The most powerful force pushing towards greater wealth inequality in the US since the 1970s is the gap between the after-tax return on capital and the economic growth rate.
Responses
Responses weighted by each expert's confidence
Participant | University | Vote | Confidence | Bio/Vote History |
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Daron Acemoglu |
MIT | Bio/Vote History | ||
Theoretically and empirically the case that r-g is a major determinant of inequality or even top inequality is weak.
-see background information here |
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Alberto Alesina |
Harvard | Did Not Answer | Bio/Vote History | |
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Joseph Altonji |
Yale | Bio/Vote History | ||
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Alan Auerbach |
Berkeley | Bio/Vote History | ||
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David Autor |
MIT | Bio/Vote History | ||
Not clear yet if wealth inequality has risen in U.S: different data sources give different answers. Premature to identify cause of non-fact!
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Katherine Baicker |
University of Chicago | Bio/Vote History | ||
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Abhijit Banerjee |
MIT | Did Not Answer | Bio/Vote History | |
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Marianne Bertrand |
Chicago | Bio/Vote History | ||
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Markus Brunnermeier |
Princeton | Did Not Answer | Bio/Vote History | |
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Raj Chetty |
Harvard | Bio/Vote History | ||
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Judith Chevalier |
Yale | Bio/Vote History | ||
There are certainly a host of other factors related to technical change, other government policies and globalization.
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Janet Currie |
Princeton | Bio/Vote History | ||
Many other factors affect inequality including technological change, globalization, increasing returns to education, and others.
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David Cutler |
Harvard | Bio/Vote History | ||
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Angus Deaton |
Princeton | Bio/Vote History | ||
MAYBE IN THE FUTURE, BUT RIGHT NOW IT IS HIGH INCOMES THAT IS INCREASING WEALTH INEQUALITY.
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Darrell Duffie |
Stanford | Bio/Vote History | ||
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Aaron Edlin |
Berkeley | Bio/Vote History | ||
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Barry Eichengreen |
Berkeley | Bio/Vote History | ||
Don't find r-g a partiularly useful summary of anything (doesn't really capture role of technology, training, tax policy)
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Liran Einav |
Stanford | Bio/Vote History | ||
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Ray Fair |
Yale | Bio/Vote History | ||
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Amy Finkelstein |
MIT | Did Not Answer | Bio/Vote History | |
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Pinelopi Goldberg |
Yale | Did Not Answer | Bio/Vote History | |
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Austan Goolsbee |
Chicago | Bio/Vote History | ||
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Michael Greenstone |
University of Chicago | Bio/Vote History | ||
lower taxes on K surely play a role. i disagree based on "most powerful" phrase. more research is necessary
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Robert Hall |
Stanford | Bio/Vote History | ||
A glance at the biographies of the truly rich shows most came from upper middle class families. Good luck and some skill produced the wealth
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Oliver Hart |
Harvard | Bio/Vote History | ||
I would imagine there are many factors: labor-saving technology, globalization,the decline of unions,lower tax rates.
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Bengt Holmström |
MIT | Did Not Answer | Bio/Vote History | |
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Caroline Hoxby |
Stanford | Bio/Vote History | ||
Argument has poor theory & negligible empirics. Read pp7-9 of Acemoglu & Robinson. You need not even buy into their institutional arguments
-see background information here -see background information here |
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Hilary Hoynes |
Berkeley | Bio/Vote History | ||
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Kenneth Judd |
Stanford | Bio/Vote History | ||
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Steven Kaplan |
Chicago Booth | Bio/Vote History | ||
Technology has been the primary driver.
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Anil Kashyap |
Chicago Booth | Bio/Vote History | ||
Argument nicely destroyed by Justin Wolfers (and many others). Too bad for the t-shirt makers
-see background information here |
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Pete Klenow |
Stanford | Bio/Vote History | ||
Jonathan Levin |
Stanford | Bio/Vote History | ||
Saez-Zucman: wealth inequality shot up post 1986. Big cause: savings creates 0.4% annual wealth growth for bottom 90%, 3.4% for top 1%.
-see background information here |
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Eric Maskin |
Harvard | Bio/Vote History | ||
Interest and growth rates are equlibrium phenomena--so even if they are important, there must be something deeper at work.
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William Nordhaus |
Yale | Bio/Vote History | ||
Is this an inside joke? BEA estimates show little change in rate of return.
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Emmanuel Saez |
Berkeley | Bio/Vote History | ||
Income and savings inequality increases are now fueling US wealth inequality. Down the road r-g will be central as predicted by Piketty
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Larry Samuelson |
Yale | Bio/Vote History | ||
Many forces at work, both economic, social and political, making it difficult to identify one as most important.
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José Scheinkman |
Columbia University | Did Not Answer | Bio/Vote History | |
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Richard Schmalensee |
MIT | Bio/Vote History | ||
The rapid rise in very high labor incomes seems to be much more important in the US.
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Carl Shapiro |
Berkeley | Bio/Vote History | ||
Perhaps technological change, globalization, and fiscal policy matter quite a bit?!
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Robert Shimer |
University of Chicago | Bio/Vote History | ||
Trends in U.S. wealth inequality are accounted for by trends in income inequality. See Section 3 of Krugman's review of Piketty.
-see background information here |
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Richard Thaler |
Chicago Booth | Bio/Vote History | ||
A bug in the system prevents me from stating that I am 100% sure that I don't know the answer to this question.
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Christopher Udry |
Northwestern | Bio/Vote History | ||
Difficult claim to evaluate, because both the return and the growth rate depend on savings, and on the distribution of wealth.
-see background information here |