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...

Understanding within and between group inequality is fundamental in understanding the evolution of income inequality in any country. Using a century of data for France, and the Theil measure of income inequality, which is decomposable, we show that income inequality within the bottom 90\%...

We hypothesize that the role of education in driving wage inequality is not the same across three racial groups in the United States. Using the Current Population Survey (CPS) data for the period 2000-2021, we show that education weighs at most 33% in explaining the wage inequality. Further, we...

We investigate the long-run consequences of historic, climatic temperatures (1730-2000) for the modern cross-country income distribution. Using a newly constructed dataset of climatic temperatures stretching over three centuries (18th, 19th, and 20th), we estimate a robust and significant...

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...

A new line of theoretical and empirical literature emphasizes the pivotal role of fair institutions for growth. We present a model, a laboratory experiment, and a simple crosscountry regression supporting this view. We model an economy with an unequal distribution of property rights, in which...

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...

This paper aims to clarify the relationship between monetary policy shocks and wage inequality. We emphasize the relevance of within and between wage group inequalities in explaining total wage inequality in the United States. Relying on the quarterly data for the period 2000-2020, our analysis...