Inequality and opportunity: the return of a neglected debate
Stephen Machin and
John van Reenen
LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library
Abstract:
During this election period many Americans are feeling angry towards the very rich, especially those working in the financial sector, who helped cause the Great Recession and yet were bailed out by the government. Increases in inequality might be tolerable at a time of growing consumption for all, but they become less acceptable when the unemployment rate has hit 10% and real wages continue to stagnate. The chances that those who are born poor will escape from poverty are lower now in the US than in almost any other OECD country. However, neither of the presidential candidates is clear about how they would tackle the fundamental causes of the enormous shift in the US income distribution.
Keywords: inequality; social mobility; fiscal crisis; US Election; USA; unemployment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012-10
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:
Downloads: (external link)
http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/57988/ Open access version. (application/pdf)
Related works:
Working Paper: Inequality and opportunity: the return of a neglected debate (2012) 
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:57988
Access Statistics for this paper
More papers in LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library LSE Library Portugal Street London, WC2A 2HD, U.K.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by LSERO Manager ().