This study investigates the relationship between conspicuous consumption and inequality in the United States by doing text mining in Google searches for luxury and comfort goods. The findings reveal a strong correlation between the pursuit of luxury items and levels of income inequality in...

This paper introduces a new comprehensive panel of annual state-level income inequality measures spanning the postwar period 1945-2004. For many states, the share of income held by the top decile experienced a prolonged period of stability after World War II, followed by a substantial increase...

Since 1980, there has been a steady increase in earnings inequality alongside rapid technological growth in the U.S. economy. To what extent does technological change explain the observed increase in earnings dispersion? How does it affect the optimal progressivity of the tax system? To answer...

Highly skilled immigrants to the United States (“HSIs”) have helped catalyze American economic growth and advances in human welfare by generating knowledge and innovations that have spawned new products, services, systems, jobs, and wealth. A number of studies document that HSIs are...

Highly skilled immigrants to the United States (HSIs), particularly those with graduate degrees in science, engineering, technology, and math (STEM) fields, have helped catalyze innovation, economic growth, jobs, wealth, and advances in human welfare. America has been attractive to HSIs and...

US labor productivity in ICT-skill intensive industries experienced tremendousincreases in post-1995 trend growth compared to Germany, while other (non-ICT-skillintensive) industries showed similar growth trends in both countries. Examining thesource of industry productivity growth in German...

This paper proposes a method for detecting income classes based on the change-point problem. There is an increasing demand for such a method in the literature. Computation of polarization indices requires a pre-grouping of the incomes. Similarly, indices of social exclusion and sometimes indices...