Tag: intergenerational mobility

Building a more inclusive society requires a conversation about inequality

~ MilesCorak ~ 4 Comments

[ This post is based on the opening address I gave on the invitation of the New Zealand Treasury to the “A More Inclusive New Zealand Forum” held in Wellington, New Zealand on July 27th, 2015. ]

I would like to open this gathering with a statement of admiration for both its content, and its process. The organizers have asked us to deliberate on “inclusion”, and to do so through conversation.

As a part of my contribution to this conversation I would ask you to consider four major messages, all four of which revolve around the question: What does inclusion mean?

I use “mean” in the sense of how we define inclusion, and “mean” in the sense of its implications for policy.

What does “inclusion” mean, and how can we give it enough precision to inform public policy?

My four messages are:

  1. an inclusive society means that all children can become all that they can be;
  2. an inclusive society seeks to eliminate child poverty;
  3. income inequality has the potential to erode inclusion;
  4. public policy must address many dimensions of inequality.

 

A More Inclusive New Zealand Forum

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“Inequality, Life Chances, and Public Policy,” watch the presentation I made at Millersville university

~ MilesCorak ~ 5 Comments

I was very pleased to speak at the 2014 International Policy Conference on the theme “Inequality: Defining our Time?” held at Millersville University on November 6th and 7th, 2014. I spoke on the very kind invitation of Professor Ken Smith and the Department of Economics at Millersville University.

My talk was called “Inequality, Life Chances, and Public Policy: How to Slide Down the Great Gatsby Curve,” and you can watch it here if you have an interest.

These are the associated slides: Inequality Life Chances and Public Policy how to Slide Down the Great Gatsby Curve for Millersville University International Policy Conference

The source for this presentation is an article I published in the Journal of Economic Perspectives called “Income Inequality, Equality of Opportunity, and Intergenerational Mobility”

The discussant, who begins speaking at about 47 minutes into the talk, is Professor Antonio Callari of Franklin and Marshall College. He offered some interesting remarks about how the theme of the talk relates to developments in Lancaster PA, where the conference was held.

[ One silly grammatical error that I wish I could take back occurs when I say “the more statistically significant among you,” when my intention was “the more statistically savvy among you.” ]

Social mobility, fixed forever? Gregory Clark’s The Son Also Rises is a book of scholarship, and of scholastic overreach

~ MilesCorak ~ 12 Comments

[ This post is a book review of: Gregory Clark (with Neil Cummins, Yu Hao, and Daniel Diaz Vidal and others), 2014. The Son Also Rises: Surnames and the History of Social Mobility. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press. ]

The Son Also Rises forcefully advances the idea that social position is determined by innate inherited abilities, an idea that is potentially pregnant with policy implications. “Once you have selected your mate,” Gregory Clark counsels, “your work is largely done. You can safely neglect your offspring, confident that the innate talents you secured for them will shine through regardless.”

With this book Professor Clark (an economic historian with the University of California at Davis) dons the mantle of Francis Galton, who more than 100 years ago examined the transmission of status across the generations of 19th century England, and who is equally known for the statistical methods he developed to study the issue.

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Joseph Fishkin’s book, “Bottlenecks,” explains why inequality lowers social mobility

~ MilesCorak ~ 3 Comments

Bottlenecks

[ The Brookings Institution has been having an online discussion of Bottlenecks: A New Theory of Equal Opportunity, a book by Joseph Fishkin. This post is a re-blog of my contribution, “Money: a Bottleneck with Bite.” ]

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America’s children are the silent victims of the Great Recession

~ MilesCorak ~ 8 Comments

Children at risk a red and green water colour

The Great Recession has disrupted the lives of families and their children in an unprecedented way.

It has changed everyday life in some ways that can be measured by money, but in others that cannot, and at the extreme it has even led to a six-fold increase in the risk children will be physically abused.

Lost jobs, falling incomes, and foreclosures will likely compromise the capacity of children to become all that they can be, with the effects of the recession echoing not just across years, but also across generations.

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Why should we care about inequality? Tim Harford nails it in this Financial Times column

~ MilesCorak ~ 7 Comments

Tim Harford nails it in an article called “How the wealthy keep themselves on top.”

I set out two reasons why we might care about inequality: an unfair process or a harmful outcome. But what really should concern us is that the two reasons are not actually distinct after all. The harmful outcome and the unfair process feed each other. The more unequal a society becomes, the greater the incentive for the rich to pull up the ladder behind them.

The noted Financial Times columnist, and author of The Undercover Economist, does a great service to readers by pulling a major theme from the series of articles on inequality and the top 1% published in the summer 2013 issue of the Journal of Economic Perspectives.

First, he states that while the “idea that the fat cats simply stole everyone else’s cream is emotionally powerful; it is not entirely convincing.” Then he goes on to note that:

In a well-functioning market, people only earn high incomes if they create enough economic value to justify those incomes. But even if we could be convinced that this was true, we do not have to let the matter drop.

This is partly because the sums involved are immense.

We should care about inequality because of the outcomes. But also because outcomes influence process.

At the very top of the scale, plutocrats can shape the conversation by buying up newspapers and television channels or funding political campaigns. The merely prosperous scramble desperately to get their children into the right neighbourhood, nursery, school, university and internship – we know how big the gap has grown between winners and also-rans.

This is what sticks in the throat about the rise in inequality: the knowledge that the more unequal our societies become, the more we all become prisoners of that inequality. The well-off feel that they must strain to prevent their children from slipping down the income ladder. The poor see the best schools, colleges, even art clubs and ballet classes, disappearing behind a wall of fees or unaffordable housing.

This is exactly what I hoped would be the main message of my article “Income Inequality, Equality of Opportunity, and Intergenerational Mobility” in the Journal of Economic Perspectives symposium, and it is very satisfying to witness a talented journalist articulate these and related ideas with such clarity and precision!