The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design. – F.A. Hayek
Posted in Inequality on Aug 5th, 2009
Economists and other social scientists have long been interested in measures of income inequality. Most such measures are based on individual or household income at a moment in time. However, as a measure of the distribution of welfare, the typical income inequality measure leaves out an important dimension: the length of time over which an [...]
Posted in Inequality on Jul 21st, 2009
Some folks argue that “we” are too obsessed with income, and that more income, at some point, does not mean more happiness. Their obvious conclusion is that higher taxes on “the rich” are not only OK, but justifiable on some cosmic level. But others have pointed out, rightly, that there is much more to inequality [...]
Posted in Education, Inequality on Jul 8th, 2009
I was asked to write a review of Claudia Goldin and Lawrence F. Katz’s, The Race Between Education and Technology.Here is a long-winded, unedited version of it. Among the stuff that did not make it is that I don’t view it as important to have the world’s most educated public, nor do I view it [...]
Posted in Inequality on Jun 2nd, 2009
Contrary to Krugman’s narrative, liberals joined conservatives in pushing for dramatic changes in economic policy. In addition to his role in liberalizing immigration, Kennedy was a leader in pushing through both the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 and the Motor Carrier Act of 1980, which deregulated the trucking industry-and he was warmly supported in both [...]
Posted in Inequality on Feb 17th, 2009
Below is a chart that shows how family income has grown over time for families at different levels of initial income. For the sake of this post, let’s ignore measurement issues and whether or not these data accurately capture what is happening to the income of a particular person over time. What you see below [...]
Posted in Economic Illiteracy, Inequality on Oct 22nd, 2008
Study the following table for a moment: It shows the distribution of household income by race. For EVERY racial group you see that the median income of households have gone up, rather substantially, since 1975. There have even been some fairly sizable gains since 1995. How can you square this data with the “conventional wisdom” [...]
Posted in Inequality on Jun 18th, 2008
From David Henderson: 1. High-income households are not likely to consist of one person earning a very high income (as is often assumed); rather, they are likely to have two or more income earners: In 2006, a whopping 81.4 percent of families in the top income quintile had two or more people working, and only [...]
Posted in Inequality on Sep 17th, 2007
Bill Gates is not even close! HT to Marginal Revolution.
Posted in Inequality on Aug 14th, 2007
In fact, for the typical 1970s family, paying 24% of its income in taxes works out to be $9,288. And for the 2000s family, paying 33% of its income is $22,374. Although income only rose 75%, and expenditures for the mortgage, car and health insurance rose by even less than that, the tax bill increased [...]
Posted in Economic Illiteracy, Health Care, Inequality on Mar 29th, 2007
Not to call out anyone personally, but two responses to my kidney article are telling. The first is from the spouse of a friend, who upon reading it said, “It just feels wrong.” That does not surprise me – it is hard to get one’s mind around markets in organs. What does get my knickers [...]
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