Women’s participation in the formal economy increased for decades after the 1960s but stalled in the late 1990s. Researchers aren’t sure why this happened, but professors Cohen and Kleykamp propose one possible answer: rising inequality. As income inequality has increased, the pay-off to investing in children has increased as well, making it more attractive to have one parent stay at home—usually the mother. Rising work hours among women has had a large effect on economic growth. U.S. gross domestic product in 2012 would have been 11 percent lower if not for the rising working hours of women. If Cohen and Kleykamp’s hypothesis is right, then rising inequality has held back women’s entrance into the labor market and significantly slowed down American economic growth.

This research will explore the changing distribution of income between labor and capital. The project will look specifically at how tax policy focused towards investment may be responsible for the shift of income from labor to capital by looking at differences across states. The shift in the capital-labor distribution is critically important for understanding not just economic inequality, but growth as well.

Improving school quality is a well-established way to improve student learning. But one specific approach is understudied: school finance reform. This project will examine state-level school finance reforms, intended to increase funding for schools serving poor children, over the past several decades. If school financing matters, then reforms that equalize funding will also tend to equalize student achievement across districts. This researcher will study the effects of these reforms on the absolute and relative test scores of students in low-income school districts. Policymakers can then understand if these reforms boost overall scores as well as reduce the inequality of outcomes.