Soaring wealth inequality has remade the map of
American prosperity
Escaping the New Gilded Age
https://www.project-syndicate.org/onpoint/wealth-inequality-billionaires-undue-influence-bad-for-society-by-daron-acemoglu-2024-09
In an America where wealth has increasingly become the primary source of social status, billionaires are viewed as entrepreneurial geniuses who exhibit unique levels of creativity, courage, foresight, and expertise on a wide range of topics. Yet it should be obvious that wealth is a poor metric for wisdom.
https://www.project-syndicate.org/onpoint/wealth-inequality-billionaires-undue-influence-bad-for-society-by-daron-acemoglu-2024-09
In an America where wealth has increasingly become the primary source of social status, billionaires are viewed as entrepreneurial geniuses who exhibit unique levels of creativity, courage, foresight, and expertise on a wide range of topics. Yet it should be obvious that wealth is a poor metric for wisdom.
Rising Top, Falling Bottom: Industries and Rising Wage Inequality by John Haltiwanger, Henry R. Hyatt, and James R. Spletzer
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/pdf/doi/10.1257/aer.20221574
Most of the rise in overall earnings inequality from 1996 to 2018 is accounted for by rising between-industry dispersion. The contribution of industries is right-skewed with the top 10 percent of four-digit NAICS industries dominating. The top 10 percent are clustered in high-paying high-tech and low-paying retail sectors. In the top industries, high-wage workers are increasingly sorted to high-wage industries with rising industry premia. In the bottom industries, low-wage workers are increasingly sorted into low-wage industries, with rising employment and falling industry wage premia.
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/pdf/doi/10.1257/aer.20221574
Most of the rise in overall earnings inequality from 1996 to 2018 is accounted for by rising between-industry dispersion. The contribution of industries is right-skewed with the top 10 percent of four-digit NAICS industries dominating. The top 10 percent are clustered in high-paying high-tech and low-paying retail sectors. In the top industries, high-wage workers are increasingly sorted to high-wage industries with rising industry premia. In the bottom industries, low-wage workers are increasingly sorted into low-wage industries, with rising employment and falling industry wage premia.
Who gets the flow? Financial globalisation and
wealth inequality
Simone Arrigoni; Journal of Macroeconomics, September
2024
Abstract:
This paper studies whether the advent of financial
globalisation has contributed to increasing wealth inequality in the United
States, France, and the United Kingdom. I find that (i) positive changes in the
benchmark measure of financial globalisation are associated with a positive
change in the top 1% and 10% wealth shares and a negative change in the wealth
share of the bottom 50% of the distribution. This is equivalent to an average
gain of $1 trillion for the top 10% and $1.6 trillion for the top 1%, over the
period of interest. (ii) Portfolio equities and financial derivatives appear to
be the driving components behind the increase in wealth shares. (iii) The
implied change in wealth shares is driven by the accumulation of new financial
wealth (flow) rather than the valuation of existing one. (iv) The dynamic is
strengthened when a banking crisis hits the economy, possibly because people at
the top of the distribution can recover their lost wealth faster than people at
the bottom. The main finding is robust to an expanded country sample, albeit
reducing the historical context beyond the scope of this paper.