continents of North and South America, or is this short-hand for the "United States of America"?

A: We mean the United States (though, as noted above, comparative studies or research looking at the USA in a global context are potentially of interest).

Q: What disciplines are eligible?

A: We don't have strict criteria, and we have funded a diverse group of scholars . Most of the proposals we've received come from scholars in traditional social science fields , but if we believe we can identify suitable mentors we will consider applications from other disciplines. Please contact [email protected] if you have questions about fit.

Q: Can I propose more than one project in my research statement?

A: Sure; if you plan to carry out multiple projects to address your research goals, please describe them. Your research statement should outline what you hope to accomplish in the two years of your postdoc; ambitious is fine, but stay realistic!

Q: What kind of writing sample should I submit?

A: Something that demonstrates your research and analytical skills, as well as your ability to communicate clearly and concisely; preferably a document of which you are the solo (or at least, first) author. It is better, for example, to submit a writing sample that clearly reflects your own skills rather than submitting an article published in a prestigous journal where you are just one of many authors. (After all, the prestigous article will be listed on your CV in any case, and committee members can track it down.) The writing sample does not have to be a published work, but please explain what it is, and list any co-authors.

Q: Do citation/reference lists (bibliographies) count as part of the word/page limit for the research statement and/or writing sample?

A: These are not counted as part of the page/word limit; that is, they can spill over onto additional pages. (However, keep in mind that your goal is not simply to submit the longest statement/writing sample possible! A concise, well-written argument can be very persuasive.)

Q: Do I need to include citation/reference lists (bibliographies) for my research statement and/or writing sample?

A: Probably. For instance, if you are citing other researchers' work to explain your own research, you should attribute this and include the full citation at the end of the research statement and/or writing sample. That said, your research statement is a concise explanation of your plans, not a full scholarly paper. Your citation list might not be very long!

Q: What if my writing sample is longer than 25 pages?

A: If it's a few pages longer, that's okay. However, the review committee will not read a substantially longer document. Furthermore, large files bog down our system. Please do not submit a document that greatly exceeds the page limit; instead, excerpt the relevant pages (including citations) of a longer work.

Q: Do you require a specific format for citations/references (e.g., APA, MLA, etc.)?

A: No; you can use any style.

Q: Do you accept applications from foreign nationals?

A: Yes, provided that your research experience and interests are relevant to the topic of inequality in the USA. Scholars from outside the United States may be appointed under either a J-1 (Research Scholar) or F-1 OPT (Optional Practical Training) visa, depending on their circumstances. If awarded a fellowship, the initial term of appointment for international scholars is September 1, 2024 - August 31, 2025. Please note that any appointment at Harvard is contingent upon obtaining appropriate visa status, and the US government is the final arbiter of all immigration-related cases. The Harvard International Office , as regulations permit, is available to help individuals obtain temporary visa status to work at Harvard.

Q: Do I need to identify a faculty host for the purpose of visa sponsorship?

A: No. For the purpose of visa sponsorship the program director serves as faculty host.

Q: Do the application materials have to be written in English?

A: Yes, all materials, including the letters of recommendation, must be in English.

Q: How does the letter of recommendation component of the application work?

A: First, please note that you should alert your referees of the letter-of-recommendation deadline (Nov 29)  well in advance . They might find it helpful, in terms of tailoring their letters, if you provide some information about the fellowship and your research proposal. In terms of actual submission mechanics:

• In the application, the applicant lists email addresses for three referees. These email addresses must be accurate and cannot include hidden spaces at the beginning or end or any other typos.  Triple-check this!   These can be the referees' personal email addresses, or they can be the email addresses of a departmental office that processes letters of recommendation, or they can be the email addresses of your letter-writers' assistants. They can even be  Interfolio email addresses . Just keep in mind that  this is the only way we will get in touch with your referees, and this will be done in an automated fashion through the portal . We do not have the bandwidth to chase down missing letters or to try to find alternate methods of contacting referees.
• As soon as an applicant submits their application  (on November 16th or earlier), this triggers the portal to send an automated message to all three referee email addresses. Applicants (who are not using Interfolio) may want to let their referees know to look for an email message from  [email protected]  (occasionally referees may have to search their spam/junk filters). Note that referees will  not  be able to upload their letters to the portal  in advance  of the applicant's submission.
• Referees should follow the instructions for uploading their letters in the email from  [email protected] . They may have better luck if they upload a PDF over a Word doc, but if the upload is successful (or not), they should receive a message on their screen.
• Applicants  should be tracking the letter submissions per  these instructions . Applications that are missing letters will be considered incomplete and will not be forwarded to the selecton committee for review. (If an applicant notices an error on one of the email addresses after submitting their application, but before the letter deadline, they can contact Jennifer Shephard [see below], and she can help fix the error.)

Q: Who should I contact about technical difficulties with my application?

A: First, visit the  Aries help page . If none of the information there applies, please email  [email protected] . Please include as much information as possible about the issue you are having, including your computer's operating system and version (e.g., "Windows 10 Enterprise, version 1809, build 17763.737"), and your browser and version (e.g., "Google Chrome Version 76.0.3809.132 (Official Build) (64-bit)"), as well as what you were doing just prior to the issue occurring, and the text (or a screenshot) of any error messages.

Q: Is there an interview process for this fellowship?

A: No. Candidates are selected based on their application materials, including letters of recommendation.

Q: What is the timeline for decisions?

A: In 2024 we expect to make decisions in late April. We typically make our first-round decisions (to narrow the pool to a long 'short list') in mid-to-late January, and at that time we notify all applicants of their status. The committee typically meets to select 'finalists' (initial offerees and short waitlist) in mid-to-late February, and again, we notify all remaining applicants at that time. The hiring process usually extends into March, as this involves back and forth discussions with candidates.

Q: What are my chances of receiving this fellowship?

A: In terms of sheer numbers, we typically receive several hundred applications per year for just four positions. This should not discourage anyone from applying! We are seeking a large and diverse pool of candidates, and we are especially interested in receiving applications from populations that are typically under-represented in higher education as well as from candidates from beyond the 'Ivy League'! 

Q: Can I get feedback on why I was not selected as a finalist, or how to improve my application for next year?

A: Unfortunately, due to the volume of applications, we cannot offer specific feedback to candidates.

2024Postdoctoral Fellowship

Decisions expected: april 2024, postdoctoral training program.

Social and economic inequality are urgent problems for our society, with implications for a range of outcomes from economic growth and political stability to crime, public health, family wellbeing, and social trust. The Inequality in America Initiative seeks applications from recent doctoral (or equivalent) degree recipients interested in joining an interdisciplinary network of Harvard researchers who are working to address the multiple challenges of inequality in the United States. This program is intended to seed new research directions; facilitate collaboration across disciplines; and develop new leaders in the study of inequality who can publish at the highest level, reach the widest audience, and impact policy.

We expect to appoint four fellows in the fall of 2024, with two positions dedicated to scholars whose research focuses specifically on issues of racial and ethnic inequality and at least one whose research focuses on work, family, and opportunity.

The fellowship is a two-year postdoctoral training program, with an optional third year conditional on program director approval and independent funding. The salary is $76,500/year plus fringe benefits, including health insurance eligibility.

The award will include office space and up to $17,500 for research expenses across the two years, including computer equipment and travel. We also provide $3000 toward relocation expenses for anyone moving from out of state (total includes withheld taxes, per US law; net will be included with second paycheck) and up to $3000 toward a manuscript workshop in the second year.

The program director will connect fellows with Harvard faculty mentors, and fellows will have ample opportunity and encouragement to make connections with faculty and students from across the University.

Application Process and Eligibility

Applicants to the fall 2024 program must have received a doctorate or terminal degree no earlier than April 2021; those applicants without a doctorate or terminal degree must demonstrate that they will receive such a degree no later than August 2024.

The application must include the following in order to be reviewed:

• A short (~1 page)  cover letter explaining your interest in the IAI specifically (as opposed to just any job), including a succinct statement of your goals during the period of the fellowship. In addition, if there are specific Harvard faculty (whether currently affiliated with the IAI or not) whose research interests you, please feel free to list up to five names. (Applicants are not expected to have already formed a relationship with any Harvard faculty, and, in fact, should not contact faculty directly during the application process.)
• A 2- to 4-page (<2000 words) research statement that includes a brief description of your dissertation or other recent research and a more d etailed proposal for the project(s) you will pursue during the fellowship , including an explanation of the broader impacts of your research. Keep in mind that applications are reviewed by faculty from a wide variety of disciplines and subfields, so it's important that the goals and impacts of your research (and your methods, to the extent possible) are explained in such a way that non-specialists can easily understand their significance.
• One chapter- or article-length writing sample , no more than 25 pages. The writing sample may be an excerpt from a longer work, and may be published or unpublished, but should relate to your proposed topic and be clearly identified (i.e., if it's an excerpt, please note the source and list any co-authors).
• The names and email addresses of 3 referees , who will be asked via a system-generated email to upload their letters of recommendation once the application has been submitted.

Applicants must submit their materials by 11:59 PM EST  (UTC -5) on Thursday, November 16, 2023  at https://academicpositions.harvard.edu/postings/12791 .

Harvard is an equal opportunity employer, and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, creed, national origin, ancestry, age, protected veteran status, disability, genetic information, military service, pregnancy and pregnancy-related conditions, or other protected status. We are strongly committed to creating and supporting a diverse workforce. Respect and fairness, kindness and collegiality, and trust and transparency are among the values we espouse and promote in our workplace culture. We work hard to ensure a healthy, inclusive, and positive environment where everyone does their best work in support of Harvard’s mission.

Internal (Harvard-affiliated) candidates please note : Those who received terminal degrees from Harvard, and postdocs currently on a one-year term at Harvard, are eligible for the fellowship but must propose new projects that are significantly distinct from their current research and that are intended to forge new connections within the University. Harvard candidates should not propose to continue to work with the same advisors or research groups with whom they are currently associated.

Letters of Recommendation

Letters of recommendation must be received by 11:59 PM EST  (UTC -5) on Wednesday, November 29, 2023 . Three letters of recommendation are required, and incomplete applications will not be reviewed. Therefore, please give your referees plenty of advance notice of the letter deadline! They will not be able to upload their letters until you have submitted your application, at which point they will receive a system-generated email message (from [email protected] ) with instructions. Thus, if you submit your application on the deadline, your referees will have just under two weeks to upload their letters (and that stretch includes the major US holiday of Thanksgiving).

Please make sure you have supplied current and accurate email addresses for your recommenders , and please monitor your application to make sure the letters have been submitted. Due to the volume of applications we receive, we do not have time to track down missing letters, and applications will not be evaluated unless all three letters have been received.

You may use Interfolio. You will need to obtain the unique email address for each of your letters from Interfolio and enter this in the section of your application that requests each referee's email address. (Once again, please double-check the Interfolio email address for accuracy.) Complete instructions are available at the Interfolio Help Center .

Please read our FAQs first. See also the ARIeS application portal help page . Otherwise, contact Jennifer Shephard ( [email protected] ; 1.617.495.7906) with questions.

Page One Economics ®

Income and wealth inequality.

"For we, the people, understand that our country cannot succeed when a shrinking few do very well and a growing many barely make it. We believe that America's prosperity must rest upon the broad shoulders of a rising middle class." 

—President Barack Obama 1

Introduction

There are many different types of inequality among people: educational attainment, work experience, and health—to name a few. This essay discusses economic inequality: its causes, measurement, and the potential impact of its growth in the U.S. economy.

Economists directly link differences in educational attainment and work experience, also known as human capital, to differences in economic outcomes. That is, formal education and job skills determine how likely a person is to find and hold a stable job that pays good wages. The flow of money from wages is the most important source of income for most people. Over time, regular income from employment allows people to own assets such as a home or a retirement financial portfolio. That stock of assets is called wealth .

Data collected by federal organizations such as the Census Bureau and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (BOG) allow us to measure how unequal the distributions of income and wealth are in the United States. Those data show that, since the 1970s, some individuals and families are earning much more income and accumulating much larger amounts of wealth than the typical family does. 

Data reported by the World Bank allow us to compare the distribution of income across countries. As of 2018, the available data show large international differences in income inequality. Although not all countries in the world have data on income inequality, among those that do, the United States ranks among the top 25% most unequal.

What Causes Inequality?

The root cause of differences in income and wealth across individuals and households is a combination of personal and social factors. Personal factors are unique to individuals and include talent, effort, and luck. Such factors can be either nurtured or hindered by the family upbringing of the individual. Social factors affect groups of people and include education policies, labor market laws, tax codes, and financial regulations. At any moment in time, social factors can overpower personal factors to determine individual prosperity and increase inequality among people. 2

For example, as gradually more married women started working outside the home between 1960 and 2000, their family incomes increased and the differences in income between households became larger depending on whether they had one or two people earning wages. At the same time, differences in the types of jobs women and men tend to hold also contribute to income inequality between genders. 3

Because wealth is accumulated over time, older people are generally wealthier than younger people. For that reason, if there are many more young people than old people in the general population and the old hold more wealth than the young, overall wealth inequality will be high. 4

Finally, some people argue that the type of monetary policy used to ensure steady access to credit by households and businesses during recent economic contractions may contribute to higher levels of income inequality. However, that claim is hotly disputed. 5

How Is Income Inequality Measured?

There are different ways to measure how unequal income is in a country. The U.S. Census measures income inequality as the ratio of the mean, or average, income for the highest quintile (top 20 percent) of earners divided by the mean income of the lowest quintile (bottom 20 percent) of earners in a particular area. Let's say a small county has 500 people earning an income. To measure how unequal those incomes are, the Census surveys and sorts each person's income from highest to lowest, calculates the average income of the 100 people earning the most and the average income of the 100 people earning the least, and divides the first figure by the second figure. 

Figure 1 Income Inequality by County 

SOURCE: U.S. Census via FRED ® , Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis; https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?m=QRCJ , accessed June 23, 2021.

Figure 1 shows average county-level income inequality measured between 2016 and 2020. The Census considers the average income over a five-year period to account for the fact that peoples' income changes from year to year. Measured this way, income inequality can be as high as 130 or as low as 5. These measurements mean that the most affluent households in a particular county can earn as much as 130 times or as little as 5 times as much as the least affluent households do.

Another way to measure income inequality in a population is to calculate the Gini index . The World Bank uses that index to measure how much the distribution of income among households deviates from a perfectly equal distribution. The Gini index can take any value between 0 and 100. A value of 0 represents perfect equality: All households earn the same income. A value of 100 indicates perfect inequality: One household earns all the income, and all other households earn nothing.

Figure 2 Gini Index by Nation

SOURCE: World Bank via FRED ® , Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis; https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?m=QRFh , accessed April 6, 2021.

Figure 2 shows country-level income inequality measured with a Gini index in 2018. The highest value is 54, and the lowest value is 25. It is important to note that two countries can have very similar Gini indexes despite having very different distributions of income. For example, in 2018, the Gini index for the United States was 41.4 and for Bulgaria was 41.3, despite the fact that those two countries' economic and social histories are very different.

In the United States, since the 1970s, the Gini index has increased at a steady rate, indicating greater income inequality across families. 6 Some research suggests that this growing difference is related to the increased value of the stock market. Wealthier households hold more stocks than poorer households. So, when stock market prices rise, the income of wealthier households grows relatively more and overall income inequality increases. 7  

How Is Wealth Inequality Measured?

The BOG combines information from two different surveys to measure how wealth is distributed among households: It takes the value of a household's assets (e.g., the current market price of a home) and liabilities (e.g., the unpaid part of a mortgage for a home) and calculates the difference between the two, which is called net worth . Next, the BOG sorts household wealth from highest to lowest and reports the net worth of four different groups: the wealthiest 1% of the population, the next 9%, the next 40%, and the bottom 50%.

Figure 3 Share of Total Net Worth Held by Population Groups

SOURCE: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System via FRED ® , Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis; https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=O2Kq , accessed April 6, 2021.

Figure 3 shows the share of total net worth held by each of those four groups. In 2021, the wealthiest 1% of the population (about 3.3 million households) held about one-third of total net worth; the next 9% (almost 30 million households) held a little more than one-third; the next 40% (about 133 million households) and the bottom 50% (about 166 million households) together held the rest—less than one-third of total net worth.

The data from the BOG show increasing wealth concentration since 1989, when the data first became available. 8 It is important to note that, over time, some individual households can move up or down between wealth groups, depending on the changing value of their assets. Also, some research suggests the particular nature of some economic fluctuations impacts some households' net worth more than others. For example, the real estate crash associated with the 2007-09 recession resulted in large losses for the poorest 50% of the population. 9

Does Inequality Matter?

The economic impact of growing income and wealth inequality in the United States is an intensely studied question. Economists are debating how to answer that question by analyzing data and creating mathematical models to study it. Because this is ongoing work, there is no single answer.

Some research shows that, in richer countries, more unequal income makes economic fluctuations more pronounced. 10 That finding means that the changes in overall income and employment known as business cycles become more dramatic. Moreover, statistical evidence suggests increased income inequality undermines economic growth due to lower educational achievements (and human capital) among poorer individuals and households. 11 As discussed earlier, education builds a person's human capital and is rewarded with higher income from employment. Finally, research suggests the increasing income and wealth inequality can undermine the use of monetary policy (as we know it) to maximize employment and ensure price stability. 12  

Inequality in individual economic outcomes arises from a combination of personal traits and social conditions. The distributions of income and wealth in a society can be measured in multiple ways: comparing the highest to the lowest earners, calculating an index describing how unequal income is among all individuals, and assessing people's financial wellbeing according to the value of their wealth holdings. Regardless of how we measure income and wealth inequality, their distributions in the United States are becoming more unequal. This trend is likely to impact economic life as we know it. More research is needed to figure out precisely how that may happen.

1 Obama, Barack. "Inaugural Address." January 21, 2013; https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2013/01/21/inaugural-address-president-barack-obama .

2 For an example of how the use of city maps to assess lending risk after the Great Depression influenced homeownership rates across population groups for decades afterward, see the following article: Mendez-Carbajo, Diego. "Neighborhood Redlining, Racial Segregation, and Homeownership." Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Page One Economics , September 2021; https://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/page1-econ/2021/09/01/neighborhood-redlining-racial-segregation-and-homeownership .

3 For more on gender and labor markets, see the following article: Mendez-Carbajo, Diego. "Gender and Labor Markets." Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Page One Economics , January 2022; https://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/page1-econ/2022/01/03/gender-and-labor-markets .

4 For more on aging and wealth inequality, see the following article: Vandenbroucke, Guillaume and Zhu, Heting. "Aging and Wealth Inequality." Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Economic Synopses , 2017, No. 2; https://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/economic-synopses/2017/02/24/aging-and-wealth-inequality/ .

5 For a contribution to the ongoing debate about the relationship between monetary policy and income inequality, see the following article: Bullard, James. "Income Inequality and Monetary Policy: A Framework with Answers to Three Questions." Presented at the C. Peter McColough Series on International Economics, Council on Foreign Relations, New York, June 26, 2014; http://research.stlouisfed.org/econ/bullard/pdf/Bullard_CFR_26June2014_Final.pdf .

6 The following FRED® graph shows the income Gini ratio of all families, reported by the U.S. Census Bureau since 1947: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=MKYg .

7 For more on income inequality and the stock market, see the following articles: 

Bennett, Julie and Chien, YiLi. "The Large Gap in Stock Market Participation Between Black and White Households." Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Economic Synopses , 2022, No. 7; https://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/economic-synopses/2022/03/28/the-large-gap-in-stock-market-participation-between-black-and-white-households/ . 

Owyang, Michael T. and Shell, Hannah G. "Taking Stock: Income Inequality and the Stock Market." Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Economic Synopses , 2016, No. 7; https://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/economic-synopses/2016/04/29/taking-stock-income-inequality-and-the-stock-market/ .

8 For more about the change in wealth distribution over time, see the following post: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. "Comparing the Assets of the Rich, Poor, and Middle Class." FRED ® Blog , October 21, 2019; https://fredblog.stlouisfed.org/2019/10/comparing-the-assets-of-the-rich-poor-and-middle-class/ .

9 For more on how recessions impact household net worth, see the following article: Mendez-Carbajo, Diego. "How Recessions Have Affected Household Net Worth, 1990-2017: Uneven Experiences by Wealth Quantile." Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Economic Synopses , 2020, No. 38; https://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/economic-synopses/2020/08/07/how-recessions-have-affected-household-net-worth-1990-2017-uneven-experiences-by-wealth-quantile .

10 For more on the relationship between inequality and economic fluctuations, see the following article: Iyigun, Murat F. and Owen, Ann L. "Income Inequality and Macroeconomic Fluctuations." Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System International Finance Discussion Papers , July 1997; https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/ifdp/income-inequality-and-macroeconomic-fluctuations.htm .

11 For more on the relationship between income inequality and economic growth, see the following article: Cingano, Federico. "Trends in Income Inequality and its Impact on Economic Growth." Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development OECD Social, Employment, and Migration Working Papers , 2014, No. 163; https://www.oecd.org/els/soc/trends-in-income-inequality-and-its-impact-on-economic-growth-sem-wp163.pdf .

12 For more on the relationship between income inequality and monetary policy, see the following article: Cairo, Isabel and Sim, Jae W. "Income Inequality, Financial Crises, and Monetary Policy." Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System Finance and Economics Discussion Series , July 2018; https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/feds/income-inequality-financial-crises-and-monetary-policy.htm .

© 2022, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. The views expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect official positions of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis or the Federal Reserve System.

Asset: A resource with economic value that an individual, corporation, or country owns with the expectation that it will provide future benefits.

Gini index: A statistical measure of income inequality in a population that ranges from 0 (indicating absolute income equality) to 100 (indicating a perfectly inequal income distribution).

Household: A group of people living in the same home, regardless of their relationship to one another.

Income: The payment people receive for providing resources in the marketplace. When people work, they provide human resources (labor) and in exchange they receive income in the form of wages or salaries. People also earn income in the forms of rent, profit, and interest.

Liability: A legal responsibility to pay back money from a loan or other type of debt.

Net worth: The value of a person's assets minus the value of his or her liabilities.

Quintile: Any of five equal groups into which a population can be divided according to the distribution of values of a particular variable.

Wealth: The value of a person's assets accumulated over time.

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Study: Automation drives income inequality

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When you use self-checkout machines in supermarkets and drugstores, you are probably not — with all due respect — doing a better job of bagging your purchases than checkout clerks once did. Automation just makes bagging less expensive for large retail chains.

“If you introduce self-checkout kiosks, it’s not going to change productivity all that much,” says MIT economist Daron Acemoglu. However, in terms of lost wages for employees, he adds, “It’s going to have fairly large distributional effects, especially for low-skill service workers. It’s a labor-shifting device, rather than a productivity-increasing device.”

A newly published study co-authored by Acemoglu quantifies the extent to which automation has contributed to income inequality in the U.S., simply by replacing workers with technology — whether self-checkout machines, call-center systems, assembly-line technology, or other devices. Over the last four decades, the income gap between more- and less-educated workers has grown significantly; the study finds that automation accounts for more than half of that increase.

“This single one variable … explains 50 to 70 percent of the changes or variation between group inequality from 1980 to about 2016,” Acemoglu says.

The paper, “Tasks, Automation, and the Rise in U.S. Wage Inequality,” is being published in Econometrica . The authors are Acemoglu, who is an Institute Professor at MIT, and Pascual Restrepo PhD ’16, an assistant professor of economics at Boston University.

So much “so-so automation”

Since 1980 in the U.S., inflation-adjusted incomes of those with college and postgraduate degrees have risen substantially, while inflation-adjusted earnings of men without high school degrees has dropped by 15 percent.

How much of this change is due to automation? Growing income inequality could also stem from, among other things, the declining prevalence of labor unions, market concentration begetting a lack of competition for labor, or other types of technological change.

To conduct the study, Acemoglu and Restrepo used U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis statistics on the extent to which human labor was used in 49 industries from 1987 to 2016, as well as data on machinery and software adopted in that time. The scholars also used data they had previously compiled about the adoption of robots in the U.S. from 1993 to 2014. In previous studies, Acemoglu and Restrepo have found that robots have by themselves replaced a substantial number of workers in the U.S.,  helped some firms dominate their industries , and contributed to inequality .

At the same time, the scholars used U.S. Census Bureau metrics, including its American Community Survey data, to track worker outcomes during this time for roughly 500 demographic subgroups, broken out by gender, education, age, race and ethnicity, and immigration status, while looking at employment, inflation-adjusted hourly wages, and more, from 1980 to 2016. By examining the links between changes in business practices alongside changes in labor market outcomes, the study can estimate what impact automation has had on workers.

Ultimately, Acemoglu and Restrepo conclude that the effects have been profound. Since 1980, for instance, they estimate that automation has reduced the wages of men without a high school degree by 8.8 percent and women without a high school degree by 2.3 percent, adjusted for inflation. 

A central conceptual point, Acemoglu says, is that automation should be regarded differently from other forms of innovation, with its own distinct effects in workplaces, and not just lumped in as part of a broader trend toward the implementation of technology in everyday life generally.

Consider again those self-checkout kiosks. Acemoglu calls these types of tools “so-so technology,” or “so-so automation,” because of the tradeoffs they contain: Such innovations are good for the corporate bottom line, bad for service-industry employees, and not hugely important in terms of overall productivity gains, the real marker of an innovation that may improve our overall quality of life.

“Technological change that creates or increases industry productivity, or productivity of one type of labor, creates [those] large productivity gains but does not have huge distributional effects,” Acemoglu says. “In contrast, automation creates very large distributional effects and may not have big productivity effects.”

A new perspective on the big picture

The results occupy a distinctive place in the literature on automation and jobs. Some popular accounts of technology have forecast a near-total wipeout of jobs in the future. Alternately, many scholars have developed a more nuanced picture, in which technology disproportionately benefits highly educated workers but also produces significant complementarities between high-tech tools and labor.

The current study differs at least by degree with this latter picture, presenting a more stark outlook in which automation reduces earnings power for workers and potentially reduces the extent to which policy solutions — more bargaining power for workers, less market concentration — could mitigate the detrimental effects of automation upon wages.

“These are controversial findings in the sense that they imply a much bigger effect for automation than anyone else has thought, and they also imply less explanatory power for other [factors],” Acemoglu says.

Still, he adds, in the effort to identify drivers of income inequality, the study “does not obviate other nontechnological theories completely. Moreover, the pace of automation is often influenced by various institutional factors, including labor’s bargaining power.”

Labor economists say the study is an important addition to the literature on automation, work, and inequality, and should be reckoned with in future discussions of these issues.

“Acemoglu and Restrepo’s paper proposes an elegant new theoretical framework for understanding the potentially complex effects of technical change on the aggregate structure of wages,” says Patrick Kline, a professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley. “Their empirical finding that automation has been the dominant factor driving U.S. wage dispersion since 1980 is intriguing and seems certain to reignite debate over the relative roles of technical change and labor market institutions in generating wage inequality.”

For their part, in the paper Acemoglu and Restrepo identify multiple directions for future research. That includes investigating the reaction over time by both business and labor to the increase in automation; the quantitative effects of technologies that do create jobs; and the industry competition between firms that quickly adopted automation and those that did not.

The research was supported in part by Google, the Hewlett Foundation, Microsoft, the National Science Foundation, Schmidt Sciences, the Sloan Foundation, and the Smith Richardson Foundation.

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Press mentions, financial times.

Writing for Financial Times , economist Ann Harrison spotlights research by Prof. Daron Acemoglu, Pascual Restrepo PhD '16 and Prof. David Autor, that explores the impact of automation on jobs in the United States. Acemoglu and Restrepo have “calculated that each additional robot in the US eliminates 3.3 workers” and that “most of the increase in inequality is due to workers who perform routine tasks being hit by automation,” writes Harrison.

MIT researchers have found that “automation is the primary reason the income gap between more and less educated workers has continued to widen,” reports Ellen McGirt for Fortune . “This single one variable…explains 50 to 70% of the changes or variation between group inequality from 1980 to about 2016,” says Prof. Daron Acemoglu

Prof. Daron Acemoglu speaks with Politico reporter Derek Robertson about his new study examining the impacts of automation on the workforce and economy. “This discussion gets framed around ‘Will robots and AI destroy jobs, and lead to a jobless future,’ and I think that's the wrong framing,” says Acemoglu. “Industrial robots may have reduced U.S. employment by half a percent, which is not trivial, but nothing on that scale [of a “jobless future”] has happened — but if you look at the inequality implications, it's been massive.”

TechCrunch reporter Brian Heater spotlights a new study by Prof. Daron Acemoglu that examines the impact of automation on the workforce. “We’re starting with a very clear premise here: in 21st-century America, the wealth gap is big and only getting bigger,” writes Heater. “The paper, ‘Tasks, Automation, and the Rise in U.S. Wage Inequality,’ attempts to explore the correlation between the growing income gap and automation.”

Popular Science

Popular Science reporter Andrew Paul writes that a study co-authored by Institute Prof. Daron Acemoglu examines the impact of automation on the workforce over the past four decades and finds that “‘so-so automation’ exacerbates wage gaps between white and blue collar workers more than almost any other factor.”

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Income, Poverty, and Health Inequality

• 1 Chief population health officer of New York City Health + Hospitals, and clinical associate professor of population health and medicine at the New York University School of Medicine

The health of people with low incomes historically has been a driver of public health advances in the United States. For example, in New York City, cholera deaths during outbreaks in 1832 and 1854 concentrated among the poor helped push forward the Metropolitan Health Law, which allowed for regulation of sanitary conditions in the city. The law was an exemplar for other municipalities across the United States, saving countless lives during subsequent cholera epidemics as well as from typhus, dysentery, and smallpox.

Health inequality persists today, though our public health response—our modern Metropolitan Health Laws—must address more insidious causes and conditions of illness. There is a robust literature linking income inequality to health disparities —and thus widening income inequality is cause for concern. US Census data show a steady increase in summary measures of income inequality over the past 50 years. The association between income and life expectancy, already well established, was detailed in a landmark 2016 JAMA study by Raj Chetty, PhD, of Stanford University, and colleagues. This study found a gap in life expectancy of about 15 years for men and 10 years for women when comparing the most affluent 1% of individuals with the poorest 1%. To put this into perspective, the 10-year life expectancy difference for women is equal to the decrement in longevity from a lifetime of smoking.

Probing the Income-Health Relationship

In an editorial that accompanied the article by Chetty et al, Angus Deaton, PhD, of Princeton University, commented on the study’s geographical findings: “It is as if the top income percentiles belong to one world of elite, wealthy US adults, whereas the bottom income percentiles each belong to separate worlds of poverty, each unhappy and unhealthy in its own way.” Prior research had tried to identify these separate worlds, describing “ Eight Americas ” defined by sociodemographic characteristics, such as low-income white people in Appalachia and the Mississippi Valley, Western Native Americans, and Southern low-income rural black people. To improve health, interventions may need to account for starkly different lived experiences across different geographic contexts.

Educational attainment, sex, and race interact with and complicate the income-health relationship. Two additional dimensions add complexity: thinking beyond income to wealth and thinking beyond mortality to morbidity. Wealth refers to the total value of assets (and debts) possessed by an individual, not just the flow of money defined as income. Wealth is even more unequally divided than income : while the top 10% of the income distribution received a little more than half of all income, the top 10% of the wealth distribution held more than three-quarters of all wealth. This matters because it is one way that inequities persist over time —through, for instance, legacy effects of Jim Crow laws or discriminatory housing policy that affect family wealth and health over generations .

Studies on inequality and mortality may garner the most attention, but disparities in morbidity and quality of life are also evident. Low-income adults are more than 3 times as likely to have limitations with routine activities (like eating, bathing, and dressing) due to chronic illness, compared with more affluent individuals. Children living in poverty are more likely to have risk factors such as obesity and elevated blood lead levels, affecting their future health prospects.

Inequality or Inequity?

Is it the role of physicians and other health professionals to address poverty? Is it a “modifiable” risk factor, or should we focus on more proximate causes of illness, such as health behaviors? Our answers to these questions determine whether wealth gradients lead only to health inequality—or whether they contribute to health inequity , which is inequality that is avoidable and unfair.

Two arguments favor paying attention to income and wealth distributions as part of advancing health equity. First, health care spending—the realm of medical professionals—can worsen income inequality, at both individual and systemic levels. Individually, poor people have to spend a much greater proportion of their income on health care than richer people do. In 2014, medical outlays lowered the median income for the poorest decile of US individuals by 47.6% vs 2.7% for the wealthiest decile. Systemically, medical spending can crowd out other government spending on social services , drawing resources away from education and environmental improvement, for example. Taken together, this supports the case that “first do no harm” must extend to the financial impact of delivering health care. Clinicians who care about the social determinants of health must also pay heed to the cost (and opportunity cost) of health care.

Second, we are in a period when declines in key public health indicators may be wrought by policies that ostensibly have little to do with health—such as tax policy. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that average life expectancy decreased for the second year in a row in 2016. But mean mortality changes may obscure the full picture , which is more about increasing mortality being concentrated in lower-income groups. Meanwhile, the recent Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is likely to exacerbate income inequality. This is particularly true if the tax cuts trigger cuts in government spending , as Republican leaders have signaled. Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, also known as food stamps) are 2 programs for low-income individuals that are likely to be targeted for cuts. Even if Medicare and Social Security are spared, life expectancy differences by income means that more affluent US adults can expect to claim those benefits over a longer lifespan.

What would be today’s analog to the Metropolitan Health Law of 1866? Addressing the root causes of health inequity requires interrupting the vicious cycle of poverty leading to illness leading to poverty—what Jacob Bor, ScD, and Sandro Galea, MD, of Boston University School of Health, have termed a “21st century health-poverty trap.” Although there are many root causes to address, perhaps the place to begin is the health of children. For instance, economic policy like the Earned Income Tax Credit has been associated with decreases in low birth weight.

Congress’ recent reauthorization of the Children’s Health Insurance Program offers a glimmer of hope for such bipartisan paths toward health equity nationally. Focusing on resources to support children—such as nurse home visits to pregnant women, prekindergarten programs, and adolescent mental health care— can directly improve health while influencing intergenerational economic mobility. The city of Philadelphia offers a concrete example of how to do this: a tax on sugary drinks was used to fund prekindergarten, social services in neighborhood schools, and parks and libraries. In this way, health might lead to economic opportunity, leading to better health.

Corresponding Author: Dave A. Chokshi, MD, MSc ( [email protected] ).

Published Online: February 21, 2018, at https://newsatjama.jama.com/category/the-jama-forum/ .

Disclaimer: Each entry in The JAMA Forum expresses the opinions of the author but does not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of JAMA, the editorial staff, or the American Medical Association.

Additional Information: Information about The JAMA Forum, including disclosures of potential conflicts of interest, is available at https://newsatjama.jama.com/about/ .

Note: Source references are available through embedded hyperlinks in the article text online.

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Chokshi DA. Income, Poverty, and Health Inequality. JAMA. 2018;319(13):1312–1313. doi:10.1001/jama.2018.2521

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Luke Shaefer on WDET: What is income inequality doing to all of us?

Luke Shaefer says while some might argue a certain level of income inequality can promote innovation in some cases, it is easy to see how the level we face today can negatively impact many aspects of our lives.

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Doctoral Researchers of the Cluster enrol in the Graduate School of the Social and Behavioural Sciences (GSBS) , which was established by the University of Konstanz in conjunction with its two Clusters of Excellence to bring together researchers from eight disciplines: Biology, Economics, Linguistics, Politics and Public Administration, Physics, Psychology, Sociology, and Statistics. The GSBS offers an Inequality Specialization as one of three elective interdisciplinary specializations (Collective Behavior, Decision Sciences, and Inequality). 

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26 June 2024

Stone centre at ucl phd conference on income and wealth inequality.

We are delighted to invite you to the inaugural PhD conference in Income and Wealth Inequality at University College London

The conference offers a great opportunity for graduate students to:

P resent research to your peers

Get feedback from a discussant

A ttend a great keynote

Meet PhD students from other universities

M ake that long overdue trip to London...

The conference will run for one day only. All presentations will be assigned a discussant. Depending on demand there may be a poster session. To submit your paper, please apply using the form here

UPDATE: Funding is available for travel and accommodation for a limited number of presenters - please make clear in the application form if you would like to  be considered for this. There are no fees associated with the conference Coffee, snacks, and lunch will be provided for all attendees. Attendance without presenting or discussing is welcome and encouraged!

Submission 

We invite submissions from all fields, so long as the primary focus is income or wealth inequality and you are enrolled as a PhD student at the time of the conference. Papers can be submitted as full drafts or as extended abstracts, please not e that priority will be given to full drafts.

Applications

You can apply to the conference to present, to discuss, or to attend. If you plan to attend please select the attendance only option in the application form (there is no selection criteria for attendance, it just helps organise the correct amount of coffee).

Submission deadline: 15th April 2024

Notification of acceptance: From 3rd May 2024

Conference: 26 June 2024

Keynote Speaker: Suresh Naidu (Columbia)

"The Cold War and American Inequality"

Suresh Naidu is Jack Wang and Echo Ren Professor of Economics and Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. He has a B.Math in Pure Mathematics from the Unversity of Waterloo, a MA in economics from the University of Massachussetts-Amherst, and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of California at Berkeley. He was a Harvard Academy fellow from 2008-2010, and has been at Columbia since 2010. He works on political economy and historical labor markets. He has interests in the economic effects of democracy and non-democracy, monopsony in labor markets, the economics of American slavery, guest worker migration, and labor unions and labor organizing. He is external faculty at the Santa Fe Institute, a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, and co-director of the Columbia Center on Political Economy.  

Stone Centre Symposium

And if that still isn't enough discussing inequality for you, get your tickets for the Stone Centre Symposium on the evolution of wealth inequality (taking place 27th June at the British Academy) here!

Contact: [email protected]  

Organisers: Ararat Gocmen, Carl Gergs, Elena Casanovas, Thomas Lazarowicz

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Division Dispatch: Income Inequality and Health Disparities: What Money Can't Buy

Caitlin mcmahon, phd, mph.

            A recent headline in the American Public Health Association publication, The Nation's Health , reads, "US census: Income inequality rapidly increasing, putting health at risk." [1] The news is troubling both for what it portends and the sense of recognition of a dreadful and stubbornly static narrative. As a historian of public health, I was reminded of a poem by E. L. Foster published in 1917 entitled "The Payee," which skewered in blunt language the crushing burden of the costs of living and even dying. Noting the rising health care prices charged by doctors for "bein' born" or even "layin' cold and still," Foster concludes that, without fail, the costs are passed along and "The Consumer, patient sucker, pays the bill."

            Across the intervening decades of these two moments, I heard loudly the echoes of an unspoken term that has been the focus of my own historical research, the "health consumer." Contested, reviled, leveraged in a fight for greater health justice and equality, or neatly sliced into market niches, the rhetorical power of the health consumer remains deeply intertwined with the seemingly immutable logic of the U.S. health care system. Succinctly, it seems to inevitably follow that income inequalities increase health disparities across groups that are already overly burdened by intersecting lines of discrimination, across gender, race and ethnicity, age, and education. But how is the galling injustice of this equation so persistent? Current excellent scholarship on health inequities helps in looking forward to where we can effect change. I find that also understanding how we got here, by grappling with some of the big questions raised by historical developments in the rhetoric around the health consumer, can help us to better understand the viselike ties between health and wealth.

            The 2021 Census report rightly captures the significant impact of the current context of recent catastrophe and worrying trends, including the Covid-19 pandemic, shifts in the labor market, and the rise in inflation. Looking back to the mid- to late-twentieth century, I view these events through the lens of the push for national health insurance in the U.S. Though it has a full history with waxing and waning support, I focus in on a particular turning point moment as a starting point.

            In 1969, President Richard Nixon declared that the “spiraling costs” of medical care constituted a “crisis.” Medicare and Medicaid had been passed only four years previously, and had dramatically changed the way Americans accessed and paid for medical care. The ensuing three decades ushered in a renewed period of advocacy for health care reform with costs remaining a consistent focus. Proponents for national health insurance framed health as a human right emphasizing equitable access. Those advocating for private health insurance touted the power of the marketplace to contain costs through competition and freedom of choice. Throughout the debates, health reform advocates, insurance industry representatives, medical providers, and legislators repeatedly referred to the “health consumer” as the potential benefactor of such reforms. But this ubiquitous term remained ambiguous. Who exactly was the “health consumer”?

            The contests over the rhetoric of the health consumer as an identity, its uses and political alignments, were engaged through print, in research, in organized campaigns, and in discrete individual interactions with the health insurance industry and the health care system. Health social movements also consisted of organized groups engaging in political action for social change to address particular diseases and conditions, in addition to the very nature of how health care was provided in the U.S. Just a few examples include organizing around breast cancer, HIV/AIDS, mental health, environmental justice in the face of toxic environments, as well as advocacy around increasing access and transparency around prescription medications, medical research, and medical devices.

            The 1970s through the 1980s followed a broader shift from liberal social reform to a markedly more conservative, pro-business and anti-labor orientation. In that context, health consumers and health care advocates worked to impact health care policy in the United States at the local, state, and federal levels. Even when those efforts didn't culminate in successfully enacted legislation, their involvement helped to incorporate previously excluded voices, and realign coalitions. For example, throughout these years numerous health insurance bills were proposed, encompassing the political spectrum from fully privatized insurance to a universal health care system. As health consumer advocates organized around renewed efforts to pass legislation, they encountered shifting political alliances, while their own participation reframed the very terms of the political debate.

            Health consumer rights claims were affected by and also informed other rights claims, especially those hard-fought through other social movements including for civil rights, workers’ rights, women’s rights, gay rights, disabilities rights, mental health rights, and patients’ rights. Moving beyond binary understandings such as "patients" and "non-patients," or even the "patient/consumer," the health consumer identity blurred distinctions of inclusion and exclusion and dramatically expanded the framing of "who counts" in health social movements. Delineating between healthy and sick individuals, and expanding the definition of who is considered to be “at risk” and therefore eligible for treatment, raised questions about who is, or may become, a patient. However, healthy individuals shopping for health insurance are often referred to as “consumers,” even before they have paid a fee or filled a prescription.

            Consumer rights can provide a framework for advocating for specific rights in order to protect and empower health consumers. As articulated by President Kennedy in 1962, the four freedoms considered foundational to consumer rights ¾ to safety, to choose, to information, and to be heard ¾ have been adapted to the health care system. On the other hand, consumer rights language can concede health care to the rhetoric of free-market capitalism and economics that can further entrench historic inequities that concentrate wealth and health. Tensions also arise where health consumer rights claims intersect with an individual versus a group or coalition orientation. For an individual, such as in the instance of a health insurance policy holder contesting a denial of coverage, consumer rights may confer specific protections. However, the political and social power of the health consumer rhetoric when oriented toward a group or coalition can open avenues to effect change at the policy and legislative levels that are unavailable to the individual. In examining "Medigap" health insurance policies in Wisconsin in the late 1970s and early 1980s, certain company policies meant to avoid covering legitimate claims employed tactics of delayed communication, burdensome requests for documentation, and complex technical language. These efforts relied on the atomized perspective of the individual, in which any single incident could be considered accidental or unfortunate. In contrast, a systematic review, such as that conducted by a public law clinic committed to advocating for health consumer rights, would reveal systematic company efforts intended to minimize payouts.

            When organized health consumers have made progress and shifted the terms of the debate by incorporating consumer rights and protections, larger corporate and structural institutions have often absorbed those changes. For some, this shift in rhetoric was viewed as a positive step toward progress in more fully incorporating health consumer voices into the decision-making process and in effecting concrete reform. To others, the rhetoric of health consumer advocacy has been repurposed to bolster arguments that support preserving and even expanding a role for “free market” and for-profit principles in health care by applying consumer rights language.

            The utility and ethical implications of commodification versus rights language have consistently been at the center of these opposing views. Both also draw on overlapping histories of racism and discrimination that have engendered disparities for minoritized and oppressed or disenfranchised groups, even as civil rights and social movements have made strides toward justice and equity. In the enduring relationship between income inequality and health disparities, the tensions evoked by the health consumer seem more pronounced than ever.

            Ultimately, health social movements and the dynamic, even equivocal orientation of the “health consumer” identity may play a determinative role in how to move forward with health care policy reform that seeks to provide all Americans, regardless of income, with equitable access to wellness, rather than vying to purchase health.

[1] Yup K. "US census: Income inequality rapidly increasing, putting health at risk." The Nation's Health, November/December 2022, pg. 8.

Caitlin McMahon, PhD, MPH , is Project Director of the “Ethics of Inclusion” Study in the Division of Ethics.

PhD scholarship in Income inequality and mental health in low- and middle-income countries

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RTP Stipend Scholarship (RSS) - domestic applicants only

In this project, we aim to analyse mechanisms through which income inequality may affect mental health, focusing on selected low- and middle-income countries that have experienced high income inequality in the last decade. 

Value and duration

$33,826 per annum pro rata (full-time study) for 3.5 years

Opening date

Applications are now open.

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Number of scholarships.

One (1) scholarship available

Eligibility

You need to meet RMIT's entry requirements for PhD. This domestic scholarship will be awarded on the basis of a competitive selection process that ranks applicants according to their academic achievement, research outputs and relevant professional experience.

How to apply

Applicants are advised to contact Ankita Mishra [email protected]

Scholarship contact

 Ankita Mishra [email protected]

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Program on Gender Analysis in Economics

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Program on Gender Analysis in Economics (PGAE)

PGAE is a graduate research and teaching program emphasizing on theoretical and empirical economics training in gender analysis. Projects investigate the role of gender in social reproduction, labor markets, finance, and development — centered on the well-being of women and other under-represented groups. PGAE is a leader in producing policy analysts and scholars promoting the greater empowerment of women worldwide.

PGAE's international community supports:

• Graduate degrees built around a core of shared course and including both MA and PhD in Economics with gender tracks and a Graduate Certificate on Gender Analysis in Economics.
• Projects and partnerships, including the Care Economies in Context project, with Centre for Global Social Policy at the University of Toronto and the National University of Mongolia, and the related project " Investing in Inclusive and Sustainable Care: A Macroeconomic Approach to Understanding Care in Mongolia ."
• Upcoming events include the Care Conference 2024 , co-sponsored with the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, April 5, 2024, at American University. This collaborative event brings together academic and policy researchers, advocates, and policymakers to delve into new research and policy initiatives on care, with a specific focus on gender and racial equity throughout the life cycle.

Care Conference 2024 Economic Policies for Gender & Racial Equity—Earnings, Care, and Public Revenue April 5, 2024, 9:00-5:00 Reception 5:00-7:00 p.m. 

Pre-Register for the Care Conference , presented in partnership with the Institute for Women’s Policy Research.

Graduate Programs

AU's Program on Gender Analysis in Economics (PGAE) differs from related graduate programs with its gender-focused yet economics-based program.

The program takes a global perspective by collaborating with Visiting Scholars and incorporating relevant literature on Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Post-socialist world and OECD countries. Our location in Washington, DC, provides unique opportunities for internships and part-time work leading to full-time employment and careers with public and private institutions in the Washington area and beyond.

Degrees Offered

Students in either the MA or PhD in Economics program can do a track in Gender Analysis. Students who already have at least an MA in Economics can apply to do a Certificate in Gender Analysis in Economics. Students in each of these three options study together in two common core courses: Gender Economics I (previously listed as ECON-674 Gender Perspectives on Economic Analysis: Microeconomics) and Gender Economics II (previously listed as ECON-675 Gender Perspectives on Economic Analysis: Macroeconomics).

AU PhD grads and faculty reunite at IAFFE 2023 in Cape Town, South Africa.

• MA Econ (Gender track)
• PhD Econ (Gender track)
• Graduate Certificate

Gender Working Group

The PGAE is led by co-directors Dr. Mieke Meurs and Dr. Natalia Radchenko, guided by the Gender Work Group (GWG), comprising department faculty, resident scholars, and graduate students. GWG members have strong relations with a variety of relevant organizations, including the International Association for Feminist Economics (IAFFE), the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, the School of International Service (SIS) at AU, the Census Bureau, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and other American University entities with a focus on women, including the AU Women in Politics Center and the Washington College of Law.

Sung Ah Bahk is a labor economist whose primary research interests focus on labor market transitions, labor supply, and inequalities in the labor market. Her recent research includes eldercare and its impact on caregivers’ labor supply decisions, as well as poverty measurement.

Professor Mary Hansen  is an expert in U.S. social policy. She is widely published in the fields of child policy, bankruptcy, and economic history. Her work addresses key issues in race, gender, and economic inequality. Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and the Institute for New Economic Thinking. She has been quoted or cited by news outlets including WAMU, The Economist, Fortune, CNN, and the LA Times. She has given public testimony before the DC City Council and in Federal District Court.

• Assistant Professor Kelly Jones  is an applied microeconomist and her work focuses on evaluating the impacts of various policies and interventions on gender equality and welfare. Her recent work includes experimental analyses of women’s risk coping strategies in the face of financial shocks, and the implications for women’s sexual and reproductive health in Sub-Saharan Africa. She has also analyzed the impact of US foreign policy on women’s fertility outcomes internationally. In mid-2018, she launched a new line of research exploring the economic implications of access to reproductive health services in the United States. Other ongoing work includes field experiments in Uganda and Ghana on the role of gender dynamics in intra-household allocation of resources and productive activities. In particular, she is exploring women’s contributions to and empowerment within small-scale commercial agriculture.
• Professor Mieke Meurs has recently taught Heterodox Microeconomics, Political Economy, and a Complex Problems course called What's It Worth? Her research and publications are mainly in the area of feminist economics, care work, and gender bargaining power. 
• Assistant Professor Natalia Radchenko is an applied econometrician. Her work includes development of new concepts of intrahousehold inequality and empirical methodologies to better measure inequality, as well as analysis of labor market outcomes in developing countries.

Maria Caballero Sanchez is an applied microeconomist, focusing on research at the intersection of labor economics, the economics of migration, and development economics. She focuses on understanding the effects of economic and policy shocks on migrants’ destination countries in their communities of origin.

• Associate Professor Mahmud Yesuf’s  research interests include poverty, environment and development issues in low income countries, with a special focus on households’ behavioral issues (such as risk aversion). He has an international teaching and research experience working on various projects with the World Bank and International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in Africa. He has taught classes in principles of Microeconomics, Environmental Economics, Survey of African Economies, and Applied Econometrics.
• Professor John Willoughby’s fields of interest include economic history and the economics of the Middle East. Recent publications focus on higher education in the Gulf states.

Professor Thomas Husted  is an applied microeconomist. His primary field is public economics. His research examines the political economy of various government expenditure programs, including primary, secondary and post-secondary education, income redistribution, and federal disaster aid.

Senior Professorial Lecturer Evan Kraft  received his PhD from the New School for Social Research in 1990. He was Assistant Professor at the Perdue School of Business, Salisbury State University, Maryland from 1990-95. From 1995-2010, he worked in Croatia, serving as a Visiting Scholar, Director of the Research Department, and Advisor to the Governor of the Croatian National Bank. From 2007 to 2010, he was an external Associate Professor at the University of Split, Croatia. He was Economist-in-Residence from Fall 2011 to Spring 2019 and Senior Professorial Lecturer since Fall 2019 at American University. He also has been Undergraduate Program Director since 2015. Professor Kraft's research interests include transition economies, monetary and macroeconomic policy, banking competition and regulation, financial stability and economic inequality.

  Professor Emerita Maria Floro taught gender analysis in economics (micro) and development microeconomics. Her publications include  Informal Credit Markets and the New Institutional Economics ,  Women's Work in the World Economy , and  Gender, Development, and Globalization: Economics as if All People Mattered  and articles on gender and work intensity, time use, care work, environmental degradation, vulnerability, and informal employment, urban food security, poverty, household savings, credit and debt service burden. Professor Floro also lead the  Care Work and the Economy  Project ( www.careworkeconomy.org ).

Selected Recent Publications

Kelly Jones (with Britni Wilcher) (2024) "Reducing maternal labor market detachment: A role for paid family leave," Labour Economics , 87.

Mary Hansen (with Michael E Martell and Leanne Roncolato) (2022). "Tolerance and the labor supply of cohabiting gays and lesbians," Journal of Demographic Economics 88(4).

Kelly Jones (with Kate Ambler and Michael O'Sullivan) (2022) "Empowering Women to Engage in Commercial Agriculture," American Economic Review, 112:546-550.

Kelly Jones (with Mayra Pineda-Torres) (2022). "Trap'd teens: Impacts of abortion provider regulations on fertility & education," IZA Discussion Paper, 14837.

Mieke Meurs (with Amarjargal Amartuvshin, Otgontugs Banzragch, Mayagmasuren Boldbaatar, and Georgia Poyatzis) (2022). “Women Are Herders Too: Women’s Role and Bargaining Power in Mongolian Herding Households,” Central Asian Survey 41(1). 

Mieke Meurs (with Maigul Nugmanova, Aizhan Salimzhanova, and Stevie Marvin) (2022). “Gender Regime and Women’s Employment in Kazakhstan: Toward a State-Supported Dual Earner Dual Carer Model?” Comparative Economic Studies , 63: 603–622.

Kelly Jones (with K. Ambler and M.O’Sullivan) (2021). Facilitating women’s access to an economic empowerment initiative: Evidence from Uganda.  World Development ,  138 , 105224.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2020.105224

Kelly Jones (with V. Hoffman) (2021). Market incentives for technology adoption: experimental evidence from the market for maize in Kenya. Forthcoming in World Development. IFPRI Discussion Paper 07146, https://www.ifpri.org/publication/improving-food-safety-farm-experimental-evidence-kenya-agricultural-incentives-and

Mieke Meurs (with Giddings, L.) (2021). Elder care and paid work: gender differences in the relationship between unpaid elder care work and employment in Bulgaria.  Journal of European Social Policy , 0958928720974181. https://doi.org/10.1177/0958928720974181

Mary Eschelbach Hansen (with Xie, D) (2020). Supply of bank loans and business debts: A view from historical bankruptcy cases.  Review of Financial Economics ,  38 , 170-187. https://doi.org/10.1002/rfe.1076

Natalia Radchenko (with Natalia Kyui) (2020). The changing composition of academic majors and wage dynamics: Beyond mean returns.  Journal of Comparative Economics . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jce.2020.07.009

Natalia Radchenko (2020). Student evaluations of teaching: unidimensionality, subjectivity, and biases.  Education Economics ,  28 (6), 549-566. https://doi.org/10.1080/09645292.2020.1814997

Maria Floro (with Yokying, P) (2020). Parents’ labour force participation and children’s involvement in work activities: evidence from Thailand.  Oxford Development Studies ,  48 (3), 287-303. https://doi.org/10.1080/13600818.2020.1792431

Mahmud Yesuf (with Maria Floro., & T. Woldesenbet) (2019). Gender and Perception of Climate Change in Ethiopia.  International Journal of Climate Change: Impacts & Responses ,  11 (2). https://doi.org/10.18848/1835-7156/CGP/v11i02/21-39

Meurs, Mieke (with Rita Ismaylov) (2019).  Improving Assessments of Gender Bargaining Power: A Case Study from Bangladesh,  Feminist Economics 25(1).

Mary Eschelbach Hansen (with Martell, M.E. & Roncolato, L) (2019). A labor of love: The impact of same-sex marriage on labor supply.  Review of Economics of the Household , 1-19 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11150-019-09454-1

Mahmud Yesuf (with Bluffstone, R) (2019). Consumption discount rates, risk aversion and wealth in low-income countries: evidence from a field experiment in rural Ethiopia.  Journal of African Economies ,  28 (1), 18-38.  https://doi.org/10.1093/jae/ejy010

Recent Visiting Scholars

Dr. amartuvshin amarjargal (2024).

Amartuvshin Amarjargal is a PhD in Economics and professor of University of the Humanities. Basically she researches rural poverty, income inequality and herders issues of Mongolia. She received her PhD in Economics from Kobe University and was a visiting scholar at the American University in Washington DC and a collaborator of the NASA project with professors from Michigan State University on Urbanization Process of East Asian Countries. She actively involves in consultancy to ADB, UNDP and World Bank Projects on CBA analysis of the mining sector, sanitary issues and its economic values and financing methodology of rural primary health care and etc.

Research interests:

• Bargaining power of herders women of Mongolia
• Mining impact on rural migration
• Herders market integration issues
• Local community involvement
• Cost benefit analysis of a mining sector

Dr. Giang Huong Pham (2024)

Giang has been a lecturer at the Faculty of International Economics, Foreign Trade University, Vietnam, since 2009. She teaches Environmental economics, Research methodology, Cost Benefit Analysis, and Green Economy.

Her research interest includes environmental economics, sustainable development issues especially in agricultural economics, and sustainable consumption/production. Since her interest is related to sustainable development issues, she is teaching and conducting research related to gender economics and equality.

She completed her Master’s degree in economics from Monash University in 2015, then got Ph.D. in Economics in 2020 from RMIT University (Melbourne).

Currently, Giang is working on different projects funded by Ministry of Training and Education (Vietnam), GDN, and ERIA to conduct studies on sustainable consumption and production in Vietnam. She can use statistical softwares such as Stata and SmartPLS for data analysis.

Her publications are on Ecological Economics, Journal of Environmental Management, and Current Psychology, which are related to agricultural economics, sustainable production, and behavioral economics. 

Dr. Juna Miluka (2024)

Juna Miluka is an Associate Professor of Economics and Dean of the Faculty of Economy and Business at the University of New York, Tirana. She holds a PhD in economics from the American University, Washington, DC. Prof. Miluka teaches a variety of courses in microeconomics and development economics. She has extensive experience working as a technical expert with many international organizations conducting research on the gender wage gap and inequalities in the labor market, poverty, vulnerability, impact evaluation, migration, education, etc. She has been part of many international teams giving her contribution in calculating the poverty level in Albania, measuring the gender wage gap, constructing vulnerability mapping for women and children across regions of Albania, assessing gender differences in endowments, economic opportunities, and agency, etc. She has also co-authored the first Gender Equality Index report for Albania, and her research on vulnerability has been used by employment offices to create a profiling tool for the unemployed jobseekers.

Khanh Huy Nguyen (2024)

Khanh has been a lecturer of Department of Macroeconomics at the Faculty of International Economics, Foreign Trade University, Vietnam since 2019. His research interests are economic growth, digital transformation, digital economy, innovation, university-industry cooperation, career development, and student mobility. His studies employ both quantitative and qualitative approaches. In the field of practical teaching experiences, he has participated in scientific research projects in the context of digital transformation. He has 5 years of professional working experiences in public-, private sectors in Vietnam and the UK. He also has extensive professional experiences in multicultural settings as he completed his Master’s degree in International Business Management at University of Huddersfield, UK.

Dr. Laura C. Blanco (2024)

Laura C. Blanco has a PhD in Politics, Economics and Philosophy from the University of York and a Bachelor and a MSc. in Economics from Universidad de Costa Rica. She is currently an associate professor at the Department of Economics at Universidad de Costa Rica . Her research interests include gender, labor and educational economics. She has published on topics such as gender wage differentials among academic tenured staff, wage differentials among graduates from public and private universities, occupational segregation, sexual violence and access to contraception. She also has non-academic experience in finances, zoning planning and educational policy.

Maria del Pilar Castillo Valencia (2024)

María del Pilar Castillo was born in Colombia and currently lives in that country, she is married and a mom of two sons. She completed her Ph.D. in Economics at the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil. For eighteen years Prof. Castillo has been teaching courses in Economics at Universidad del Valle, in Cali. Currently, she has two courses in Game Theory and Feminist Economics. In the research field, she was conducting a study on the vulnerabilities of young people in Cali, who live in violent and poverty contexts. A few months ago, she finished another one about the living conditions of black young women living in segregated neighborhoods, both studies were funded by the International Development Research Centre, and involved constant work with communities, with direct interventions on the territory. In fact, the first research resulted in a book on invisible socioeconomic barriers faced by young people in Cali, which outlines the main results of her research on that marginalized youth population. At this moment with her work team, they are finishing a second book with the results of the research on vulnerable women in Cali. She now hopes to conduct research on the effect of the consequences of inefficient policies implemented on women's unpaid workload, focusing on urban violence and public transportation.

Maria Jose Sauma Chacon (2024)

Maria Jose Sauma Chacon is an Instructor of Economics at the University of Costa Rica and economic consultant in several international organizations. She obtained a Bachelor's degree in Economics from the University of Costa Rica, followed by a Master's degree in Development Economics from the University of Sussex. Currently, she is working on research on the gender wage gap in Costa Rica as well as other inequalities in the labor market. Additionally, she has worked in various projects related to green and inclusive economic development, as well as supported different Central American countries with their decarbonization plans.

Dr. Rejla Bozdo (2024)

Rejla Bozdo is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Economics at the University of Tirana. After earning her degree in 2005 from the Faculty of Economics at University of Tirana, she began her career as an academic staff member, and is currently a full-time lecturer for subjects related to marketing.

In 2009, Rejla completed her MBA studies at the Institute Universitarie Kurt Bosch, based in Sion, Switzerland. She later earned her "Doctor of Economic Sciences" degree in 2015 from the University of Tirana, with a dissertation on "The relationship between corporate brand, reputation and public relations."

Aside from her academic work, Rejla has also worked in the business sector, specializing in marketing research, marketing strategy, marketing communications, and public relations. Additionally, she serves as a management consultant and expert for private Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and has contributed to vocational education and training.

Rejla is an active public figure in Albania, regularly contributing articles on social and economic issues and participating in media panels. She is particularly committed to helping youth enter the labor market, providing trainings, coaching, and support.

In 2019, Rejla co-founded Changemakers Albania, a non-profit organization that focuses on creating positive change in Albania, particularly for youth, education, innovation, women, talented individuals, and those who are disadvantaged. She currently serves as its Executive Director.

Throughout her career, Rejla has participated in numerous national and international training programs and conferences, including those organized/supported by Robert Schuman Institute, Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, NDI, IRI, USAID, and Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

Nataly Rendon Gonzalez (2020)

PhD Candidate Nataly Rendon Gonzalez is a Professor in EIA University, Columbia. She has a PhD and Masters in Economics from EAFIT University, Medellin, Colombia. Her research focuses on crime economics and gender, international trade, economic growth, monetary policy. Funded by EIA and EAFIT Universities, Dr. Rendon will join AU Department of Economics as a Visiting Scholar and research determinants of women's criminality in Medellín.

Dr. Cristina Pereira Vieceli (2020)

Dr. Pereira Vieceli has a PhD in Economics from Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS). She is a member of the Centre of Feminist Studies, Extension and Research at UFRGS and a columnist at portal Democracy and Work World. Her research interests include the labor market, economic development, Brazilian economy, feminism and relations of gender and race.

Dr. Gloria Afful Mensah (2020)

Dr. Afful-Mensah is a Lecturer at University of Ghana. She has a PhD in Economics from Lombardy Advanced School of Economic Research (Universities of Milan, Brescia and Pavia), Milan, Italy. Her research interests include Economics of Maternal and Child Healthcare Utilization, Economics of Development (Aid, Poverty, Health outcomes) and Inequality in Health. Coming to AU as a PAGE Visiting Fellow, she will research household shocks in Ghana – understanding the gender differences in the choice of mitigating strategies and economic implications.

Dr. Daniela Dias Kuhn (2020)

Dr. Dias Kuhn is a Professor at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Brazil and a coordinator of research projects in South Economies and interculturality at UFRGS. She has a PhD and Masters Degree from UFRGS. Daniela’s research interests include Rural Development, Agrarian issues in Brazil and Latin America, Solidarity Economy, Elements of the Environmental Issue. Coming to AU as a PGAE Vising Scholar, she will develop her research on Rural Women in Latin America: social reproduction and ways of life.

Dr. Louis Boakye-Yiadom (2020)

Dr. Boakye-Yiadom is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Economics, University of Ghana. He has a PhD in Economics from the University of Bath, UK. Professor Boakye-Yiadom’s areas of research include the microeconomic analysis of migration, remittances, and poverty/wellbeing; gender dimension of asset ownership. Coming to AU as a PGAE Visiting Scholar, he will research the gender dimension of child fostering, especially in Ghana and other West African countries.

Dr. Lekha S. Chakraborty (2019)

Lekha S. Chakraborty is a Professor at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP), an autonomous research institute of the Ministry of Finance of India; and an affiliated Research Associate with the  Levy Economics Institute of Bard College , New York. She was the pioneer economist who worked with the Chief Economic Advisor for institutionalising Gender Budgeting in India.She is the author of  Fiscal Consolidation, Budget deficits and Macroeceonomy  (Sage, 2016) and a co-author of  Social Sector in Decentralised Economy: India in the Era of Globalisation  (Cambridge University Press, 2016). Previously, Lekha has worked for the World Bank, the IMF, UN Women, and the Commonwealth Secretariat. She has taught as a Visiting Professor at Carleton University (Canada), Uppsala University (Sweden) and University of Utah.

As a PGAE Visiting Scholar, Lekha is advancing her empirical research investigating the integration of gender perspectives into fiscal and public policy making and was a featured speaker of the Spring 2019 Gender Seminar Series in AU. 

Dr. Lorelei Mendoza (2019)

Lorelei C. Mendoza is a Professor of Economics at the University of the Philippines Baguio (UPB). She was a PGAE visiting scholar under the Fulbright Senior Scholars’ Program in the spring semester 2019. While at American University, she conducted her research on "Gender Norms and Schooling Outcomes among the Highlanders of the Cordillera Region in the Philippines during the American Colonial Period, 1904-1945” using archival materials and  documents at the National Archives in College Park, Maryland. Before coming to American University,  Professor Mendoza served as Dean of the College of Social Sciences and Director of the Cordillera Studies Center at UP Baguio. Her areas of research include gender and household economics and natural resource management.

Dr. Otgontugs Banzragch (2017-2018)

Otgontugs Banzragch (Otgo) is the Dean of Graduate School and Professor of Economics at the National University of Mongolia in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. She has a Ph.D. in Education and Economics from Colombia University and a Master’s Degree in Economics from the University of Manchester. Her research focuses on development economics, education inequality, and rural development. She is a member of the Monetary Policy Board of the Central Bank of Mongolia; and a member of the Research Council for Social Science with the Ministry of Education and Science in Mongolia. Previously, she collaborated with the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) on the project Mobilizing Revenues from Extractive Industries: Protecting and Promoting Children’s Rights and Well-Being in Resource-Rich Countries, as part of the research team for Mongolia.

As a Visiting Scholar, Otgo developed the curriculum for a course Gender Analysis in Economics, to be offered as part of the masters program for Economics at the National University of Mongolia. She also began a project that aims to translate a textbook on the importance of gender analysis in economics into Mongolian language. Currently, Otgo is working on a joint research project with Professor Mieke Meurs and Amarjargal Amartuvshin (PGAE Visiting Scholar 2013) on bargaining in herding households.

Dr. Samanmala Dorabawila (2017 – 2018)

Samanmala Dorabawila is a Senior Lecturer in Economics at the University of Peradeniya in Sri Lanka. She has a Ph.D. in Economics from Clark University. Her research includes analyses of Sri Lankan’s labor market, care work, health economics, and development economics.

As a PGAE Visiting Scholar, Samanmala worked to develop curricula course on Gender Analysis in Macroeconomics and Gender Analysis in Microeconomics to be offered for students enrolled in Masters in Economics (MA)/M.Phil in Economics/Masters in Applied Economics and Masters in Development Practice, through the Post Graduate Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences (PGIHS) at the University of Peradeniya.

Dr. Yady Marcela Barrero Amórtegui (2017 – 2018)

Yady Marcela Barrero Amórtegui has a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of La Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia; and a Master’s Degree in Economics from the University of Antioquia in Medellín, Antioquia, Colombia. She has authored multiple research papers analyzing Colombia’s agricultural structures, including her doctoral research focusing on gender analysis and the sustainable use of natural resources.

As a PGAE Visiting Scholar, Yady developed a course curriculum on Gender Roles in the Economy, to be presented to the Department of Economics at the University of Antioquia in Medellín, where she will be joining as a Professor of Economics.

Dr. Dileni Gunewardena (2017-2018)

Dileni Gunewardena is Professor of Economics at the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka and has a Ph.D. in economics is from American University. Her research includes empirical analyses of poverty, child nutrition, and gender and ethnic wage inequality. She is the author of a book on Poverty Measurement, several chapters in books, and numerous journal articles. She contributed to Sri Lanka’s first poverty assessment as a consultant with the World Bank’s Development Economics Research Group in the 1990s and has taught in the World Bank Institute’s South Asia Region Workshops.

As a PGAE Visiting Scholar, Dileni produced a research paper, along with co-authors Elizabeth King (The Brookings Institution) and Alexandra Valerio (World Bank), on the gender differences in labor market returns to schooling and skills in middle income countries. Currently, she is also leading the efforts in establishing a Gender Analysis in Economics program at the Post Graduate Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences (PGIHS) of the University of Peradeniya.

Dr. Ana María Tribín-Uribe (2017-2018)

Ana María Tribín-Uribe is a Researcher at the Central Bank of Colombia – Banco de la Republica. She has a Ph.D. in Economics from Brown University and a Master’s Degree in Economics from Pontificia Universidad Javeriana (Colombia). Her research focuses on gender economics, development economics, development, political economy, labor economics and behavioral economics. She is the author of several studies related to gender and economics, including her research examining the impact of Colombia’s maternity leave policy on female labor force participation.

As a PGAE Visiting Scholar, Ana María advanced her historical book project on women in Colombia and continues to work with Professors Maria Floro and Mieke Meurs in undertaking a project that aims to develop priority areas for lawmakers in developing public policies. Recently, Ana María was appointed the President’s High Commissioner for Women’s Equality in Colombia.

Dr. Nata Duvvury (2014)

Nata Duvvury is Senior Lecturer and Co-Director at the Center for Global Women’s Studies and Leader of Gender and Public Policy Cluster in the Whitaker Institute at National University of Ireland, Galway. Dr. Nata Duvvury is an international development expert with more than 25 years of experience in gender, development and empowerment. Her work includes research and advocacy on gender based violence, women’s property rights and HIV and AIDS in a variety of settings including conflict and post-conflict contexts.  

Nata Duvvury visited as a PGAE Fulbright Scholar in 2014 to work on empirical measures of violence against women. Currently, Nata Duvvury is Principal Investigator of a 3-year project examining the economic and social costs of Violence against women and girls (VAWG) that involves surveys and interviews in Sudan, Pakistan and Ghana. Also serving on the Technical Advisory Group of the project is PGAE founding co-director Maria Floro .

Dr. Margarita Khegai (2011 – 2012)

Margarita Khegai is a Professor of Economics at the Tajikistan Russian-Tajik Slavic University.

Maigul was a PGAE Visiting Scholar from the Tajikistan Russian-Tajik Slavic University from 2011 – 2012, supported by the Core Fulbright Visiting Scholar Program . As a Visiting Scholar, Margarita investigated gender issues in Tajikistan’s labor market focusing on state policies, legal framework, civil society and traditions.

Care Work and the Economy

The Care Work and the Economy project, funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Open Society Foundations, and concluded in 2022, worked to better understand, capture, and model women and men's contributions to care provisioning (for children, the sick and disabled, and the elderly) in order to promote gender-aware economic and social policies that foster inclusive growth and gender equality. 

Fred and Barbara Bergmann Fund

The Fred and Barbara Bergmann award is given to a promising graduate student to support gender research in economics. To donate to the fund, please follow the following instructions:

• Visit our donation webpage
• Choose your donation type and amount
• Click "Funds I Choose"
• Scroll down to "Support a Fund Not Listed" , check the box and write in “Barbara Bergmann Graduate Fellowship for Gender Economics Fund”.

Donations can be also sent to  Dr. Mieke Meurs at [email protected] .

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PhD defence: Income Inequality: the Role of Institutions, Firms and Neighborhoods

On Friday 14 June at 12.15 hrs, Emiel van Bezooijen will defend his PhD thesis Essays on Income Inequality. The Role of Institutions, Firms and Neighborhoods.

Emiel van Bezooijen  is scientific employee at the CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis and PhD student at the Utrecht University School of Economics (U.S.E.).

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Utrecht University Heidelberglaan 8 3584 CS Utrecht The Netherlands Tel. +31 (0)30 253 35 50

Opinion: Income inequality is gutting the middle class

I care about economic inequality. I teach a class on it. I wrote  a book  about it. Yet, recently, two different arguments have popped up with a seemingly similar conclusion: economic inequality hasn’t risen as much as conventional wisdom would suggest.

While these two arguments have the same implication, they look at vastly different ends of the income distribution. 

The first  focuses on the bottom 20 percent of households by income and suggests an actual  reduction  in inequality. The point is that through increased government transfers, the bottom has actually caught up to the middle over the last 40 years. The  second argument  focuses on the top 1 percent of the income distribution. It argues that estimates of the top 1 percent’s share of income make assumptions that may overstate that share’s growth and thus the growth of inequality.

I don’t necessarily disagree with either of these arguments. Over the last 50 years, the social safety net has expanded in ways that  reduce poverty  and benefit the bottom 20 percent relative to the middle. And, because most surveys of household finances miss out on the top 1 percent, calculating their share of income is hard. It  requires assumptions , and those assumptions will yield different estimates of growth. While I don’t profess to know which group is right — the one saying  lots  of growth or the one saying  less  — I know enough to admit that I don’t know.

So, if I don’t disagree with these arguments, then why am I writing this? Because I think a focus on the poles of income distribution distracts from the real story: the stagnation of the middle over the last 50 years. Sure, the bottom has caught up to the middle partially because of government programs. But the other part of the story is that the bottom has also caught up because the middle hasn’t seen much income growth at all.

The figure below illustrates this point. It shows how GDP per capita, the median earnings of female versus male full-time workers and the median income of Black versus white households have grown since 1975. While per capita income in the U.S. nearly doubled over this period, the same can’t be said for anyone in the middle. 

The median working man saw his real income  decline . And, while the median working women saw increases, this is largely because their education and work experience expanded rapidly. In any case, despite these gains, they still couldn’t keep up with the economy’s growth nor catch up completely to men — the gender wage gap today sits around  83 percent .

At the household level, things aren’t great either. Median income for white households grew about 25 percent. Black households saw even less growth. That’s right, since 1975, the Black-white household income gap  has grown . And while those making the first argument above could fairly point out that my numbers do not account for non-cash safety net programs like food stamps or Medicaid, the median household isn’t getting these programs anyway.

These data contain questions about the economy that demand answers. Why aren’t labor markets providing any economic growth for middle-earning men? Why haven’t middle-earning women — despite massive increases in human capital — been able to outpace the economy? Why are households not seeing much growth despite large increases in women’s earnings and labor force participation? And why did Black households actually  lose  ground?

Economists know the answers to some of these questions.  Technology ,  trade  and the  increased power  of large businesses all likely play some role in holding down median wages. Women have to trade pay for  flexibility  due to caregiving responsibilities. The  decline of marriage  in the middle — at least partially fueled by the economic performance of men — means fewer two-income households than would have occurred otherwise. And Black households still face  discrimination , a damaging  human capital gap  and economic conditions that can make marriage  tougher  than it is for white households.

These issues demand some consideration. Should we plan for the impact of AI to prevent another four decades lost for middle earners? Would universal pre-K help kids do better and help moms work and earn more if they want? Do we want to change housing policy to improve opportunities for Black households to unstick the racial income gap? 

These conversations are worth having, but they won’t be had if people think incorrectly that the issue is settled.

Geoffrey Sanzenbache r is an associate professor of the practice at Boston College, where he teaches a class called The Economics of Inequality. He is also a research fellow at The Center for Retirement Research at Boston College.

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• Media and Speeches
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A snapshot of inequality in Australia

Research paper.

Released 20 / 05 / 2024

This paper provides an update on the state of economic inequality in Australia, reviewing the period of the COVID-19 induced recession and recovery. It also deep dives into economic inequality for three cohorts:

• older people
• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

• A snapshot of inequality in Australia (PDF 1.2 MB)
• A snapshot of inequality in Australia (Word 8.4 MB)

Media release

New research provides a snapshot of inequality in australia.

New research from the Productivity Commission has unpacked changes to income and wealth levels during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The initial pandemic period saw an unprecedented decline in income inequality. The incomes of lower-income households grew rapidly in relative terms in the early stages of the pandemic, due to the massive increase in support payments from the Government,” said Commissioner Catherine de Fontenay.

“Income inequality increased later in the pandemic period as the economy recovered and government support was phased out.”

The report also finds that wealth inequality fell across the pandemic period.

“Some lower-income Australians were able to save or reduce debt due to early government support. And although house prices soared during the pandemic period, the strongest price increases were in regional areas where house prices are lower. This all had the effect of reducing wealth inequality,” said Commissioner de Fontenay.

The report examines three cohorts in closer detail: older people, women, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

The report finds that while older Australians have relatively low incomes compared to working age Australians, many have significant wealth they can draw on to fund their spending.

“When you look at wealth and income together, older Australians are doing better on average than younger Australians,” said Commissioner de Fontenay.

The report also examines gender differences in income and wealth. It finds that women still have lower income than men at all levels of the distribution, but that the share of women at the top of the income distribution has increased.

“We are seeing some improvements in the income gap between men and women consistent with an increase in women’s workforce participation and a declining gender pay gap,” said Commissioner de Fontenay.

The gap between the average incomes of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and the Australian average income narrowed slightly early in the pandemic before widening in 2022.

“Economic measures provide only a partial indicator for overall wellbeing. This is a particularly significant consideration in the case of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, for whom wellbeing encompasses cultural identity, community connections and other measures of quality of life,” said Commissioner de Fontenay.

Media requests

Simon Kinsmore – 02 6240 3330 / [email protected]

• Preliminaries: Cover, Copyright and publication detail, Contents and Acknowledgements
• Executive summary
• 1.1 What is economic inequality and why examine it again?
• 1.2 How to measure inequality – a policymaker’s toolkit
• 2.1 Income inequality
• 2.2 Wealth inequality
• 2.3 Measures of potential and actual consumption
• 3.1 Variations in income and transfers across age groups
• 3.2 Measures of potential and actual consumption suggest less inequality between age groups
• 4.1 Income snapshot by gender
• 4.2 Gender differences in transfer payments
• 4.3 Men tend to have more assets and debts than women
• 5.1 Wellbeing encompasses more than income
• 5.2 Changes in income during the pandemic
• 5.3 Geography matters for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander incomes
• 5.4 Age and gender inequality within Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander incomes
• A.1 Equivalised measures
• A.2 Calculating income
• A.3 Data sources

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Printed copies of this report can be purchased from Canprint Communications.

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Gini Coefficient by Country 2024

The Gini coefficient, also called the Gini index or Gini ratio, is the most commonly used measure of income distribution—simply put, the higher the Gini coefficient, the greater the gap between the incomes of a country's richest and poorest people. A country's Gini coefficient is important because it helps identify high levels of income inequality, which can have several undesirable political and economic impacts. These include slower GDP growth, reduced income mobility, greater household debt, political polarization, and higher poverty rates.

Explaining the Gini coefficient

Developed by Italian statistician Corrado Gini in 1912, the Gini coefficient ranges from 0 to 1, but is often written as a percentage. To offer two hypothetical examples, if a nation were to have absolute income equality, with every person earning the same amount, its Gini score would be 0 (0%). On the other hand, if one person earned all the income in a nation and the rest earned zero, the Gini coefficient would be 1 (100%). Mathematically, the Gini coefficient is defined based on the Lorenz curve . The Lorenz curve plots the percentiles of the population on the graph's horizontal axis according to income or wealth, whichever is being measured. The cumulative income or wealth of the population is plotted on the vertical axis.

Limitations of the Gini coefficient

While the Gini coefficient is a useful tool for analyzing the wealth or income distribution in a country, it does not indicate that country's overall wealth or income. Some of the world's poorest countries , such as the Central African Republic , have some of the highest Gini coefficients (61.3 in this case). A high-income country and a low-income country can have the same Gini coefficients. Additionally, due to limitations such as reliable GDP and income data, the Gini index may overstate income inequality and be inaccurate.

Countries with the highest and lowest Gini coefficients

South Africa ranks as the country with the lowest level of income equality in the world, thanks to a Gini coefficient of 63.0 when last measured in 2014. That said, in 2005, the Gini coefficient was even higher, at 65.0. In South Africa , the richest 10% hold 71% of the wealth, while the poorest 60% hold just 7% of the wealth. Additionally, more than half of South Africa's population lives in poverty.

Top 10 Countries with the Highest Gini Coefficients (%) - World Bank:

Top 10 countries with the lowest gini coefficients (%) - world bank:.

Nordic and Central Eastern European countries dominate this list, claiming seven of the top 10 slots. Inequality is generally lower in Europe than elsewhere in the world, and the Gini coefficient offers quantifiable proof of that fact. The United States has a Gini coefficient of 41.1. In 2015, the top 1% of earners in the United States averaged 40 times more income than the bottom 90%. In the U.S., poverty is a growing issue, where an estimated 12.3-17.8 percent below the poverty level (see Poverty Rate by Country ). Many of these low-wage workers live paycheck-to-paycheck and have no sick days, pension, or health insurance.

The Gini coefficient saw sustained growth during the 19th and 20th centuries. In 1820, the global Gini coefficient was 0.50, and in 1980 and 1992, the figure was 0.657. According to World Bank's Poverty and Shared Prosperity 2020 report , the Gini coefficient increases about 1.5 points in the five years following major epidemics, such as H1N1 (2009), Ebola (2014), and Zika (2016). While the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are still being calculated, early estimates predicted an increase in Gini coefficient of 1.2-1.9 percentage points per year for 2020 and 2021, signaling an increase in income inequality.

• The Gini coefficient is essentially a measure of income inequality, with higher values indicating greater disparity between a country's richest and poorest inhabitants. As such, lower values are preferable.

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Which country has the highest Gini coefficient in the world?

A high Gini coefficient reflects a large gap between a country's richest and poorest citizens. South Africa has the world's highest Gini coefficient, 63.0 .

Which country has the lowest Gini coefficient in the world?

Low Gini coefficients indicate a smaller space between wealth extremes in a country. Norway has a Gini ratio of 22.7 as of 2018, making it the world's lowest.

Frequently Asked Questions

• Gini Index coefficient – distribution of family income - CIA World Factbook
• Gini Index (estimate) - World Bank
• Income Inequality - Our World in Data

7 cities where you need to make $200,000 to afford a typical home

Four of the most expensive cities are located in california.

Buying a home was once considered a milestone. But in many parts of the U.S. today, it seems to be getting farther and farther out of reach for many Americans.

Across the country, home buyers need to make more than $106,000 to comfortably afford a home — an 80% increase in just 4 years, according to Zillow. A typical U.S. household earns about $81,000 a year. Given the current median household income, it would take nearly 8.5 years to save up enough for a 10% down payment on a typical U.S. home.

The median home sale price in the U.S. is $432,903, a 6.1% increase from last year. On top of sky-high home prices, monthly mortgage payments have also nearly doubled since January 2020, coming out to $2,188 (assuming a 10% down payment), according to Zillow. The average rate on a 30-year-fixed mortgage has hovered around 7% for more than a month.

Within the already unfavorable housing market , there are seven cities where households need to earn more than $200,000 annually to be able to comfortably afford a home.

Take a look at which cities require the highest incomes for prospective home buyers (hint: four of them are in California), according to Zillow.

San Jose, California

A household looking to comfortably afford a home in San Jose needs to have an income of $454,296, according to Zillow.

San Francisco, California

To be able to afford a home in San Francisco, a city that has been grappling with an o ngoing housing and affordability crisis , households need an annual income of $339,864.

Los Angeles, California

A household would need to make $279,250 to be able to buy a typical home in La La Land.

San Diego, California

San Diego is the fourth-most expensive city to be able to comfortably afford a home in — and is the last of the California cities on the list. The income needed to buy a house sits at $273,613.

Seattle, Washington

Moving north along the West Coast is the fifth-most expensive city to be able to afford a house. In Seattle, to easily buy a home, households need an income of $213,984.

New York City, New York

Jumping cross country to the East Coast, it takes an income of $213,615 to afford a typical home in the Big Apple. New York’s metropolitan area, including parts of New Jersey and Pennsylvania, has the most million-dollar cities (those where typical home prices are upwards of $1 million).

Boston, Massachusetts

And in Boston, a household needs an income of $205,253 to be able to comfortably afford a home.