Tag Archives: inequality

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By James Kwak There’s a story you hear often these days. The story is that America has too many lawsuits: too many lawyers, too many people filing frivolous suits, too many excessive damages awards by juries, and so on. This story is the reason for all the “litigation reform” in recent decades: the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1996, the state-level tort reform movement, Bell Atlantic v. Twombly, Ashcroft v. Iqbal, and so on. There are...

By James Kwak There’s a story you hear often these days. The story is that America has too many lawsuits: too many lawyers, too many people filing frivolous suits, too many excessive damages awards by juries, and so on. This story is the reason for all the “litigation reform” in recent decades: the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1996, the state-level tort reform movement, Bell Atlantic v. Twombly, Ashcroft v. Iqbal, and so on. There are...

By Denis Melnik and Andrés Lazzarini (Guest bloggers) As the first days of Donald Trump’s presidency unfold, the prevalent attitude to his surprising victory among the various breed of the liberal intelligentsia all over the globe is pretty much the same as it was on the morning of November 9, 2016 — that of a profound shock. Apart of purely emotional reactions (ranging from desperate ‘Bernie could have won’ to hopeful ‘Trump will be impeached almost immediately’), this shock reveals...

Eileen Appelbaum Eileen Appelbaum delivered the David Gordon Memorial Lecture at the Chicago Meetings of the Union of Radical Political Economics (URPE). The lecture, and the comments by John Schmitt will be published later in the Review of Radical Political Economics (RRPE). The gist of the argument is that ever stronger corporations use their dominant position in markets, patent and copyright protections, and their political influence to obtain favorable regulations and tax breaks to...

Work for whom? That's what Martin Sandbu (subscription required) asks in the Financial Times. In his view, it might. He cites Ken Rogoff -- of spreadsheet fame -- who also has said that it's a possibility. Sandbu cites Summers doubts on Trumponomics, which are all based on supply side factors, but has very little to say about that.* Like Rogoff, Sandbu thinks that what matters is private investment that matters, meaning demand, and, as it must be in these cases, the confidence fairy...

Are inheritance taxes unfair? Many people think they are. "Why should I be taxed twice on money I've earned during my lifetime?" they say.  This is, of course, a fallacy. Dead people don't pay taxes. Living ones do. So inheritance tax is not double taxation of money the dead person earned while they were still alive. It is taxation of an unearned windfall for the people to whom they leave their assets, usually their children. Other forms of unearned income, such as interest on...

New paper published by PERI. From the abstract: This paper examines the relationship between inequality and growth in the neo-Kaleckian and Cambridge growth models. The paper explores the channels whereby functional and personal income distribution impact growth. The growth – inequality relationship can be negative or positive, depending on the economy’s characteristics. Contrary to widespread claims, inequality per se does not impact growth through macroeconomic channels. Instead, both...

Riding the coup bike without the military Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has been impeached. The vice-president, Michel Temer, will assume the presidency temporarily while she is judged by the Senate. While the final outcome is still uncertain, it is very unlikely that she will return to office. This closes the long cycle of the left in Brazil, which started with the election of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to the presidency in 2002, and that led to the election and re-election of the...

From the abstract: This paper examines several mainstream explanations of the financial crisis and stagnation and the role they attribute to income inequality. Those explanations are contrasted with a structural Keynesian explanation. The role of income inequality differs substantially, giving rise to different policy recommendations. That highlights the critical importance of economic theory. Theory shapes the way we understand the world, thereby shaping how we respond to it. The...