The main driver of inequality--returns on capital that exceed the rate of economic growth--is again threatening to generate extreme discontent and undermine democratic values. Thomas Piketty`s findings in this ambitious, original, rigorous work will transform debate and set the agenda for the...

Modern economics has largely ignored the issue of outright conflict as an alternative way of allocating goods, assuming instead the existence of well-defined property rights enforced by an undefined third party. And yet even in ostensibly peaceful market transactions, conflict exists as an...

Invading the tenements -- Stanny's empire on the Bowery -- In America--we only look to make money? -- To love with severity -- The business of godly charity -- Letters of intent -- I feel you have done me great injustice -- My political attitude is making some of our generous friends uneasy --...

This paper tracks the consequences of individuals' desire to align their location with their social preferences. The social preference studied in the paper is distaste for relative deprivation, measured in a cardinal manner. Location is conceived as social space, with individuals choosing to...

This paper provides a detailed decomposition analysis of rising lifetime earnings inequality in Germany using individual employment biographies constructed from high-quality administrative data. The results show that significant parts of rising lifetime earnings inequality among West German men...

Social stratification is determined not only by income, education, race, and gender, but also by an individual’s job characteristics and their position in the industrial structure. Utilizing a dataset of 76.6 million Brazilian workers and methods from network science, we map the Brazilian...

We study allocation behavior when outcome inequality is inevitable but a fair process is feasible, as in selecting one person from several candidates for a job or award. We show that allocators may be influenced by inappropriate criteria, impeding the implementation of a fair process. We study...

There is world-wide convergence in life expectancy, despite little convergence in GDP per capita. If one values longer life much more than material happiness, the world living standards may this have already converged substantially. This paper introduces the concept of the dynastic general...

This paper uses household survey data to estimate the incidence of tax and spending programs in Honduras. Any such exercise is fraught with difficulty, so our simplifying assumptions are carefully explained. Rather than look at tax and spending completely independently, we evaluate net incidence...

The sizeable increase in income inequality experienced in advanced economies and many parts of the world since the 1990s and the severe consequences of the global economic and financial crisis have brought distributional issues to the top of the policy agenda. The challenge for many governments...