Keyword

inequality

4 papers tagged “inequality”

EconomicsThe Quarterly Journal of Economics · May 2020

The Fall of the Labor Share and the Rise of Superstar Firms

David Autor, David Dorn, Lawrence F. Katz, Christina Patterson and John Van Reenen

The authors document the decline in the labor share of income across US industries and propose a 'superstar firm' explanation: industries are increasingly dominated by highly productive, low-labor-share firms. Using US Economic Census data and cross-country evidence, they show that reallocation of economic activity toward these firms, rather than declines within typical firms, drives the aggregate fall in the labor share. Industries with rising concentration show the largest labor-share declines.

labor share superstar firms market concentration industrial organization

EconomicsNBER Working Paper Series · Oct 2018 Open access

The Opportunity Atlas: Mapping the Childhood Roots of Social Mobility

Raj Chetty, John N. Friedman, Nathaniel Hendren, Maggie R. Jones and Sonya R. Porter

The authors link anonymized federal tax records to census data to estimate children's adult outcomes by the neighborhood in which they grew up, at the Census-tract level for the entire United States. They build the Opportunity Atlas, showing that mobility varies enormously even between adjacent tracts and that childhood environment causally shapes later outcomes. The data reveal which specific neighborhoods foster upward mobility and identify correlates such as poverty rates, family structure, and racial composition.

intergenerational mobility neighborhood effects social mobility administrative data

EconomicsScience · Apr 2017 Open access

The Fading American Dream: Trends in Absolute Income Mobility Since 1940

Raj Chetty, David Grusky, Maximilian Hell, Nathaniel Hendren, Robert Manduca and Jimmy Narang

The authors measure absolute income mobility, defined as the fraction of children who earn more than their parents did at the same age, for U.S. birth cohorts from 1940 to the 1980s. Combining tax records with historical data, they show that this measure has declined dramatically over the period. They attribute most of the decline to the rising concentration of income growth rather than to slower aggregate growth.

economic mobility income mobility inequality american dream

EconomicsBrookings Papers on Economic Activity · Mar 2017 Open access

Mortality and Morbidity in the 21st Century

Anne Case and Angus Deaton

The paper documents rising midlife mortality among non-Hispanic white Americans without a college degree since the late 1990s, driven by 'deaths of despair' from drugs, alcohol, and suicide alongside stalled progress against heart disease. The authors link these trends to a long-term deterioration in economic and social conditions for less-educated workers.

deaths of despair mortality health economics inequality