In a rare example of an explicit national goal for income distribution besides reducing poverty, China's leadership has … recently committed to expanding the middle-income share--moving to a less polarized "olive-shaped" distribution. Recognizing … the potential trade-offs, the paper asks whether China's experience indicates that income-polarization was a by-product of …

divergence between EDCs and high-income countries, as well as the continued prevalence of traditional belief systems alongside … major world religions. Second, we analyze the determinants and consequences of religious behavior, showing how income …

Low-income families with children receive large tax benefits from the Earned Income Tax Credit, while high income … contrast, middle-income parents receive substantially smaller tax benefits associated with children. This U-shaped pattern of … benefits by income, which we call the middle-class parent penalty,' not only raises issues of fairness; it also generates …

middle- and high-income families. I estimate the impact of aid on the college attendance of middle- and upper-income youth by …'s program has had a surprisingly large impact on the college attendance rate of middle- and high-income youth. Using a set of … between those from low- and high-income families. The federal Hope Scholarship, should it have its intended effect on middle …

mobility. We use the PSID 1985 and 2011 files to examine the change in the share of workers in a middle-income group (defined … status and the incomes of their children. Additionally, we use federal income tax data to examine the geographical … correlation between union density and intergenerational mobility. We find: 1) union workers are disproportionately in the middle-income …

distortions in the supply of mortgage credit, evidenced by a decoupling of credit flow from income growth, may have caused the … originations was shared across the whole distribution of borrowers, and that middle- and high-income borrowers made up the majority … of originations even at the peak of the boom. Compared to prior years, middle- and high-income borrowers (not the poor …

and income rather than an increase in absolute indebtedness. In fact, the average debt of the middle class actually fell …

-tax cash income of either tax units or households. In this paper, we demonstrate that this choice carries significant … implications for assessing income trends. Focusing on tax units rather than households greatly reduces measured growth in middle … class income. Furthermore, excluding the effect of taxes and the value of in-kind benefits further reduces observed …