Funded Research

Our funding interests are organized around the following four drivers of economic growth: macroeconomics and inequality, market structure, the labor market, and human capital and wellbeing. We consider proposals that investigate the consequences of economic inequality, as well as group dimensions of inequality; the causes of inequality to the extent that understanding these causal pathways will help us identify and understand key channels through which inequality may affect growth and stability; and the ways in which public policies affect the relationship between inequality and growth.

Explore the Grants We've Awarded

Reset

Trends in earnings volatility using linked administrative and survey data

Grant Year: 2018

Grant Amount: $60,749

Grant Type: academic

There is currently a debate in the literature about whether income volatility has increased or decreased over the past decade. To help resolve this, the researchers will link the Current Population Survey to the Social Security Administration’s detailed earnings records data. This unique data is essential for understanding earnings, as previous research demonstrates that earnings in household surveys differ from those measured in administrative data—especially at the top and bottom of the income distribution. Determining whether the recent increase in income volatility (as shown in papers using household survey data) also occurs in the administrative earnings data is important in evaluating the changing well-being of individuals and families. It also impacts the measures of inequality. Decreasing volatility may suggest decreasing inequality, which contradicts many recent estimates of the change in inequality in the United States. This work is critical to understanding the nature of inequality in the United States today and the level of income volatility Americans may be experiencing.

Funded research

Human Capital and Wellbeing

How does economic inequality affect the development of human capital, and to what extent do aggregate trends in human capital explain inequality dynamics?

View

Funded research

Macroeconomics and Inequality

What are the implications of inequality on the long-term stability of our economy and its growth potential?

View

Funded research

Market Structure

Are markets becoming less competitive and, if so, why, and what are the larger implications?

View

Funded research

The Labor Market

How does the labor market affect equitable growth? How does inequality in turn affect the labor market?

View