Recent increases in earnings inequality have been described as "enormous." Is it that we are experiencing a unique shift toward greater inequality or are we returning to a more normal state of affairs for the American economy? The recent availability of six decades of data together with...

This paper investigates interstate variation in income inequality. By avoiding inequality indices and focusing directly on the Lorenz curve, the authors provide a more general explanation of the differences in inequality. They find that mean family income, the standard deviation of years of...

Regional income distributions are analyzed and tested for convergence and divergence in the 1970s. The methodology is the same as that recently used to show the almost complete convergence of the South and non-South. This paper disaggregates the non-South into major regions consisting of the...

This paper provides asymtotically distribution-free statistical inference procedures for generalized Lorenz curves. Given appropriate measures of income and the income recipient unit are chosen appropriately, the tests allow consensually valid statements regarding social welfare to be made from...

The time consistent redistributive linear income tax rule is derived and it is shown that the results obtained in a static model only generally hold for the last period of the government's planning horizon. The tax policy earlier in the horizon also has to be chosen to affect capital...

This paper investigates the extent to which political factors, which vary across state Public Utility Commissions, affect electric utility bond ratings. The paper focuses on the effects of the commissioner selection method (election or appointment) and other politically determined variables on...