Syllabus (Durlauf)

Dimensions of Inequality (Slides)

1. Capital vs. labor income
   • Atkinson, Anthony, Thomas Piketty, and Emmanuel Saez. 2011. "Top Incomes in the Long Run of History." Journal of Economic Literature 49: 3–71.
   • Elsby, Michael, Bart Hobijn, and Aysegul Sahin. (2013). "The Decline of the U.S. Labor Share." Brookings Papers on Economic Activity Fall: 1-52.
   • Saez, Emmanuel and Gabriel Zucman. (2015). "Wealth Inequality in the United States since 1913: Evidence from Capitalized Income Tax Data." Forthcoming, Quarterly Journal of Economics.
2. Group-level inequality and social mobility
   • Heckman, James J. (2011). "The American Family in Black and White: A Post-Racial Strategy for Improving Skills to Promote Equality." Daedalus, 140(2): 70-89.
   • Hoxby, Caroline and Christopher Avery. (2013). "The Missing 'One-Offs:' The Hidden Supply of High-Achieving, Low-Income Students." Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Spring: 1-50. 
   • Mazumder, Bhaskar. (2014). "Black–White Differences in Intergenerational Economic Mobility in the United States." Economic Perspectives, No. WP 2011-10 1-18.
3. Spatial Inequality
   • Chetty, Raj, Nathaniel Hendren, Patrick Kline, and Emmanuel Saez. (2014). "Where is the Land of Opportunity? The Geography of Intergenerational Mobility in the United States." Quarterly Journal of Economics, 129(4): 1553-1623.
   • Massey, Douglas S., Mary J. Fischer, William T. Dickens and Frank Levy. (2003). "The Geography of Inequality in the United States, 1950-2000 (with commentary)." Brookings-Wharton Papers on Urban Affairs: 1-40.
4. Segregation
   • Hinrichs, Peter L. (2014). "An Empirical Analysis of Racial Segregation in Higher Education," Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, working paper, no 14-35.
   • Jargowsky, Paul. (2013). "Concentration of Poverty in the New Millennium: Changes in Prevalence, Composition, and Location of High-Poverty Neighborhoods." The Century Foundation, New York, and the Center for Urban Research and Education, Rutgers-Camden.
   • Reardon, Sean F., Joseph Townsend and Lindsay Fox. (2015). "Characteristics of the Joint Distribution of Race and Income Among Neighborhoods," Stanford Center for Education Policy Analysis Working Paper No. 15-01.
5. Inequality and distributive justice
   • Roemer, John and Alain Trannoy. (2015). "Equality of Opportunity." Handbook of Income Distribution, vol. 2. A. Atkinson and F. Bourguignon, eds.  Amsterdam: Elsevier.
   • Sen, Amartya. (2000). "Social Justice and the Distribution of Income." Handbook of Income Distribution, vol. 1. A. Atkinson and F. Bourguignon, eds.  Amsterdam: Elsevier.

Overview of Explanations

1. Long run dynamics of capitalist economies
2. Social interactions
3. Poverty traps
4. Discrimination

Laws of Capitalism (Slides)

• Blume, Lawrence E. and Steven N. Durlauf. (2015). "Capital in the Twenty-First Century: A Review Essay." Journal of Political Economy, 123(4): 749–777.
• Saez, Emmanuel and Gabriel Zucman. (2015). "Wealth Inequality in the United States since 1913: Evidence from Capitalized Income Tax Data." Forthcoming, Quarterly Journal of Economics.
• Rognlie, M. (2016). "Deciphering the Fall and Rise in the Net Capital Share: Accumulation, or Scarcity?" Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, forthcoming.

Social Determinants of Inequality (Slides)

1. Basic ideas
   • Durlauf, Steven N. (2006). "Groups, Social Influences, and Inequality: A Memberships Theory Perspective on Poverty Traps," in Poverty Traps. S. Bowles, S. Durlauf, and K. Hoff, eds. Princeton: Princeton University Press. pp. 141-175.
   • Durlauf, Steven N. and Yannis Ioannides. (2010). "Social Interactions," Annual Review of Economics, 2: 451-478.
2. Theory
   • Becker, Gary S. (1973). "A Theory of Marriage: Part I." Journal of Political Economy, 81(4): 813-846.
   • Bénabou, Roland. (1996). "Equity and Efficiency in Human Capital Investment: The Local Connection." Review of Economic Studies, 63(2): 237-264.
   • Durlauf, Steven N. (1996). "A Theory of Persistent Income Inequality." Journal of Economic Growth, 1(1): 75-93.
3. Identification
   • Blume, Lawrence, William Brock, Steven Durlauf, and Yannis Ioannides. (2011). "Identification of Social Interactions." Handbook of Social Economics. J. Benhabib, A. Bisin, and M. Jackson, eds. Amsterdam: Elsevier.
   • Heckman, James J. (1998). "Detecting Discrimination." Journal of Economic Perspectives, 12(2): 101-116. 
   • Manski, Charles F. (1993). "Identification of Endogenous Social Effects: The Reflection Problem." Review of Economic Studies, 60(3): 531-542. 
4. Neighborhoods and schools
   • Durlauf, Steven N. (2004). "Neighborhood Effects," in Handbook of Urban and Regional Economics: Cities and Geography, Vol. 4. J. Vernon Henderson and Jacques-François Thissepp, eds. Amsterdam: Elsevier. 2173-2242.
   • Epple, Dennis and Richard Romano. (2011). "Peer Effects in Education: A Survey of the Theory and Evidence." In Handbook of Social Economics. J. Benhabib, A. Bisin, and M. Jackson, eds. Amsterdam: Elsevier.
   • Wodtke, Geoffrey T., Felix Elwert, and David J. Harding. (2016). "Neighborhood Effect Heterogeneity by Family Income and Developmental Period." Forthcoming, American Journal of Sociology.
5. Identity
   • Ainsworth-Darnell, James W., and Douglas B. Downey. (1998). "Assessing the Oppositional Culture Explanation for Racial/ethnic Differences in School Performance." American Sociological Review, 63(4): 536-553. .
   • Akerlof, George and Rachel Kranton. (2002). "Identity and Schooling: Some Lessons for the Economics of Education." Journal of Economic Literature, 40(4): 1167-1201.
   • Fryer, Roland and Paul Torelli, (2010), "An Empirical Analysis of Acting White," Journal of Public Economics, 94(5-6): 380-396.
6. Discrimination and stigma
   • Fryer, Roland (2011). "Racial Inequality in the 21st Century: The Declining Significance of Discrimination," In Handbook of Labor Economics, vol. 4B, O. Ashenfelter and D. Card, eds., Amsterdam: North Holland. pp. 855-971.
   • Loury, Glenn. (2003). "Racial Stigma: Towards a New Paradigm for Discrimination Theory," American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings, 93(2): 334-337.
   • Pager, Devah. (2003). "The Mark of a Criminal Record." American Journal of Sociology 108: 937-975.

Policies (Slides)

1. Place-based policies
   • Chetty, Raj, Nathaniel Hendren and Lawrence F. Katz. (2015). "The Effects of Exposure to Better Neighborhoods on Children: New Evidence from the Moving to Opportunity Experiment", NBER Working Paper No. 21156.
   • Kling, Jeffrey R. and Jeffrey B. Liebman and Lawrence F. Katz. (2007). "Experimental Analysis of Neighborhood Effects." Econometrica, 75(1): 83-119.
   • Ludwig, Jens, Jeffrey B. Liebman, Jeffrey R. Kling, Greg J. Duncan, Lawrence F. Katz, Ronald C. Kessler, and Lisa Sanbonmatsu. (2008). "What Can We Learn about Neighborhood Effects from the Moving to Opportunity Experiment?" American Journal of Sociology, 114(1): 144-188.
   • Sampson, Robert J. (2008). "Moving to Inequality: Neighborhood Effects and Experiments Meet Social Structure," American Journal of Sociology, 114(1): 189-231.
2. Affirmative action
   1. Education
      • Arcidiacano, Peter and Michael Lovenheim. (2015). "Affirmative Action and the Quality-Fit Tradeoff." Journal of Economic Literature, forthcoming.
      • Card, David and Alan Krueger. (2005). "Would the Elimination of Affirmative Action Affect Highly Qualified Minority Applicants? Evidence from California and Texas." Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 58: 416-434.
      • Durlauf, Steven. (2008). "Affirmative Action, Meritocracy, and Efficiency." Politics, Philosophy, and Economics, 7: 131-158.
      • Howell, Jessica S. (2010). "Assessing the Impact of Eliminating Affirmative Action in Higher Education." Journal of Labor Economics, 28(1): 113-166.
   2. Employment
      • Holzer, Harry and David Neumark. (2000). “Assessing Affirmative Action.” Journal of Economic Literature, 38(3): 483-568.
      • Kurtulus, Fritz. (2015). "The Impact of Affirmative Action on the Employment of Minorities and Women over Three Decades: 1973-2003." Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 35(1): 34-66.
      • Miller, Conrad. (2015). "The Persistent Effect of Temporary Affirmative Action." Unpublished manuscript, MIT, Department of Economics.