In the marriage market, families make investments on behalf of their young so that they are able to form a household with their preferred partner. We analyze marriage markets in a central region of China between about 1300 and 1850 through the lens of a model of marriage matching and...

We study the association between infectious disease prevalence and income inequality. We hypothesize that random social mixing in an income-unequal society brings into contact a) susceptible and infected poor and b) the infected-poor and the susceptible-rich, raising infectious disease...

We study "habituation" to income and to status using individual panel data on the happiness of 7,812 people living in Germany from 1984 to 2000. Specifically, we estimate a "happiness equation" defined over several lags of income and status and compare the long run effects. We can (cannot)...

Lack of income convergence for the world as a whole has led to concerns about the impact of globalization of markets on world inequality. GDP per capita is usually used to proxy for the quality of life of individuals living in different countries. However, well-being is also affected by quantity...

This paper describes the correlations between inequality and the growth rates in cross-country data. Using non-parametric methods, we show that the growth rate is an inverted U-shaped function of net changes in inequality: Changes in inequality (in any direction) are associated with reduced...

It is commonly argued that Japanese trade protection has enabled the nurturing and development internationally competitive firms. The results in our paper suggest that when it comes to TFP growth, this view of Japan is seriously erroneous. We find that lower tariffs and higher import volumes...

Evidence from a broad panel of countries shows little overall relation between income inequality and rates of growth and investment. However, for growth, higher inequality tends to retard growth in poor countries and encourage growth in richer places. The Kuznets curve-whereby inequality first...

This paper examines the macroeconomic aftermath of the 1992 breakdown of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM). The economic performance of six leaver' nations is compared with five stayer' nations that maintained a roughly fixed parity with the Deutsche Mark. Recent writing about...

The 20th century beheld a dramatic transformation of the family. Some Kuznets style facts regarding structural change in the family are presented. Over the course of the 20th century in the United States fertility declined, educational attainment waxed, housework fell, leisure increased, jobs...

The path of income inequality in post-reform China has been widely interpreted as "China's Kuznets curve." We show that the Kuznets growth model of structural transformation in a dual economy, alongside population urbanization, has little explanatory power for our new series of inequality...