Who are the disadvantaged? There’s debate around this question. There are those who argue that policies should aim to favor historically disadvantaged groups, that is, lower castes. Conversely, there are others that favor incentivizing the poor regardless of their caste. Also, should the system provide incentives to students based on merit such that every student has an opportunity, or should it only aim the disadvantaged?
Sutanuka Roy, a PhD candidate at the London School of Economics, aims to provide evidence on this topic in her paper “Disruptive Effects of Preferenti...
Technology has changed our workplace. Since the start of the 1980s the aggregate labor share has decreased by 6 percentage points in the United States. Many fear that a day will come in which most jobs will be automated. In many industries, workers have been replaced by machinery that can perform their jobs faster, cheaper and arguably, better.
However, is the decline in the labor share common across industries? Luis DÃez Catalán, a PhD candidate from the University of Minnesota, aims to answer this question in his paper titled: The Labor Share in the Service Economy, w...
What determines the level of taxation and redistribution in a democratic political environment? Recently, United States’ President Donald Trump proposed the largest tax overhaul in decades. Some argue that this measure is predicted to mostly benefit those in the upper income quintile, therefore increasing inequality. Perhaps, this contrast the period between the 1950s and the 1980s when we saw a clear increase in the welfare state in the U.S.
Generally, economists believe that higher inequality fosters pressures to increase taxes and redistribution. While it is true that i...