Poverty and Inequality Test #2

How has labor market behavior and human capital investments (education) among women and men converged over time? "A Grand Gender Convergence: Its Last Chapter," -Goldin

"Lifetime job experience rose along with labor force participation. Years of education for women increased more than it did for men and it changed in content from secondary and college education toward more investment-oriented courses and concentration. Professional and graduated program enrollment increased for women so that about half of all law and medical enrollments today are women, and women lead men in fields such as the biological sciences, pharmacy, optometry, and veterinary medicine." "A Grand Gender Convergence: Its Last Chapter," -Goldin

Borjas mentions the importance of the concept of regression to the mean in understanding the social mobility of immigrants. How does regression to the mean help us understand the intergenerational mobility of different groups of immigrants? "Making It in America: Social Mobility in the Immigrant Population" - Borjas

"The concept of regression toward the mean is crucial in understanding social mobility in the immigrant population. Some ethnic groups who enter the United States do very well in the labor market, while other groups perform poorly. Part of these ethnic differences will likely be passed on to their offspring." "Making It in America: Social Mobility in the Immigrant Population" - Borjas

Combining the results from Figures 1 and 2, Borjas suggests that the historical record produces one broad generalization. What is this generalization? "Making It in America: Social Mobility in the Immigrant Population" - Borjas

"The historical record suggests one broad generalization. The "halflife" of ethnic skill differences is roughly one generation: about half of the ethnic differences in relative wages disappears in each generation. Put differently, a 20 percentage point wage gap among ethnic groups in the immigrant generation implies a 10 point gap among second-generation groups and a 5 point gap among third generation groups." p.65 "Making It in America: Social Mobility in the Immigrant Population" - Borjas

What group of families within the top 10% accounts for the rise in the wealth shares among the top 10% as a whole since the late 1970s? "Wealth Inequality in the United States since 1913" -Saez and Zucman

.1% "Wealth Inequality in the United States since 1913" -Saez and Zucman

These authors identify four factors that have contributed to the growing income shares of the top 1%. What are these factors they identify? "The Top 1% in International and Historical Perspective"-Alvaredo, Atkinson, Piketty, Saez

1.) Tax policy: top tax rates moved in the opposite direction from top income shares. (inverse) 2.) Tax cuts may have led managerial energies to be diverted to increasing their own earnings at the expense of firm growth and employment. (basically take more of the business profits for personal gain) 3.) Capital income: private wealth concentration has followed the same U-shape as the earned labor income. (The more money you invest and save, the more interest you will make) 4.) The correlation between earned and capital income has become more closely associated in the US between 1980 and 2000. "The Top 1% in International and Historical Perspective"-Alvaredo, Atkinson, Piketty, Saez

How is the time series pattern of the top 1% income shares related to the time series of top marginal tax rates? *Two theories* "The Top 1% in International and Historical Perspective"-Alvaredo, Atkinson, Piketty, Saez

1.) When top tax rates decline those with high incomes are less likely to engage in tax avoidance strategies. The authors suggest that their calculation of the top income share that includes capital gains (a primary way to avoid taxes) shows the same pattern as the series that excludes capital gains. 2.) When top tax rates decline, economic activity among the top earners involving more work and greater entrepreneurship is stimulated leading to economic growth "The Top 1% in International and Historical Perspective"-Alvaredo, Atkinson, Piketty, Saez

Becker first published his book The Economics of Discrimination in what year? "The Economic way of Looking at Life," -Becker

1957 "The Economic way of Looking at Life," -Becker

About how much of total income in the US is earned by the top 1% of families in 2011 (including capital gains). "The Top 1% in International and Historical Perspective"-Alvaredo, Atkinson, Piketty, Saez

20% of total income in the US is earned by the top 1% of families in 2011 "The Top 1% in International and Historical Perspective"-Alvaredo, Atkinson, Piketty, Saez

What percent is held by the top 0.1% as of 2012? "Wealth Inequality in the United States since 1913" -Saez and Zucman

22% "Wealth Inequality in the United States since 1913" -Saez and Zucman

What percent is held by the top 1% as of 2012? "Wealth Inequality in the United States since 1913" -Saez and Zucman

42% "Wealth Inequality in the United States since 1913" -Saez and Zucman

How many CZs are there in the US? "Where is the Land of Opportunity?" -Chetty, Kline, Saez

741 "Where is the Land of Opportunity?" -Chetty, Kline, Saez

Based on the authors' estimates, what percent of total wealth is held by the top 10% of families as of 2012? "Wealth Inequality in the United States since 1913" -Saez and Zucman

77% "Wealth Inequality in the United States since 1913" -Saez and Zucman

What types of resources are not included in the authors' wealth definition? "Wealth Inequality in the United States since 1913" -Saez and Zucman

Accrued pension benefits payable to federal civilian and military personnel Accrued other post employment benefits (health care) payable to federal civilian and military personnel Accrued Social Security benefits Accrued Medicare benefits Unfunded portions of state and local employees pension benefits. Inclusion of these measures would affect the quantitative results in this paper and the policy remedies. "Wealth Inequality in the United States since 1913" -Saez and Zucman

Table 1 summarizes the callback rates to resumes with white and African-American sounding names. What are their base findings from this table? "Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal?"-Bertrand, Mullainathan

Across all resumes, 9.65% of resumes with white sounding names received callbacks, while 6.45% of resumes with African-American sounding names received callbacks. The 3.2 percentage point difference is statistically significant and the ratio is 1.5. Another way of interpreting this result is that job applicants with white sounding names receive one callback for every 10 resumes they send out while those with African-American sounding name receive one callback for every 15 resumes they send to prospective employers. The results are similar across the subsets of the resumes presented in the remainder of the table. "Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal?"-Bertrand, Mullainathan

What is included in the definition of wealth used in this study? "Wealth Inequality in the United States since 1913" -Saez and Zucman

All pension wealth held in individual retirement accounts Traditional defined benefit pensions Annuities through insurance companies Currency Deposits and bonds Equities Sole proprietorships and partnerships Housing net of mortgages. "Wealth Inequality in the United States since 1913" -Saez and Zucman

The share of income earned by the top 1% of families in the US has followed what kind of pattern from 1913 to 2011? "The Top 1% in International and Historical Perspective"-Alvaredo, Atkinson, Piketty, Saez

Apart from the bubble of the late 1920s, the US top 1 percent share was between 15 and 20 percent throughout this time. At the time of Pearl Harbor in 1941, the share of the top 1 percent was essentially the same as in 1918. The downward trend in top shares started at the time of World War II and continued until the end of the 1960s. There was then a sharp reversal such that the top share is today back in the same range as in the 1920s. Interestingly, the Great Recession of 2008 -2009 does not seem to have reversed the upward trend. "The Top 1% in International and Historical Perspective"-Alvaredo, Atkinson, Piketty, Saez

Which city has the highest relative mobility based on the rank-rank slope? "Where is the Land of Opportunity?" -Chetty, Kline, Saez

Charlotte, has the highest relative mobility based on the rank-rank slope. "Where is the Land of Opportunity?" -Chetty, Kline, Saez

What are commuting zones? "Where is the Land of Opportunity?" -Chetty, Kline, Saez

Commuting zones (CZs) or geographic areas like metropolitan areas, but that also include rural areas "Where is the Land of Opportunity?" -Chetty, Kline, Saez

How has women's labor force participation changed since the 1940s to the present? "A Grand Gender Convergence: Its Last Chapter," -Goldin

Converging Roles - Goldin notes that there has been a narrowing between men and women in labor force participation, paid hours of work, hours of work at home, life-time labor force experience, occupations, college majors, and education. "A Grand Gender Convergence: Its Last Chapter," -Goldin

The author comments on the connection between inequality and economic efficiency. What is meant by economic efficiency? "Defending the One Percent," -Mankiw

Economic efficiency -The competitive market equilibrium outcome at which the marginal benefit to demanders (consumers) is equal to the marginal costs of suppliers (producers). At equilibrium the sum of consumer and producer surplus is maximized. Economic efficiency occurs when the market is in equilibrium at e when the wage is w0 and at a quantity of labor equal to L0 . "Defending the One Percent," -Mankiw

What does Becker say about employer, employee, and consumer based discrimination? "The Economic way of Looking at Life," -Becker

Employer- It is harmful to companies, because it yields a decrease in employer profits. However, whether employers who do not want to discriminate will eventually compete away all discriminating employers depends not only on the distribution of tastes for discrimination among potential employers, but critically also on the nature of firm production function. Employee and consumer- This is of greater significance because these groups are far more important sources of market discrimination than employers. There is no reason to expect discrimination by these groups to be competed away in the long run unless it is possible to have enough efficient segregated firms and effectively segregated markets for goods "The Economic way of Looking at Life," -Becker

What was the source of the data for this paper on intergenerational mobility? "Where is the Land of Opportunity?" -Chetty, Kline, Saez

Federal income tax records (1040's) from over 40 million children and parents from '96 to 2012. Also included third party returns (W-2's) "Where is the Land of Opportunity?" -Chetty, Kline, Saez

Over time, what has happened to the savings rate of the families in the bottom 90%? "Wealth Inequality in the United States since 1913" -Saez and Zucman

Figure 11b. This figure indicates that the savings rate of the bottom 90% was negative from the late 1990s to 2009. The negative savings rate is due to the increase in debt held by these families relative to their assets which includes the substantial rise and fall of housing values. "Wealth Inequality in the United States since 1913" -Saez and Zucman

Based on Figure 2, what does Borjas conclude about the link between the relative earnings of immigrant grandparents and the third generation? "Making It in America: Social Mobility in the Immigrant Population" - Borjas

Figure 2. This figure presents the degree to which national origin wage differences that remain in the second generation are transmitted to grandchildren of the initial immigrants. This figure links the economic outcomes of the grandchildren of immigrants who entered the US in the early 1900s. The initial immigrant generation data is from the 1910 Census and the grandchildren data is from the General Social Surveys from about 1985 for American born workers who had at least one grandparent born outside the US. The figure indicates that there is a positive relationship between the relative earnings of immigrant grandparent's and the third generation, though the relationship is smaller than the relationship between immigrants and the second generation. The slope of the line in Figure 2 is about 0.22. Borjas notes that this means "that 22 percent of the wage gap between any two groups in the immigrant population persisted into the third [generation]. (p. 64) "Making It in America: Social Mobility in the Immigrant Population" - Borjas

What are the authors' two main findings? "Wealth Inequality in the United States since 1913" -Saez and Zucman

First, wealth inequality has risen since the late 1970s with the share of wealth owned by the top 0.1% of families equal to 22% in 2012. This is almost as high as in the 1916 and 1929 peaks and three times higher than in the late 1970s. Second, the wealth share of the bottom 90 percent increased from 20% in the 1920s to 35% by the mid-1980s, but has declined to 23% in 2012. The authors attribute the decline in the bottom 90% share to the fall in the middle-class saving rate. "Wealth Inequality in the United States since 1913" -Saez and Zucman

The authors use two primary data sets to derive their wealth distribution measures. What are the data sets? "Wealth Inequality in the United States since 1913" -Saez and Zucman

Flows of Funds data and income tax return data. "Wealth Inequality in the United States since 1913" -Saez and Zucman

About when did women's labor force participation plateau? "A Grand Gender Convergence: Its Last Chapter," -Goldin

Goldin notes that "a plateau in participation has emerged for US women in most age groups, even for college graduate women, since around the 1990s "A Grand Gender Convergence: Its Last Chapter," -Goldin

What does Goldin say about the role played by continuous labor market attachment and long hours in the rewards to certain occupations? "A Grand Gender Convergence: Its Last Chapter," -Goldin

Goldin-"Often those are winner-take-all positions, such as partner in a firm, tenured professor at a university, or top manager. These are also positions for which considerable work hours leads to a higher chance of obtaining the reward, and it is often the case that hours alone get rewarded. Persistence in these positions and continuous time on the job matters far more to one's success than a desire and ability to compete." "A Grand Gender Convergence: Its Last Chapter," -Goldin

What does Borjas conclude about the prospective social mobility of the more recent groups of immigrants? "Making It in America: Social Mobility in the Immigrant Population" - Borjas

In regards to the more recent immigration Borjas notes: "Hence there is no certainty that today's immigrants will experience the same degree of social mobility as the immigrants who arrived a century ago. It is still to early to know whether the dramatic shifts in the U.S. social, political, and economic climates will prove important enough to slow the rate at which new immigrants are assimilated economically. Nevertheless, these shifts may signal that ethnic differences among immigrants will prove more enduring in future generations than they have in the past." p.68 "Making It in America: Social Mobility in the Immigrant Population" - Borjas

Describe the income measure used by the authors. "Where is the Land of Opportunity?" -Chetty, Kline, Saez

Income included labor earnings, capital gains, unemployment, social security, and disability benefits. It did NOT include non-taxable transfers such as SSI, TANF, in-kind benefits (ex food stamps), all refundable tax credits such as the EITC, non-taxable pension contributions, and income not reported to the IRS. All income was measured prior to the deduction of individual income taxes and employee-level payroll taxes. "Where is the Land of Opportunity?" -Chetty, Kline, Saez

What is absolute upward mobility? "Where is the Land of Opportunity?" -Chetty, Kline, Saez

It measures the expected outcomes between children born to a family earning an income of about 30k, the 25th percentile of the distribution. "Where is the Land of Opportunity?" -Chetty, Kline, Saez

What are Kopczuk's comments on this paper's estimates? "Wealth Inequality in the United States since 1913" -Saez and Zucman

Kopczuks's says "the existing evidence on what happened to the concentration of wealth in the last few decades is not conclusive. My preference is to rely on the survey-based approach using the Survey of Consumer Finances and the estate tax approach, primarily because of the strong assumptions and imputations needed to apply the capitalization methods in a way that gives consistent results over time. But this is a lively area of research, and the interpretation and implementation of all three of these approaches to estimating the concentration of wealth continues to evolve." "Wealth Inequality in the United States since 1913" -Saez and Zucman

He also introduces the Pareto criterion as way to evaluate a policy, like a transfer policy from high to low income workers. Summarize a Pareto intervention. "Defending the One Percent," -Mankiw

Mankiw suggests the Pareto criterion as a way to evaluate any policy aimed at addressing inequality. A Pareto "move" or "policy intervention" makes everyone better off without making anyone worse off. Policies aimed at addressing inequality fail this criterion. "Defending the One Percent," -Mankiw

What are the attributes of the framework Mankiw outlines at the end of his essay? "Defending the One Percent," -Mankiw

Mankiw's alternative framework would start with individuals receiving the income they earn in a competitive market economy - just desserts (get what you deserve) The government would exist to correct externalities through Pigovian taxes and subsidies. (Pigovian taxes are the taxes necessary to move the market to the efficient output where marginal benefits are equal to marginal costs - including external costs and benefits.) The government would also collect progressive taxes to finance public goods given the assumed differential distribution of benefits related to income. Transfers to low income individuals are considered public goods. Implications of this approach vs. the utilitarian approach lead to different policy interventions. "Defending the One Percent," -Mankiw

Do children stay in the same CZs as their parents? "Where is the Land of Opportunity?" -Chetty, Kline, Saez

No. The authors report the 38% of children live in a different CZ in 2012 relative to the CZ of their youth "Where is the Land of Opportunity?" -Chetty, Kline, Saez

Based on Figures 1a and 1b how has the earnings gap between men and women changed as you compare older to younger birth years? At what ages are men and women's earnings most similar? At what ages are they furthest apart? "A Grand Gender Convergence: Its Last Chapter," -Goldin

Note that each successive birth-year has a higher ratio of female to male earnings. Consequently, the ratios indicate movement towards equality for the younger birth years. Over the life-cycle the earnings gap is lowest at young ages and widens until about 45 years of age and then gap narrows again until typical retirement ages "A Grand Gender Convergence: Its Last Chapter," -Goldin

Goldin contrasts the difference between how lawyers and pharmacists are paid in regards to the effects of longer hours of work on pay. Which occupation is linear and which occupation is nonlinear? What do these term mean in the context of this paper? "A Grand Gender Convergence: Its Last Chapter," -Goldin

Pharmacy as an example of a "Linear Occupation" The author discusses occupations that exhibit increasing returns to hours of work. These occupations may have "nonlinearities" in pay with respect to hours of work. Lawyers are mentioned as an example of an occupation in which earnings are nonlinear with respect to hours of work. "A Grand Gender Convergence: Its Last Chapter," -Goldin

What does Goldin suggest is the cause of the remaining pay gap between men and women? "A Grand Gender Convergence: Its Last Chapter," -Goldin

Quite simply the gap exist because hours of work in many occupations are worth more when given at particular moments and when the hours are more continuous. That is, in many occupations earnings have a nonlinear relationship with respect to hours. A flexible schedule often comes with a high price, particularly in the corporate, financial, and legal worlds." "A Grand Gender Convergence: Its Last Chapter," -Goldin

What are the authors' primary findings? "Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal?"-Bertrand, Mullainathan

Resumes with white sounding names require 10 resumes to get 1 callback. Resumes with African-American sounding names require 15 resumes to get 1 callback. The 50% gap is statistically significant. A white sounding name yields as many more callbacks as an additional eight years of experience on a resume. Since applicants' names are randomly assigned, this gap can only be attributed to name manipulation. Higher quality resumes with white sounding names receive 30% more callbacks than lower quality resumes with white sounding names. In contrast, higher quality resumes with African-American sounding names have a smaller effect on callbacks. "Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal?"-Bertrand, Mullainathan

Which one of the discussed cities has the highest absolute mobility based on the mean rank of children whose parents were at the 25th percentile of the national parent income distribution? "Where is the Land of Opportunity?" -Chetty, Kline, Saez

Salt Lake City has the highest absolute mobility based on the mean rank of children whose parents were at the 25th percentile of the national parent income distribution "Where is the Land of Opportunity?" -Chetty, Kline, Saez

Which one of the discussed cities has the highest absolute mobility based and the probability of children rising from the bottom quintile in the parent distribution to the top quintile? "Where is the Land of Opportunity?" -Chetty, Kline, Saez

San Francisco (12.2) has the highest absolute mobility based and the probability of children rising from the bottom quintile in the parent distribution to the top quintile. "Where is the Land of Opportunity?" -Chetty, Kline, Saez

Do savings rates rise or fall with wealth? That is do families with higher wealth save at a higher rate than families with lower wealth? "Wealth Inequality in the United States since 1913" -Saez and Zucman

Savings rates rise with wealth class The most recent observation indicates that the bottom 90% saves about 0% of their incomes, the next 9% saves about 15%, and the top 1% saves about 39%. "Wealth Inequality in the United States since 1913" -Saez and Zucman

What are the five attributes of high mobility areas? "Where is the Land of Opportunity?" -Chetty, Kline, Saez

Segregation, inequality, quality of k-12 school system, social capital indicies, family structures. "Where is the Land of Opportunity?" -Chetty, Kline, Saez

Are their results consistent with statistical discrimination models? "Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal?"-Bertrand, Mullainathan

Statistical discrimination models: One category of these models assume employers use race as an alternative to unobservable skill differences. However, these models are also inconsistent with the lower relative returns to quality among resumes that are assigned African-American sounding names. "Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal?"-Bertrand, Mullainathan

Do the authors find that their results are consistent with taste based models of discrimination? "Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal?"-Bertrand, Mullainathan

Taste-based or preference models of discrimination: Customer and employee discrimination? The authors do not find statistically distinguishable results by industry and occupation and yet customer contact and racial composition varies by industry and occupation. The authors conclude that these models therefore not consistent with their results. Employer discrimination? Because resumes with African-American sounding names have lower relative returns to the quality of the resume the authors conclude that employer discrimination is not consistent with their results. "Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal?"-Bertrand, Mullainathan

How do the authors test for discrimination in the labor market? "Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal?"-Bertrand, Mullainathan

The authors conduct a field experiment by sending resumes in response to help wanted ads in Chicago and Boston. The resumes are randomly assigned white sounding names like Emily Walsh or Greg Baker and black sounding names like Lakisha Washington and Jamal Jones. The authors then measure whether the perception of race via the names affect the likelihood that the applications receive calls to set up interviews. "Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal?"-Bertrand, Mullainathan

What policy tools do these authors suggest to address growing inequality? "The Top 1% in International and Historical Perspective"-Alvaredo, Atkinson, Piketty, Saez

The authors suggest "that inheritance and capital income taxation will become again central policy tools for curbing inequality." "The Top 1% in International and Historical Perspective"-Alvaredo, Atkinson, Piketty, Saez

What is the authors' alternative model that organizes their findings? "Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal?"-Bertrand, Mullainathan

The authors suggest an alternative: In sorting through many resumes, employers use a simple decision rule based on the perception of names and then do not consider the remainder of the resume that may distinguish the quality of the applicant. Thus, quality may not affect the likelihood of a callback for an interview for resumes that are assigned African American sounding names. "Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal?"-Bertrand, Mullainathan

Based on Figures 8a and 8b, how does total composition of wealth differ among families in the top 0.01% and families in the bottom 90%? "Wealth Inequality in the United States since 1913" -Saez and Zucman

The composition of the wealth owned by the to 0.01%, (16,000 families) is primarily fixed income claims and equities. "Wealth Inequality in the United States since 1913" -Saez and Zucman

What is relative mobility? "Where is the Land of Opportunity?" -Chetty, Kline, Saez

The difference in expected economic outcomes between children from high-income and low income families. "Where is the Land of Opportunity?" -Chetty, Kline, Saez

What is the main conclusion from the top panel of Table 3? "Making It in America: Social Mobility in the Immigrant Population" - Borjas

The intergenerational correlation between skills of the first and second generation is about 0.5 for men implying that half of the wage difference between two national origin groups persists in the second generation. The estimates are stable between 1940 and 1970 and between 1970 and 2000 "Making It in America: Social Mobility in the Immigrant Population" - Borjas

The authors include capital income as well as labor income in their measure of the top 1% income shares. How did the relationship between capital and labor income change for the top 1% from 1980 to 2000. "The Top 1% in International and Historical Perspective"-Alvaredo, Atkinson, Piketty, Saez

The numbers in 1980 are less than in 2000. Because there is a correlation between capital income and total income, this furthers the idea of inequality in America. The tax rate is lower for capital gains so there are significant advantages to putting a larger share of money into them at a higher tax bracket. "The Top 1% in International and Historical Perspective"-Alvaredo, Atkinson, Piketty, Saez

Based on Figure 1, what can be said about the link between the relative earnings of the first generation (1970) and second generation (2000) of various immigrant groups? "Making It in America: Social Mobility in the Immigrant Population" - Borjas

The relative position of first generation immigrant groups has a higher slope in relation to that in the second generation groups. (There is a big enclave effect) "Making It in America: Social Mobility in the Immigrant Population" - Borjas

How do they identify white sounding and African-American sounding names? "Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal?"-Bertrand, Mullainathan

The white sounding and African-American sounding names that are assigned to the resumes are derived from Massachusetts birth certificates from 1974 to 1979. The distinctive first names have the highest ratio of likelihood in one race relative to the likelihood in the other race. The authors also survey people in Chicago to identify perceptions of race based on the names derived from the birth certificates. "Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal?"-Bertrand, Mullainathan

How do the authors develop the resumes that they send to potential employers? Where are the potential employers? What types of job listings do they send resumes to? How do they distinguish between high and low quality resumes? "Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal?"-Bertrand, Mullainathan

They develop resumes by manipulating those found on online job websites. They send resumes to sales, administrative support, clerical, and customer service jobs. They distinguish between the quality of resumes by adding extra qualifications to the high quality resumes, such as computer skills, language skills, military service, or extra work experience. "Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal?"-Bertrand, Mullainathan

The authors note several limitations of their study. What are those limitations? "Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal?"-Bertrand, Mullainathan

They only measure callback rates. They cannot measure the likelihood of a job offer or the offered wage. The resumes do not report race. They convey the race of the hypothetical applicant through white and African-American sounding names. They note that the results are not representative of an average African-American. "Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal?"-Bertrand, Mullainathan

Why do the authors consider the distribution of wealth among the bottom 90% as representative of the distribution of wealth for the "middle class?" "Wealth Inequality in the United States since 1913" -Saez and Zucman

They say that is more representative of the middle class because those that are below the 50% generally have negative wealth and will not show up on the graph. This is because they have debts like financing a home, ect. (Enough so that they offset their assets) "Wealth Inequality in the United States since 1913" -Saez and Zucman

Briefly describe how the capitalization factors for different asset classes are used to distribute wealth. (See pp. 1-2) "Wealth Inequality in the United States since 1913" -Saez and Zucman

They use income data to divide up wealth data and distribute (slide 4) "Wealth Inequality in the United States since 1913" -Saez and Zucman

In what years were the *children's* income measured? How old were they when measured? "Where is the Land of Opportunity?" -Chetty, Kline, Saez

They were measured in 2012 or 2012. They were roughly thirty years old. (Up to 32) "Where is the Land of Opportunity?" -Chetty, Kline, Saez

*Parent* income was observed in what years? How old were the children? "Where is the Land of Opportunity?" -Chetty, Kline, Saez

They were observed over a period from '96-2012. Their children were between 14 and 20. (The children were born between '80-'82. "Where is the Land of Opportunity?" -Chetty, Kline, Saez

What is the difference between income and wealth? "Wealth Inequality in the United States since 1913" -Saez and Zucman

Wealth - Is the difference between an individual's or family's assets and debts. Income- represents a flow of resources while wealth represents a stock of resources. "Wealth Inequality in the United States since 1913" -Saez and Zucman

The authors attribute the decline in the bottom 90% wealth share to what two factors? "Wealth Inequality in the United States since 1913" -Saez and Zucman

Wealth inequality is fueled by both rising income and rising saving rate inequalities. "Wealth Inequality in the United States since 1913" -Saez and Zucman

What is the definition of wealth used by the authors of this study? "Wealth Inequality in the United States since 1913" -Saez and Zucman

Wealth is the current market value of all the assets owned by households net of all their debts. Following international standards codified on the System of National Accounts (United Nations, 2009), assets include all the non-financial and financial assets over which ownership rights can be enforced and provide economic benefits to their owners. "Wealth Inequality in the United States since 1913" -Saez and Zucman

Is the pattern in the US similar or dissimilar when compared to NON English-speaking, developed countries? "The Top 1% in International and Historical Perspective"-Alvaredo, Atkinson, Piketty, Saez

When compared to: France, Germany, Japan and Sweden: Dissimilar. There, the top 1%'s shares declined from 1910 to 2011. In these countries, the top 1% garnered shares comparable to those in the English-speaking countries until the end of WWII. Thereafter, the top 1 percent's shares gradually decline, and importantly in this comparison, the share did not again rise in the late 1970s as it did in the English-speaking countries. "The Top 1% in International and Historical Perspective"-Alvaredo, Atkinson, Piketty, Saez

Is the pattern in the US similar or dissimilar when compared to English-speaking countries? "The Top 1% in International and Historical Perspective"-Alvaredo, Atkinson, Piketty, Saez

When compared with Australia, Canada, and the UK: Similar U-Shaped pattern - high concentration of income in the early years and the later years of the time series "The Top 1% in International and Historical Perspective"-Alvaredo, Atkinson, Piketty, Saez

What does he say about the effects of statistical discrimination on the outcomes of minorities? "The Economic way of Looking at Life," -Becker

When the majority is very large compared to the minority -in the United States whites are nine times as numerous and have much more human and physical capital per capita than blacks -market discrimination by the majority hardly lowers their incomes, but may greatly reduce the incomes of the minority. However, when minority members are a sizable fraction of the total, discrimination by the majority injures them as well. "The Economic way of Looking at Life," -Becker

Does Goldin note that the majority of the current earnings gap comes from within or between occupation differences? "A Grand Gender Convergence: Its Last Chapter," -Goldin

Within occupation earnings differences by gender - "the majority of the current earnings gap comes from within occupation differences in earnings rather than from between occupation differences. What happens within occupation is far more important than the occupations in which women wind up." "A Grand Gender Convergence: Its Last Chapter," -Goldin