Search

Begin New Search Topic Inequality Political Geography North America Publication Year within 3 Years

11. Cuban Privilege: The Making of Immigrant Inequality in America

Author:
Susan Eckstein
Publication Date:
10-2023
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
MIT Center for International Studies
Abstract:
About the speaker: Susan Eckstein is a Professor in the Pardee School of Global Studies and in the Sociology Department at Boston University. She has written numerous books and articles on Mexican urban poor, political-economic developments in Cuba, Cuban immigrants, immigration policy, impacts of Latin American revolutions, and edited books on Latin American social movements and social rights, and on immigrant impacts in their homelands.
Topic:
Poverty, Inequality, and Immigrants
Political Geography:
Cuba, North America, and United States of America

12. Monetary Policy and Racial Inequality

Author:
Alina Bartscher, Moritz Kuhn, Moritz Schularick, and Paul Wachtel
Publication Date:
01-2022
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
The racial tensions that spread across the United States in 2020 have caught the attention of monetary policymakers and focused concern on the size and persistence of the gap between both the income and wealth of black and white households. There is widespread recognition that despite some decline in overt labor market discrimination, gains in educational opportunities, and income growth of black households since the onset of the civil rights movement, the gaps persist and have even grown larger by some measures. According to the 2019 Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF), the median wealth of a white household was $184,390, compared with only $20,730 for the median black household. The typical black household owns only about 11 percent of the wealth of the typical white household. The income gap is smaller but still large; the median income of black households ($38,688) is 58 percent of the median income of white households ($67,196).
Topic:
Race, Monetary Policy, Inequality, and Economic Policy
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

13. Inequality and the Decline of Small Business

Author:
Sebastian Doerr, Thomas Drechsel, and Donggyu Lee
Publication Date:
09-2022
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Economics for Inclusive Prosperity (EfIP)
Abstract:
The share of income that goes to top earners has reached levels not seen in over half a century, and addressing inequality has become a central issue for policymakers. Designing policies to alleviate income disparities requires a thorough understanding of how inequality affects the economy. Somewhat surprisingly, while several studies investigate the consequences of rising income inequality for households (Auclert and Rognlie 2017, 2020; Mian et al. 2020), much less is known about how inequality affects firms. In a recent study (Doerr et al. 2022), we examine the important link between income inequality and firms’ job creation. Our analysis of US data reveals that a larger top income share hurts small firms, while benefiting larger firms. The reason is that households’ savings portfolios change with their income level. Higher income inequality leads to more household savings flowing into stocks and bonds – which are mostly used for financing by larger firms – rather than into bank deposits. In turn, as small businesses depend on banks for financing, their funding becomes more costly and they create fewer jobs. Complementing our analysis with a theoretical model, we show that by altering the allocation of household savings, rising income inequality not only hurts small firms, but suppresses overall employment. Income inequality has thereby contributed to two important macroeconomic trends: the decline in small business and the fall in the labor share, i.e., the share of total income that accrues to workers (Decker et al. 2016; Autor et al. 2020).
Topic:
Economics, Inequality, Business, and Business Management
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

14. Savings Glut, Secular Stagnation, Demographic Reversal, and Inequality: Beyond Conventional Explanations of Lower Interest Rates

Author:
Matias Vernengo
Publication Date:
11-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Political Economy Research Institute (PERI), University of Massachusetts Amherst
Abstract:
Interest rates have declined over the last 40 years, a period of increasing inequality. The steady decline in interest rates has been interpreted by and large as resulting from a decline of the natural rate of interest. This paper surveys the main explanations associated with the notion of a decline in the natural rate of interest, including the savings glut and the secular stagnation hypothesis. It analyzes the views according to which demographic forces were behind the decline, and might perhaps be associated to a future rise of the same natural rate. It also discusses the view according to which the role of inequality has been also to affect the natural rate of interest. Finally, views that discuss the role of monetary and financial factors, including the so-called global financial cycle literature, are discussed. It is argued that the conventional view suffers from logical and empirical problems that are ultimately insurmountable. A brief critique of the notion of a natural rate of interest, and alternative monetary theory of the decline of interest rates, as determined exogenously by the monetary authority of the hegemonic country, the United States, is proposed.
Topic:
Demographics, Inequality, Finance, and Interest Rates
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

15. How Inequality and Polarization Interact: America’s Challenges Through a South African Lens

Author:
Brian Levy
Publication Date:
04-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
Over the past decade, toxic interactions between persistent inequality, racial tensions, and political polarization have undercut the promise of South Africa’s so-called rainbow miracle transition from apartheid to democracy. South Africa’s recent history sheds light on the United States’ recent political travails. It illustrates how interactions between inclusion and inequality on the one hand and political ideas and entrepreneurship on the other can fuel positive spirals of hope, economic dynamism, and political legitimacy—but can also trigger vicious, downward spirals of disillusion, anger, and political polarization. South Africa was able to transition from a society structured around racial oppression into a nonracial democracy whose new government promised “a better life for all.” Especially remarkable was the speed with which one set of national ideas appeared to give way to its polar opposite. From a society marked by racial dominance and oppression, there emerged the aspiration to build an inclusive, cooperative social order, underpinned by the principles of equal dignity and shared citizenship. In the initial glow of transition, South Africa’s citizens could hope for a better life for themselves and their children. In time, though, the promise wore thin. It became increasingly evident that the economic deck would continue to be stacked, and that the possibility of upward mobility would remain quite limited. Fueled by massive continuing inequities in wealth, income, and opportunity, South Africans increasingly turned from hope to anger. In the United States, a steady and equitably growing economy and a vibrant civil rights movement had fostered the hope of social and economic inclusion. But that hope turned to anger as the benefits of growth became increasingly skewed from the 1980s onward. In 2019, the U.S. economy was more unequal than it had been since the 1920s. Younger generations could no longer expect that their lives would be better than those of their parents. Such economic adversity and associated status anxiety can trigger a heightened propensity for us-versus-them ways of engaging the world. In both South Africa and the United States, polarization was fueled by divisive political entrepreneurs, and in both countries, these entrepreneurs leveraged inequality in ways that added fuel to the fire. In the 2010s, South Africa went through a new ideational reckoning, in part to correct the view that the transition to democracy had washed the country’s apartheid history clean. But opportunistic political entrepreneurs also pushed an increasingly polarized and re-racialized political discourse and pressure on public institutions, with predictable economic consequences. South Africa’s economy slid into sustained stagnation. Paralleling South Africa, America’s divisive political entrepreneurs also cultivated an us-versus-them divisiveness. However, unlike in South Africa, political entrepreneurs and economic elites in the United States also used divisive rhetoric as a way to persuade voters to embrace inequality-increasing policies that might otherwise not have won support. By the late 2010s, the risks were palpable in both South Africa and the United States of an accelerating breakdown of the norms and institutions that sustain inclusive political settlements. For South Africa, the reversals were not wholly unexpected, given the country’s difficult inheritance—though a recent turn away from angry populism suggests that, paradoxically, the rawness and recency of the anti-apartheid struggle and triumph might perhaps offer some immunization against a further-accelerating a downward spiral. But for the United States, the converse may be true. Increases in inequality since the 1980s, and their attendant social and political consequences, have been largely self-inflicted wounds. Complacency bred of long stability may, for decades, have been lulling the country into political recklessness at the inequality-ethnicity intersection, a recklessness that risks plunging the country into disaster. But this paper’s analysis is not all gloom and doom. South Africa’s escape from the shackles of apartheid teaches that, even in the most unlikely settings, downward spirals of despair and anger can transmute into virtuous spirals of hope. The country’s first fifteen years of democracy also show that, once a commitment to change has taken hold, making the shift to an inclusion-supporting economy is less daunting than it might seem. Reforms that foster “good enough inclusion” can be enough to provide initial momentum, with the changes themselves unfolding over time—and an initial round of change can bring in its wake a variety of positive knock-on effects. But lessons can be overlearned. Mass political mobilization was pivotal to South Africa’s shaking loose the shackles of apartheid—and new calls to the barricades might seem to be the obvious response to current political and governmental dysfunction. However, different times and different challenges call for different responses. In both contemporary South Africa and contemporary America, the frontier challenge is not to overthrow an unjust political order but to renew preexisting formal commitments to the idea that citizenship implies some shared purpose. Renewal of this kind might best be realized not by confrontation but rather by a social movement centered around a vision of shared citizenship, a movement that views cooperation in pursuit of win-win possibilities not as weakness but as the key to the sustainability of thriving, open, and inclusive societies.
Topic:
Governance, Democracy, Inequality, Institutions, and Polarization
Political Geography:
Africa, South Africa, North America, and United States of America

16. Young, Gifted, and Black: Inequitable Outcomes of Gifted and Talented Programs

Author:
Krystal Cohen
Publication Date:
05-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Public and International Affairs (JPIA)
Institution:
School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA), Princeton University
Abstract:
Gifted and talented programs in the United States have been an object of controversy for decades, with many arguing that gifted education widens the gap between high achieving students and their peers, typically along racial lines. There is currently a large body of literature on underrepresentation in gifted programs for Black and Latinx students, as well as low-income students, however academic research on the impact of such programs, especially for disadvantaged populations, is a far less developed research space. Drawing on data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth of 1979, this study utilizes propensity matching and OLS regression to examine racial and socioeconomic disparities in the long-term outcomes of participation in gifted programs. I find that: race and maternal education are significant predictors for gifted program participation, and gifted education is positively associated with achievement test scores, academic attitudes, and self-perception, with greater academic differences for non-Black/Hispanic students and students of higher socioeconomic status, and greater social-emotional differences for Black/Hispanic students and students of lower socioeconomic status.
Topic:
Education, Race, Inequality, and Domestic Policy
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

17. Chicago's Racial Wealth Gap: Legacies of the Past, Challenges in the Present, Uncertain Futures

Author:
Fructoso M. Basaldua Jr., Maximilian Cuddy, Amanda E. Lewis, and Ivan Arenas
Publication Date:
02-2022
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy (IRRPP), University of Illinois at Chicago
Abstract:
By the time they reach adulthood, Black and Latinx children born to middle income families in Chicago are far less likely than White children from families with the same income to remain in the middle class or to attain a college degree. These patterns in downward mobility among middle class Black and Latinx Chicagoans are much worse than national averages, raising important questions about the future of Black and Latinx communities in Chicago. In this report, we argue that we need an in-depth understanding of wealth inequality to comprehend why middle class families in Chicago seem to be on such different trajectories. The report centers the life experiences of middle class Black, Latinx, and White families to demonstrate that there is much work to be done to support our middle class families, many of whom are contending today not just with the legacies of past inequities, but also with the ongoing failures of public policy to address basic needs.
Topic:
Education, Children, Inequality, Class, Economic Inequality, and Middle Class
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

18. Industrial Feudalism and Wealth Inequalities

Author:
Hanna Szymborska and Jan Toporowski
Publication Date:
01-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)
Abstract:
The possibility, first raised by Rudolf Hilferding, of stabilizing a capitalist economy through the operations of a ‘general cartel’, leaving only social and political ‘contradictions’ to disturb the functioning of the system, gave rise to a discussion among Marxists not only on whether such a stabilization was at all possible, but also on the nature and scope of those contradictions. This discussion had been anticipated in the 1890s in the work of the Polish Marxist Ludwik Krzywicki (1859 – 1941). He put forward the idea that, in a capitalist economy stabilized in this way, a state of ‘industrial feudalism’ would prevail, in which society would become stratified into social classes without the possibility of mobility between those classes. This analysis was extended in 1940s by Oskar Lange (1904-1965) as he attempted to make sense of the American New Deal and rediscovered in the 1950s by Tadeusz Kowalik (1926-2012). This paper explains the concept of industrial feudalism and argues that the main mechanism for such a stratification today is the unequal distribution of wealth, in the context of declining welfare provision.
Topic:
Industrial Policy, Inequality, Feudalism, Industry, and Wealth
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

19. Shifting Population Trends in Chicago and the Chicago Metro Area

Author:
William Scarborough, Amanda E. Lewis, and Ivan Arenas
Publication Date:
06-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy (IRRPP), University of Illinois at Chicago
Abstract:
Few cities have seen such tremendous population changes as Chicago over the past century. By 1920, Chicago was the fastest growing city in the U.S. In 1950, the Chicago Metropolitan Area was the eighth largest in the world, with a larger population than Beijing, Mexico City, and Rio de Janeiro. Half a century later, population trends have changed dramatically. From 2000 to 2010, Chicago was the only U.S. city among the ten largest to lose population. Since 2010, Chicago’s population has grown slightly, but at rates lower than all other major U.S. cities. In this report, we explore these complex population trends for the city of Chicago and the Chicago Metropolitan Area. Factors driving population changes in the Chicago region are experienced differently across race. Drawing from a full century of data, we uncover distinct population trajectories for Black, Latinx, and white residents (the three largest groups in the area), showing how population growth for some groups often occurs alongside population decline for others. We also investigate the relationship of these population shifts to levels of inequality in the region, showing how population loss is often precipitated by increased racial inequality.
Topic:
Population, Inequality, Urban, Racism, and Suburbanization
Political Geography:
North America, Illinois, and United States of America

20. Regional Deprivation and Populism - Evidence from Germany and the U.S.

Author:
Michael Bayerlein
Publication Date:
07-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW)
Abstract:
A widely held view is that increasing globalisation and inequality are fostering support for populist actors. Surprisingly, when focusing on Germany and the U.S., populist voting is highest in less globalised regions with rather equal income distributions. Addressing this puzzle, I ask how the regional variance in populist voting can be explained. In my answer, I introduce the concept of spatial inequality, which describes the regional inequality within countries, and construct a measure of public goods scarcity. I argue that the spatial inequality induced feeling of being left behind is positively correlated with populist voting and that this effect is mitigated by public goods provision. Using county level data to develop spatial inequality and public good scarcity indices, I can provide empirical support for these arguments. The findings have important implications for understanding the sub-national variance in populist voting and the role of relative economic deprivation as well as public goods provision.
Topic:
Globalization, Inequality, Populism, Voting, Regional Economy, and Public Goods
Political Geography:
Europe, Germany, North America, and United States of America