B2857 - ECONOMICS OF INEQUALITY

Learning outcomes

The aim of the course is to introduce students to the economic analysis of inequality. At the end of the course the student is able to understand and intervene with sufficient precision and autonomy in the current political/economic debate concerning: (a) the dimensions of inequality (income, opportunities, wealth) and its main measures; (b) the historical evolution of inequality (within countries, between countries and in a global perspective); (c) the different interpretations of the factors shaping inequality; (d) the relationship between poverty, inequality and growth in developing countries; (e) the role of inequality in climate change.

Course contents

The course offers an introduction to the economic analysis of inequality, both at national and global level.

The lectures will cover the following topics:

+ Concepts and measures of inequality;

+ Models of capitalism and inequality within country: functional and personal distribution;

+ From the Belle époque to present: the evolution of inequality in advanced countries and its interpretations.

+ Inequality, opportunity and meritocracy;

+ Inequality and economic development;

+ Inequality between countries and global inequality;

+ Inequality and global warming.

The detailed program will be available at the course start.

Readings/Bibliography

The following bibliographical references are provisional. The final bibliography will be communicated at the beginning of the course.

 

+ Cocepts and measures of inequality.

Galbraith J., Inequality. What everyone needs to know, Oxford University Press, 2016, chapters 1, 2, 4, 5.

+ Models of capitalism and inequality within country: functional and personal distribution

Galbraith J., Inequality. What everyone needs to know, Oxford University Press, 2016, chapters 2, 7.

Glynn A., Functional distribution and inequality, in: Nolan B. et al. (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Economic Inequality, 2011, Oxford University Press, pp. 102-127.

Milanovic B., Capitalism Alone, 2019, Harvard University Press, chapter 2.

Atkinson T., The Economics of Inequality, 1975, Clarendon Press, chapter 9.

+ From the Belle époque to present: the dynamics of inequality in advanced countries and its interpretations

Piketty T. e Saez E., Inequality in the long run, Science, 2014, vol. 344, pp. 838-843.

Piketty T., Capital in Twenty-first Century, Belknap, 2017, chapter 8.

Piketty T., Capital and Ideology, Belknap, 2020 (some chapters)

Franzini M., e Pianta M., Explaining Inequality, Routledge, 2015, chapter 4.

+ Inequality, opportunity and meritocracy

Corak M., Income inequality, equality of opportunity and intergenerational mobility, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 2013, vol. 27, pp.79-102.

Mankiw N. G., Defending the one percent, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 2013, vol. 27, pp. 21-34.

Chetty R. et al., The fading American dream: trends in absolute income mobility since 1940, Science, 2017, vol. 356, pp. 398-406.

Bivens J., Mishel L., The pay of corporate executives and financial professionals as evidence of rents in top 1 percent incomes, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 2013, vol. 27, pp. 57-78.

Markovits D., The Meritocratic Trap, Penguin, 2019; chapters 4-9.

+ Inequality and economic development

Milanovic B., Global Inequality. A New Approach for the Age of Globalization, Belknap Press, 2016, chapter 2.

Galbraith J., Inequality. What everyone needs to know, Oxford University Press, 2016, chapter 7.

Piketty T., The Kuznets curve: yesterday and tomorrow. In: Bannerjee A. et al. (Eds.), Understanding Poverty, Oxford University Press, 2006, chapter 4.

Castaneda A. et al., A new profile of the global poor, 2018, World Development, vol. 101, 250-267.

Voitchovsky S., Inequality and economic growth, in: Nolan B. et al. (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Economic Inequality, 2011, Oxford University Press, pp. 549-574.

Deininger K. e Squire L., New ways of looking at old issues: inequality and growth, Journal of Development Economics, 1998, vol. 57, pp. 259-287.

+ Inequality between countries and global inequality

Lakner C. e Milanovic B., Global income distribution: from the fall of the Berlin wall to the great recession, The World Bank Review, 2015, vol. 30, pp. 203-232.

Milanovic B., Global Inequality. A New Approach for the Age of Globalization, Belknap Press, 2016, chapters 3, 4.

+ Inequality and global warming

Piketty T. e Chancel L., Carbon and inequality. From Kyoto to Paris: trends in the global inequality of carbon emissions and prospects for an equitable adaptation fund, 2015, Paris School of Economics.

Chancel L. et al., World Inequality Report 2022, 2021, World Inequality Lab, chapter 6. 

Oswald Y, Owen A, Steinberger J., Large inequality in international and intranational energy footprint between income groups and across consumption categories, 2020, Nature Energy, 5, March, 231-239.

Palagi E., Coronese M., Lamperti F., Roventini A., Climate change and the nonlinear impact of precipitation anomalies on income inequality, 2022, PNAS, 119.

Teaching methods

The course participates in the University’s educational experimentation project

The course is organized in lectures and seminars.

Lectures (24 hours) aim to introduce students to the core tenets of the discipline.

Seminars (16 hours) aim to provide occasions for in-depth discussions of class materials. 

For the seminar section of the course, students will be divided in 8 small groups. To each group, a topic will be assigned at the beginning of the course. Each group will present the outcome of his research. Each seminar presentation lasts one hours and it is followed by one hour of discussion. Students active participation is required.

The topics covered in the seminar section will be communicated at the beginning of the course.

Assessment methods

The assessment involves two parts:

a) a group presentation of about 60 minutes (followed by discussion) on the specific topic assigned;

b) an individual written report on a general topic (identical for all students) that will be communicated at the course start.

The weight of the class presentation is 0.4; the weight of the report is 0,6. The score of the group presentation is identical for all the group members. Active participation in the discussions will be rewarded.

The written report is individual. This must be understood as a sort of "technical covering report" of no more than 4 pages in which a synthetic critical assessment of the assigned topic is presented (for instance, observed trends and the possible interpretations, the main causal relationships, the aspects still unknown, …).

The student cannot refuse the mark assigned to the presentation. Instead, the student may refuse, but only once, the overall grade; in the latter case the student is granted the opportunity to rewrite the individual report once.

For non-attending students the exam will be oral and will focus on the entire program; additional readings will be required.

Teaching tools

Lectures and seminars;

Power Point handouts;

Videos;

MS TEAMS, if needed

Office hours

See the website of Giorgio Giovanni Negroni