We demonstrate the importance of distinguishing between the traditional use of labor for production, versus alternative uses of labor for overhead, marketing and other expansionary activities, for studying the distribution of both factor income and labor income. We use our framework to assess...

Data on consumption inequality are too fragile to reach firm conclusions. We introduce two new issues, disparities in the growth of price indexes and also of life expectancy between the rich and the poor. We conclude with a perspective on international differences that blends institutional and...

As an aid to interpreting the results of height-by-age studies this paper investigates the relationship between average height and per capita income. The relationships among income, nutrition, medical care, and height at the individual level suggest that average height is nonlinearly related to...

This paper is another contribution to the vast literature which addresses this issue: comparison of household income per capita among households of different structures requires judgment about the relationship between real income and family size. Our work uses a revealed preference approach in...

This paper investigates the role of income-driven differences in consumption patterns in explaining and projecting energy demand and <i>CO_2</i> emissions. We develop and estimate a general-equilibrium model with non-homothetic preferences across a large set of countries and sectors, and trace embodied...

We construct a quantitative model of an economy hit by an epidemic. People differ by age and skill, and choose occupations and whether to commute to work or work from home, to maximize their income and minimize their fear of infection. Occupations differ by wage, infection risk, and the...

A major role for per-capita income in international trade, as opposed to simply country size, was persuasively advanced by Linder (1961). Yet this crucial element of Linder's story was abandon by most later trade economists in favor of the analytically-tractable but counter-empirical assumption...

The world economy has become more unequal over the last two centuries. Since within- country inequality exhibits no ubiquitous trend, it follows that virtually all of the observed rise in world income inequality has been driven by widening gaps between nations, while almost none of it has driven...

We examine a model in which per capita income, inequality, intergenerational mobility, and returns to education are all determined endogenously. Individuals earn wages depending on their ability, which is a random variable. They purchase an education with transfers received from their parents,...