Economic and Political Inequality: Social Mobility, Economic Growth, and Inequality

Program Committee: Leah Boustan, Greg Clark, Tracy Denison, Jean-Laurent Rosenthal

Theme: The widening of the income distribution in recent decades, both within and across countries, has led to a revival of interest in the causes and consequences of economic inequality. Debate has centered, in part, on the relationship between income inequality and disparities in political power.  These topics have spurred the gathering of new historical data on the distribution of income, wealth, health, education and political power, among other factors, in an attempt to learn from the past about contemporary economic processes.

This conference will address questions relating to economic and political inequality. Among these we particularly encourage work on the following issues:

• National aggregates hide massive internal variation both in terms of endowments (say, environmental conditions) and outcomes (say human capital). This heterogeneity must be reconciled with studies that connect national institutions with aggregate national performance.
• The wealth and human capital of one generation are both the result of what that generation has decided and been able to accumulate and the endowment of the next generation.  What are the connections between inequality and inheritance?
• Inequality has been largely studied by taking countries as closed (with the flow of capital and people being taken as nearly exogenous). Human capital and economic growth, however, are partly the result of migration decisions (by labor or capital) and thus one must consider the merits of studying inequality or social mobility in an open versus a closed economy framework.

Registration for this conference is closed.

Conference Details

• Program

• Directions
• Shuttle Schedule
• Huntington Map
• Lodging - The Westin Pasadena, 191 N. Los Robles Ave., Pasadena, CA 91101, (626) 792-2727

Papers

• A Nation of Immigrants: Assimilation and Economic Outcomes in the Age of Mass Migration, Leah Boustan

• Vestiges of Transit: Urban Persistence at a Micro Scale, Leah Brooks
• European Regional Income, Institutions, and Market Access, 1870-1910, Paul Caruana-Galizia
• Jews, Gypsies, Brahmins, and Copts:  A Theory of Social Mobility, Greg Clark
• Does the European Marriage Pattern Explain Economic Growth?, Tracy Dennison
• Demographic structures, Inheritance and Wealth mobility. Paris and France, 1870-1950., Clement Dherbecourt
• The Transmission of Colonial Institutions: Evidence from the 19th Century Caribbean, Christian Dippel
• Labor migration, rural inequality and democratic reforms, Isabela Mares
• Changing Social Contracts: Beliefs and Dissipative Inclusion in Brazil, Bernardo Mueller
• Russian Serfdom, Emancipation, and Land Inequality: New Evidence, Steven Nafziger
• Income versus sanitation. Mortality Decline in Paris, 1880-1914., Jean-Laurent Rosenthal
• Tax Cuts for Whom? Heterogenous Effects of Income Tax Changes on Growth & Employment, Owen Zidar