This paper presents new findings on global inequality dynamics from the World Wealth and Income Database (WID.world), with particular emphasis on the contrast between the trends observed in the United States, China, France, and the United Kingdom. We observe rising top income and wealth shares...

Will incomes of low and high skilled workers continue to diverge? Yes says our paper's dynamic, six-good, five-region -- U.S., Europe, N.E. Asia (Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong), China, and India -- general equilibrium, life-cycle model.The model predicts a near doubling of the ratio of high-...

We propose a theory that rising globalization and rising wage inequality are related because trade liberalization raises the demand facing highly competitive skill-intensive firms. In our model, only the lowest-cost firms participate in the global economy exactly along the lines of Melitz...

We discuss recent empirical research on how globalization has affected income inequality in developing countries. We begin with a discussion of conceptual issues regarding the measurement of globalization and inequality. Next, we present empirical evidence on the evolution of globalization and...

This paper develops a new framework for examining the distributional consequences of trade liberalization that is consistent with increasing inequality in every country, growth in residual wage inequality, rising unemployment, and reallocation within and between industries. While the opening of...

The presence of a westward-moving frontier of settlement shaped early U.S. history. In 1893, the historian Frederick Jackson Turner famously argued that the American frontier fostered individualism. We investigate the Frontier Thesis and identify its long-run implications for culture and...

The United States aspires to use information from comparative effectiveness research (CER) to reduce waste and contain costs without instituting a formal rationing mechanism or compromising patient or physician autonomy with regard to treatment choices. With such ambitious goals, traditional...

We construct an endogenous growth model that includes a cultural variable along the dimension of individualism-collectivism. The model predicts that more individualism leads to more innovation because of the social rewards associated with innovation in an individualist culture. This cultural...

The functioning and well-being of any society and organization critically hinges on norms of cooperation that regulate social activities. Empirical evidence on how such norms emerge and in which environments they thrive remains a clear void in the literature. To provide an initial set of...

We study the correlation between a belief concerning individualism and a measure of luck in the US during the period 1983-2004. The measure of beliefs is the answer to a question related to whether the poor should be helped by the government or if they should help themselves, while the measure...