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1. Reproductive Injustice? A County-Level Analysis of the Impact of Abortion Restrictions on Abortion Rates

Author:
Raymond Caraher
Publication Date:
03-2023
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Political Economy Research Institute (PERI), University of Massachusetts Amherst
Abstract:
Since Planned Parenthood v. Casey in 1992, state governments in the United States have been permitted to restrict abortion access up to the point where such restrictions do not place an ‘’undue burden” on those seeking abortion care. Since this ruling, abortion restrictions of various types and intensities have proliferated across the South and Midwest, especially since the 2010s. This paper uses a novel dataset of county-level abortion rates covering 20 years, as well as a database covering four types of restrictions which represent both “demand-side” restrictions (i.e., those which target abortion seekers) and “supply-side” restrictions (i.e., those which target abortion providers), to analyze the effect of abortion restrictions on abortion rates. Using a difference-in-differences design, the analysis finds that while both classes of abortion restrictions reduce the abortion rate, restrictions that target pregnant people seeking an abortion have a substantially larger effect on abortion rates. Leveraging the spatial heterogeneity of the county-level dataset, the analysis further finds that abortion restrictions have a substantially larger negative effect on abortion rates for counties which have a larger share of Black or Hispanic residents. When comparing high and low income counties, the results suggest that poorer counties experience a higher negative effect of abortion restrictions. Further, the study finds significant variation in the effect of different abortion restrictions by state. While demand-side laws consistently cause abortion rates to decrease, the results for supplyside laws are more heterogenous. Overall, the results suggest that repealing Roe v. Wade will have a significant and unequal effect on abortion rates, with marginalized communities experiencing a greater impact.
Topic:
Health Care Policy, Inequality, Legislation, Reproductive Rights, and Abortion
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

2. Women, Peace and Security and the 2022 National Security Strategy

Author:
Hans Hogrefe and Cassandra Zavislak
Publication Date:
01-2023
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Our Secure Future
Abstract:
This brief examines the inclusion of the Women, Peace and Security agenda in the Biden Administration’s 2022 National Security Strategy, and compares it to the ways in which the Trump Administration’s 2017 National Security Strategy addresses the full participation of women in our national security interests.
Topic:
Security, National Security, Women, Inequality, Peace, and Strategic Competition
Political Geography:
Russia, China, North America, and United States of America

3. U.S. Health Care from a Global Perspective, 2022: Accelerating Spending, Worsening Outcomes

Author:
Munira Z. Gunja, Evan D. Gumas, and Reginald D. Williams II
Publication Date:
01-2023
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Commonwealth Fund
Abstract:
In the previous edition of U.S. Health Care from a Global Perspective, we reported that people in the United States experience the worst health outcomes overall of any high-income nation.1 Americans are more likely to die younger, and from avoidable causes, than residents of peer countries. Between January 2020 and December 2021, life expectancy dropped in the U.S. and other countries.2 With the pandemic a continuing threat to global health and well-being, we have updated our 2019 cross-national comparison of health care systems to assess U.S. health spending, outcomes, status, and service use relative to Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. We also compare U.S. health system performance to the OECD average for the 38 high-income countries for which data are available. The data for our analysis come from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and other international sources (see “How We Conducted This Study” for details). For every metric we examine, we used the latest data available. This means that results for certain countries may reflect the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when mental health conditions were surging, essential health services were disrupted, and patients may not have received the same level of care
Topic:
Health, Health Care Policy, Inequality, and Finance
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

4. Examining Child Deprivation Across California and How It Could Be Addressed with Early Childhood Education

Author:
Jamshid Damooei and Ruslan Korchagin
Publication Date:
01-2023
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
California Journal of Politics and Policy
Institution:
Institute of Governmental Studies, UC Berkeley
Abstract:
Socioeconomic deprivation can create adverse conditions with direct impacts on the development of children. The Early Childhood Deprivation Index (ECDI) shows that there are significant differences in the extent of deprivation of young children (aged 0 to 5 years) among the counties in California. Our research shows that the cost of childcare forms a significant proportion of family income among low- and middle-income families. It indicates that families can pay for a high proportion of such costs if they could access the available federal and state government entitlements. A universal high-quality early childhood education system brings about an efficient way of providing the childcare without the unnecessary cost of employing a means-tested entitlement mechanism. However, even with universal early childhood education, families need support to be able to take advantage of the program, since pre-schooling will be on a voluntary basis. It is therefore important that in addition to providing education universally- communities, and the state make every effort to increase the ability of California families to benefit from this important opportunity.
Topic:
Education, Poverty, Children, Inequality, and Child Care
Political Geography:
California, North America, and United States of America

5. Inequality of Opportunity and Income Redistribution

Author:
Marcel Preuss, Germán Reyes, Jason Somerville, and Joy Wu
Publication Date:
01-2023
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Distributive, Labor and Social Studies (CEDLAS)
Abstract:
We examine how people redistribute income when there is uncertainty about the role luck plays in determining opportunities and outcomes. We elicit redistribution decisions from a U.S.- representative sample who observe worker outcomes and whether luck magnified workers’ effort (“lucky opportunities”) or determined workers’ income directly (“lucky outcomes”). We find that participants redistribute less and are less reactive to changes in the importance of luck in environments with lucky opportunities. Our findings have implications for models that seek to understand and predict redistribution attitudes, and help to explain the gap between lab evidence on support for redistribution and U.S. inequality trends.
Topic:
Inequality, Redistribution, and Income
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

6. Inequality of Opportunity and Income Redistribution

Author:
Marcel Preuss, Germán Reyes, Jason Somerville, and Joy Wu
Publication Date:
01-2023
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Distributive, Labor and Social Studies (CEDLAS)
Abstract:
We examine how people redistribute income when there is uncertainty about the role luck plays in determining opportunities and outcomes. We elicit redistribution decisions from a U.S.- representative sample who observe worker outcomes and whether luck magnified workers’ effort (“lucky opportunities”) or determined workers’ income directly (“lucky outcomes”). We find that participants redistribute less and are less reactive to changes in the importance of luck in environments with lucky opportunities. Our findings have implications for models that seek to understand and predict redistribution attitudes, and help to explain the gap between lab evidence on support for redistribution and U.S. inequality trends.
Topic:
Inequality, Economy, Redistribution, and Income
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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

10. 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

11. 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

12. 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

13. 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

14. 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

15. Turning the Tide on Housing: Alternatives to the Modern Orthodoxies of North America and Europe

Author:
Paula Sevilla Núñez and Adam Almeida
Publication Date:
12-2021
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation
Abstract:
This research paper analyzes six case studies across North America and Europe (Berlin, New York City, Seattle, Portland, Minneapolis, Barcelona, Lisbon, and Vancouver) where the orthodoxies of modern housing policy are being challenged. It also addresses the exclusionary practices and spatial inequality that have become common fixtures across the Global North. These fall under three distinct categories: protecting renters, building coalitions and new narratives, and curbing harmful demand.
Topic:
Inequality, Public Policy, Housing, and Rent
Political Geography:
Europe and North America

16. “Baby Won't You Please Come Home:” Studying Ethnoracial Segregation Trends in New Orleans Pre and Post Hurricane Katrina

Author:
Nathan Babb
Publication Date:
05-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA), Princeton University
Abstract:
This paper explores the ethnoracial segregation trends of New Orleans, Louisiana between the years 2000, 2010, and 2018. It studies the effect of Hurricane Katrina—which struck in August 2005—on population figures and racial composition within two geographic units of study in Orleans parish: neighborhoods and census tract block groups. Since Hurricane Katrina, White residents have returned in larger numbers than Black residents, and particularly so in neighborhoods that were predominantly Black before the storm. In 2019, New Orleans had 100,000 fewer people than before the storm—nearly the same as the number of Black residents who have not returned. Using a Gibbs-Martin index, which measures racial diversity, the paper finds that decreases in population at the census block group level are associated with racial “diversifying.” This trend invites a conversation on the normative interpretations of racial heterogenization, its causes, and its consequences: who bears the costs of increased “diversity” and what is the historical backdrop it operates under?
Topic:
Race, Natural Disasters, Governance, Inequality, Domestic Policy, Disaster Management, and Segregation
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

17. Employment Mobility and the Belated Emergence of the Black Middle Class

Author:
Joshua Weitz, William Lazonick, and Philip Moss
Publication Date:
01-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)
Abstract:
As the Covid-19 pandemic takes its disproportionate toll on African Americans, the historical perspective in this working paper provides insight into the socioeconomic conditions under which President-elect Joe Biden’s campaign promise to “build back better” might actually begin to deliver the equal employment opportunity that was promised by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Far from becoming the Great Society that President Lyndon Johnson promised, the United States has devolved into a greedy society in which economic inequality has run rampant, leaving most African Americans behind. In this installment of our “Fifty Years After” project, we sketch a long-term historical perspective on the Black employment experience from the last decades of the nineteenth century into the 1970s. We follow the transition from the cotton economy of the post-slavery South to the migration that accelerated during World War I as large numbers of Blacks sought employment in mass-production industries in Northern cities such as Detroit, Pittsburgh, and Chicago. For the interwar decades, we focus in particular on the Black employment experience in the Detroit automobile industry. During World War II, especially under pressure from President Roosevelt’s Fair Employment Practices Committee, Blacks experienced tangible upward employment mobility, only to see much of it disappear with demobilization. In the 1960s and into the 1970s, however, supported by the Civil Rights Act and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Blacks made significant advances in employment opportunity, especially by moving up the blue-collar occupational hierarchy into semiskilled and skilled unionized jobs. These employment gains for Blacks occurred within a specific historical context that included a) strong demand for blue-collar and clerical labor in the U.S. mass-production industries, which still dominated in global competition; b) the unquestioned employment norm within major U.S. business corporations of a career with one company, supported at the blue-collar level by massproduction unions that had become accepted institutions in the U.S. business system; c) the upward intergenerational mobility of white households from blue-collar employment requiring no more than a high-school education to white-collar employment requiring a higher education, creating space for Blacks to fill the blue-collar void; and d) a relative absence of an influx of immigrants as labor-market competition to Black employment. As we will document in the remaining papers in this series, from the 1980s these conditions changed dramatically, resulting in erosion of the blue-collar gains that Blacks had achieved in the 1960s and 1970s as the Great Society promise of equal employment opportunity for all Americans disappeared.
Topic:
Government, History, Employment, Inequality, Mobility, Unions, Middle Class, New Deal, African Americans, and Great Migration
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

18. The Economic Consequences of Globalisation in the United States

Author:
Peter Petri and Meenal Banga
Publication Date:
01-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA)
Abstract:
The unprecedented rise in global interdependence since World War II, especially since the 1970s, has been very productive. World gross domestic product (GDP) growth increased from around 2% per year in the 1970s to 4% per year before the global financial crisis. Globalisation helped to lift a billion people from extreme poverty and improved the lives of billions more. The United States also gained an estimated 11%–19% of its annual GDP. Yet many Americans are concerned about the fairness of these gains. We review evidence of increasing wage inequality and stubborn unemployment effects, even though, on balance, technological change has had a much greater impact on these outcomes than globalisation. Barriers against globalisation do not offer solutions to inequality – they reduce the size of the economic pie without necessarily improving its distribution. Policies should focus on redistributing gains from growth, increasing the productivity of all workers, and helping affected communities adapt socially and economically to rapid change.
Topic:
Globalization, Financial Crisis, Inequality, and Economic Growth
Political Geography:
United States and North America

19. Expanding Opportunity for Lower-Income Students: Three Years of the American Talent Initiative

Author:
Aspen Institute
Publication Date:
02-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Aspen Institute
Abstract:
This is the second annual report for the American Talent Initiative, highlighting it has achieved more than 40 percent of the progress needed to realize its goal to enroll 50,000 additional lower-income students at high-graduation rate institutions across the country. This report also centers on the impact that an equity-focused, comprehensive strategy can have on institutions’ ability to enroll and graduate more of these talented students.
Topic:
Education, Inequality, Income Inequality, and Higher Education
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

20. Tracing the Local Impacts of Exports on Poverty and Inequality: The Case of Mexico

Author:
Hernan Winkler
Publication Date:
11-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Distributive, Labor and Social Studies (CEDLAS)
Abstract:
Evidence about the effect of exports on welfare at the local level is scarce. Using a unique dataset of international trade and poverty maps for almost 2,000 Mexican municipalities between 2004 and 2014, the study presented in this paper provides new evidence on the impact of a significant rise in exports on poverty and inequality at the local level. The analysis implements an instrumental variable approach that combines the initial structure of exports across municipalities with global trends in exports from developing to developed countries by sector. The results show that a 10 percent increase in the ratio of exports to workers reduces income inequality measured by the Gini coefficient by 0.17 points (using a 0 to 100 scale), but no significant effects on poverty reduction or average household incomes are identified. The lack of impacts on average incomes is driven by a rise in the supply of labor at the local level because municipalities with higher export growth experienced an increase in labor force participation and attracted more net migration, particularly of unskilled workers. Therefore, while total labor incomes grew in response to an increase in exports, average labor incomes per worker did not change. Declining remittances also blunted the effect of growing exports on household incomes.
Topic:
International Trade and Finance, Migration, Poverty, Inequality, and Local
Political Geography:
North America and Mexico