Weekend reading: “Memorial Day” edition
This is a weekly post we publish on Fridays with links to articles that touch on economic inequality and growth. The first section is a round-up of what Equitable Growth published this week and the second is the work we’re highlighting from elsewhere. We won’t be the first to share these articles, but we hope by taking a look back at the whole week, we can put them in context.
Equitable Growth round-up
Raksha Kopparam writes about a new paper in the May edition of the Quarterly Journal of Economics by Equitable Growth grantee Xavier Jaravel, who is an assistant professor at the London School of Economics, which finds that price competition for the dollars spent by the wealthy results in more product innovation for those goods, leading to less inflationary pressure on those products compared to products bought by everyone else.
In the latest edition of our In Conversation series, Equitable Growth Executive Director Heather Boushey talks with Janet Currie about what her research shows about the role of early childhood health, environments, and learning in the formation of human capital and later-in life outcomes.
Catch up on Brad DeLong’s latest worthy reads from Equitable Growth and around the web.
Links from around the web
A profile of University of California, Berkeley economist and Equitable Growth grantee Gabriel Zucman by Ben Steverman discusses Zucman’s research into measuring wealth inequality and offshore tax havens. [bloomberg businessweek]
Dylan Matthews profiles Harvard University’s “Economics 1152” course, taught by economist and former Equitable Growth Steering Committee member Raj Chetty. The course, which draws heavily from Chetty’s empirical research and use of data to explore questions related to inequality, mobility, and race, is seen as an antidote to the overly theoretical approach in traditional “econ 101” courses. [vox]
Eduardo Porter and Guilbert Gates discuss why superstar cities are losing population to other, less dynamic parts of the country, drawing on new research by Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist and Equitable Growth Academic Advisory Board member David Autor. [nyt]
Peter Reuell writes about new research that finds increased exposure to harsh environments—such as toxicity, violence, and incarceration—in childhood results in worse outcomes later in life, deepening academics’ understanding of the pathways via which poverty impacts outcomes. Harvard Professor of Social Sciences Robert Sampson says this research broadens understanding of what potential policy solutions could improve mobility. “What this study suggests is that environmental policy and criminal justice reform can be thought of as social mobility policy,” he writes. “ I think that’s provocative, because that’s different than saying it’s just about poverty itself and childhood education and human capital investment, which has traditionally been the conversation.” [harvard gazette]
Friday Figure
Figure is from Equitable Growth’s,“Competitive Edge: Principles and presumptions for U.S. vertical merger enforcement policy” by Jonathan B. Baker, Nancy L. Rose, Steven C. Salop, and Fiona Scott Morton.