Aspects of Distribution of Wealth and Income

In the 1980s, a decade of economic expansion, the rich grew richer but the poor poorer. These essays explore the disparities in wealth and income comparing the fortunes of American households with those in other industrialized nations. Demographic and structural changes, saving behaviouir, earning gaps, gender, education and race are analysed in these essays and methodological and measurement issues explored. Policies to counteract growing inequality are discussed and remedies proposed.

The Jerome Levy Economics Institute of Bard College - Acknowledgements - Notes on the Contributors - Introduction; D.B.Papadimitriou - PART 1: INCOME AND WEALTH DISTRIBUTION IN THE USA - Factors Affecting Household Saving Behaviour: an Introductory Analysis; J.N.Morgan & F.T.Juster - Comment; R.B.Avery - The Relationship between Poverty and Household Type; J.R.Rodgers - Comment; R.Blank - PART 2: INTERNATIONAL COMPARISONS - International Comparisons of Earnings Inequality for Men in the 1980s; G.W.Green, J.Coder & P.Ryscavage - Comment; H.M.Wachtel - International Comparisons of Household Inequalities Based on Microdata with Decompositions; S.Zandvakili - Comment; A.S.Blinder - Adjustment, Growth and Income Distribution: the Case of Indonesia; E.Thorbecke - PART 3: POLICY PERSPECTIVES - Economic Justice to the Working Poor Through a Wage Subsidy; E.S.Phelps - Comment; T.Karier - Growing Inequality as an Issue for Economic Policy; P.S.Sarbanes - Causes of and Possible Responses to the Recent Rise in Income Inequality; L.A.Rapping - The Widening Wage Distribution and its Policy Implications; R.Blank - Income Inequality and the Underclass; I.S.Sawhill - Index