Income Equality in the Nordic Countries: Myths, Facts, and Lessons

By Magne Mogstad, Kjell G. Salvanes, and Gaute Torsvik

Journal of Economic Literature, September 2025

Policymakers, public commentators, and researchers often cite the Nordic countries as examples of a socioeconomic model that combines low income inequality with prosperity and growth. This article critically assesses that claim by integrating theoretical ...

The Economics of Inequality and the Environment

By Moritz A. Drupp, Ulrike Kornek, Jasper N. Meya, and Lutz Sager

Journal of Economic Literature, September 2025

Environmental degradation and economic inequality are two of the defining challenges of the twenty-first century. We synthesize conceptual mechanisms that underpin inequality–environment linkages and take stock of the relevant empirical evidence. We pro...

Declining Wage Inequality in Developing Countries: The Case of Brazil

By Sergio Firpo and Alysson Portella

Journal of Economic Literature, September 2025

Despite rising inequality in rich countries, many developing economies have experienced a decline in inequality in recent decades. Brazil is a notable example. From 1995 to 2015, its Gini index decreased from 58 to 48 points. An extensive body of research...

A Review Essay of The Economics of Structural Racism by Patrick Mason

By Stephan Lefebvre

Journal of Economic Literature, September 2025

This essay provides a streamlined presentation of stratification economics (SE) in three pillars and comments on Patrick L. Mason's (2023) book The Economics of Structural Racism: Stratification Economics and US Labor Markets. SE, a field that se...

Time to Say Goodbye: The Macroeconomic Implications of Termination Notice

By Tomer Ifergane

American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, October 2025

Insuring households against unemployment risk is a cornerstone of modern economic policy. Many countries provide unemployment insurance partly by employment protection mandates, most commonly using termination notice mandates. Unlike unemployment insuranc...

Stages of Diversification

By Jean Imbs and Romain Wacziarg

American Economic Review, March 2003

This paper studies the evolution of sectoral concentration in relation to the level of per capita income. We show that various measures of sectoral concentration follow a U-shaped pattern across a wide variety of data sources: countries first diversify, i...

A Goldilocks Theory of Fiscal Deficits

By Atif Mian, Ludwig Straub, and Amir Sufi

American Economic Review, December 2025

We develop a tractable framework for deficit and debt dynamics. A "free lunch" fiscal deficit—one that raises spending without higher future taxes—is sustainable without zero lower bound (ZLB) only when R < G − φ, where φ is the sensitivity of the...

First-Generation Elite: The Role of School Social Networks

By Sarah Cattan, Kjell G. Salvanes, and Emma Tominey

American Economic Review, December 2025

High school students from non-elite backgrounds are less likely to have peers with elite-educated parents than their elite counterparts. This difference in social capital is a key driver of the high intergenerational persistence in elite education. We ide...

An Examination of the Influence of Theory and Individual Theorists on Empirical Research in Microeconomics

By Pierre-André Chiappori and Steven D. Levitt

American Economic Review, May 2003

Some Evidence on Race, Welfare Reform, and Household Income

By Marianne P. Bitler, Jonah B. Gelbach, and Hilary W. Hoynes

American Economic Review, May 2003

Changes in the Distribution of Children's Family Income over the 1990's

By Rebecca M. Blank and Robert F. Schoeni

American Economic Review, May 2003

Racial Stigma: Toward a New Paradigm for Discrimination Theory

By Glenn C. Loury

American Economic Review, May 2003

This essay examines interconnections between "race" and economic inequality in the United States, focusing on the case of African-Americans. I will argue that it is crucially important to distinguish between racial discrimination and racial stigma in the ...

Employer Stock and 401(k) Plans

By James M. Poterba

American Economic Review, May 2003

Fundamentals, Panics, and Bank Distress During the Depression

By Charles W. Calomiris and Joseph R. Mason

American Economic Review, December 2003

We assemble bank-level and other data for Fed member banks to model determinants of bank failure. Fundamentals explain bank failure risk well. The first two Friedman-Schwartz crises are not associated with positive unexplained residual failure risk, or in...

Kin Groups and Reciprocity: A Model of Credit Transactions in Ghana

By Eliana La Ferrara

American Economic Review, December 2003

This paper studies kinship band networks as capital market institutions. Membership in a community where individuals are dynastically linked has two effects on informal credit. First, the nonanonymity of the dynastic link allows to sanction the defaulters...

Crime, Inequality, and Unemployment

By Kenneth Burdett, Ricardo Lagos, and Randall Wright

American Economic Review, December 2003

Socioeconomic Status and Child Health: Why Is the Relationship Stronger for Older Children?

By Janet Currie and Mark Stabile

American Economic Review, December 2003

Understanding Trend and Cycle in Asset Values: Reevaluating the Wealth Effect on Consumption

By Martin Lettau and Sydney C. Ludvigson

American Economic Review, March 2004

Transparency of Information and Coordination in Economies with Investment Complementarities

By George-Marios Angeletos and Alessandro Pavan

American Economic Review, May 2004

Medical Compliance and Income-Health Gradients

By Anne Case, Ingrid Le Roux, and Alicia Menendez

American Economic Review, May 2004