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I think the innate abilities section as a cause for economic inequality is seriously flawed. Here's why: For the purposes of acquiring wealth (which is the subject of discussion) it doesn't matter if a person is charismatic because they got a certain gene from their parents, or if that person is charismatic because their teacher encouraged them to join the debate team (or whatever). The point of this example is to illustrate that what we should really be talking about are those personality traits that make people good at acquiring wealth. We can remain agnostic about where they got those traits. It's also worth pointing out that claims about innate intelligence and its relationship with other things is very much contested in the literature.
I think the appropriate theoretical framework to approach this is that of Cultural capital, due to the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. The idea is that individuals have a certain amount of "cultural capital" in a given social context, which they can use to get what they want (for our discussion, the assumption is that they want wealth). So for example, if a business-person can play golf, they could use this ability to help build relationships with clients. Notice that it makes no difference whatsoever whether or not the person's golf game came from superior genetics, or where ever.
Cultural capital also provides a better account of intelligence. Maybe there is such a thing as innate intelligence, maybe not. But the point is it doesn't really matter in the marketplace. In the marketplace, "raw intelligence" (if such a thing even exists) is never encountered. What is encountered is socially conditioned "signs of intelligence."
Just a warning IANAS (I am not a Sociologist) so it would be nice if somebody more competent than I could write in the actual article. I just wanted to motivate why the assumptions of this sub-section as its written are flawed.
Jaisenberg ( talk) 10:49, 9 November 2011 (UTC)jaisenberg
In the gender section a quote is included:
"The U.S. Census's report on the wage gap reported "When we account for difference between male and female work patterns as well as other key factors, women earned, on average, 80 percent of what men earned in 2000… Even after accounting for key factors that affect earnings, our model could not explain all of the differences in earnings between men and women."[38] "
But this gives a misleading impression. Going by that statement, one would assume hours-worked (a MAJOR factor) was properly accounted for, but when you actually look at the source, it's clear hours were not accounted for. Instead, they simply counted "full-time year-round employees", and their definition of this is as follows:
" Year-round means an individual worked 50 or more weeks in 1999 (or is an elementary or secondary school teacher who worked 37 or more weeks). 3 Full-time means the individual worked 35 or more hours a week. Workers in the armed forces are excluded. "
A person working 37 weeks a year, 35 hours a week, is counted the same as a person working 52 weeks a year, 60 hours a week. If both parties earned only $10 an hour, you would have person 1 earning $12,950 a year, and person 2 earning $31,200 a year. They also stated that "paid vacations count as weeks worked" which could further skew the numbers.
I believe that quote should either be removed, or its misleading effects should be tempered with information on how they "accounted" for these "key factors". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.60.172.249 ( talk) 10:42, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
Besides restoring some unexplained deletions, I have removed the following:
Inequality occurs when some people work harder, but receive less economic rewards, while others work less and receive most of the rewards. (citing book|author=Ornstein, Allan C.|title=Class counts: education, inequality, and the shrinking middle class|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield|year=2007|isbn=9780742547421|page=123|url= http://books.google.com/books?id=RurktfSO-y4C&pg=PA123)
I don't know whether the book actually says that or not, but its not clear whether this is a redefinition of inequality or whether it is supposed to be one cause of inequality, or the only cause. As a redefinition, it is not useful. Surely it is one possible cause of inequality, but definitely not the only cause. For example, inequality also occurs when some people work harder, and receive more economic rewards, while others work less and receive fewer rewards (without implying a value judgement on either possibility). PAR ( talk) 06:46, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
Good article:
Brangifer ( talk) 01:23, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
A paragraph in the Wealth concentration section reads as follows:
"Related to wealth concentration are the effects of intergenerational inequality and housing inequality. The rich tend to provide their offspring with a better education, increasing their chances of achieving a high income. Furthermore, the wealthy often leave their offspring with a hefty inheritance, jump-starting the process of wealth condensation for the next generation. However, it has been contended by some sociologists such as Charles Murray that this has little effect on one's long-term outcome and that innate ability is by far the best determinant of one's lifetime outcome."
I've deleted the sentence in bold, which is an out of place addition (diff) that seems to have gone mostly unnoticed. I've brought it up here simply because of how long it has been on site. Regarding the sentence itself, it's under a branch of Causes of Inequality, which already contains another subsection entitled Innate ability. There's no reason for an unsourced statement like this, which (if even relevant) should have been included in the correct section. As a further note, the Wealth concentration article itself includes no reference to Murray or to the argument regarding innate ability at all. Vel non ( talk) 15:20, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
The graph in the "social cohesion" section needs to be fixed. Nowhere in the article is "social capital index" defined, and the links provided in the graph's data page are dead. PAR ( talk) 05:11, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
At the moment this is simply a one sided summary of a low quality popular book. It should be deleted until someone can write a proper summary of the academic literature, which is much more mixed overall. As an example, "Is Income Inequality a Determinant of Population Health? Part 1. A Systematic Review" by Lynch et al is the most thorough review of the literature I know and finds that "The evidence suggests that income inequality is not associated with population health differences—at least not as a general phenomenon—among wealthy nations". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.61.165.78 ( talk) 00:52, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
No, I showed that the section did not accurately reflect the academic literature. Please do not revert my edits without justification. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.61.181.253 ( talk) 13:04, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
This chart:
...purportedly comes from the table on page 5 of this PDF. [1]
But the chart is not a faithful representation. It omits an entire category, by folding two categories together. Thus, it's original research, and it should be removed. I pulled it out once, with an edit summary that explains the reason. Another editor has reverted it back in, with the rationale that WP:OI allows original graphics. True enough, WP:OI would allow the creation of a chart from a table found in a reliable source. But it does not allow manipulation of the data in this way. Discuss... Belchfire- TALK 08:39, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
Currently we have a montage of slums in the lede with the caption: Slums, also called favelas and townships, are a visible indicator of economic inequality. They are a common feature midst major cities of the world. Above are nine examples.
There are several problems here. First and most importantly, what slums are not necessarily indicators of inequality (they could be, but not necessarily) but rather of poverty. Two different things, often confused by lack of careful thinking, and as such the image is misleading.
Second, the term "favela" is specific to Brazil. Not sure why this particular alternative name should be privileged since slums exist in all kinds of places and have all kinds of names.
I'm removing the montage for that reason, and will probably put back the map that was there originally. Volunteer Marek 20:51, 23 June 2013 (UTC)
The bullet list under "Causes of inequality" is also a bit embarrassing. For one thing, several items in the list are not causes of economic inequality they are economic inequality - inequality in wages, wealth, racial inequality. Volunteer Marek 21:12, 23 June 2013 (UTC)
I asked on WT:ECON#Another request to review a questionable deletion about reverting this edit, and I agree it should be replaced. Could someone give me a clue as to how the edit summary is supposed to describe the deleted text, please? EllenCT ( talk) 06:08, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
Further discussion at User_talk:Srich32977#Early_studies_of_income_inequality. EllenCT ( talk) 16:04, 16 June 2013 (UTC)
Did you read http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/sdn/2011/sdn1108.pdf or http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2011/09/berg.htm and what the latter says about Art Okun's regression error and how it carried forth the early view and dominated all studies until it was corrected in 2011, including Garret's 2010 work? Did you read http://economics.mit.edu/files/753 showing that any year-over-year regression is inconclusive because the pertinent economic factors often take more than a year to have an effect, therefore requiring regression with total years of growth as the dependent variable, as Berg & Ostry were the first to do in 2011? What is your source for your statement that "the issue (in the real world) is not resolved"? What in Morphh's and my compromise do you think is flawed? I believe you are mistaken. EllenCT ( talk) 16:00, 16 June 2013 (UTC)
The economics profession convinced governments that growth would be enhanced if they reduced the tax rates for top income earners, the so-called wealth generators. The evidence didn’t support these claims and even the IMF (Berg and Ostry, 2011: 3) recently admitted “that longer growth spells are robustly associated with more equality in the income distribution.” — Mitchell (2013)
Finally, the empirical, largely cross-country, evidence generally tends to deny a negative inequality-growth relationship (e.g. Bénabou, 1997; Berg and Ostry, 2011). An interesting case study of Korea and the Philippines suggests the advantages of lower inequality for growth. These countries had similar macroeconomic indicators in the early 1960s (GDP per capita, investment and savings), but substantial differences in inequality. Korea was a much less unequal society in terms of income and grew much faster than the Philippines. — Paunov (2013)
Does B&O show a "causal relationship" between equality and growth? Very few studies have tried time-series analysis. If B&O doesn't, one might as well report it says that growth causes equality. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 17:49, 23 June 2013 (UTC)
Considering the length of this talk page, I think the archiving set up was a good idea. Could someone manually archive the sections with "improper" signatures so that the bot won't see them. ("Improper", only in not having the material necessary to identify the time of the comment. Most potentially identify the commentor.) — Arthur Rubin (talk) 17:03, 5 July 2013 (UTC)
My reason for visiting this article was to learn methods of measuring inequality, but the first section titled "measurement..." fails to give any definition of any measure of inequality, so what follows is a mess of almost contradictory explanations for inequality. While one chart uses gini, that is only one attempt to quantify inequality, and it isn't clear any of the other sections are discussing inequality in terms of gini.
The talk above reflects the problems the lack of a coherent measure of inequality poses. The article and the talk criticizing it all have merit, but without a definition of the framework, the article will never have coherence.
Given I came looking for insight, I'm hardly the one to solve the problem with the article, but I'm make a few stabs at direction:
Math metrics like gini coefficient, but I'm pretty sure other esist
Social metrics, like social mobility hindered by class or caste
Land, like farming based family centered societies vs nomadic vs economy largely independent of land
Wealth in terms of control of land, resources, or corporations vs earning ability
Mulp ( talk) 22:01, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
I'm opening this section to discuss this suggested removal. At first glance, it looks like the inline citations support it. MilesMoney ( talk) 01:51, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
Rather than follow BRD and join this discussion, Rocco edit-warred to remove the material under discussion. This is despite the fact that there's a consensus for keeping the second half of it, and perhaps some version of the first. This is extremely counterproductive behavior which violates policy. Oh, and just for fun, they tagged my talk page with a false accusation. MilesMoney ( talk) 05:48, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
For the record, Rocco claims that the previous edit was a valid removal. The previous was this.
In other words, the previous edit was vandalism. If you agree that vandalism is valid, vote for Rocco! MilesMoney ( talk) 06:06, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
What are the specific objections to the text in question? There are several measures of tax progressiveness and several measures of economic inequality, but all other things being equal, all of the former tend to decrease all of the latter. EllenCT ( talk) 07:55, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
Regarding this deletion, I believe the text was correct when actual historical effective tax rates are used, as opposed to the much larger nominal U.S. tax rates. However, I don't really understand the edit summary and the URL doesn't work, so if I am misunderstanding it or mistaken, please let me know. EllenCT ( talk) 15:27, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
In the lede: "A 2010 study considered it beneficial,".
No. The study said it was "not that bad". That's different. "Beneficial" means useful, good for some purpose. "Not that bad" means a (possibly) bad thing of which there isn't as much of as was thought. Volunteer Marek 09:31, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
Policies aren't just an acronym that you use to justify pushing the article in your preferred direction. Policies are rules that editors are supposed to respect.
If either of you are still unable to comply with the rules you're citing, please let me know. bobrayner ( talk) 22:19, 15 December 2013 (UTC)
FWIW - seems there's numerous references re the
Oxfam International
text/ref including the
Washington Post => < ref name="WP-20130120">Khazan, Olga (20 January 2013).
"Can we fight poverty by ending extreme wealth?".
Washington Post. Retrieved 16 December 2013.</ref> - and
BBC News => < ref name="BBC-20130118">
"Oxfam seeks 'new deal' on inequality from world leaders".
BBC News. 18 January 2013. Retrieved 16 December 2013. {{
cite news}}
: Cite uses deprecated parameter |authors=
(
help)</ref> - many, many more references can be seen in a casual
Google Search - seems to be sufficiently worthwhile to present in Wikipedia I would think - in any case - Enjoy! :)
Drbogdan (
talk)
14:01, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
Seems all may agree with the basic notion (ie, a *very, very* small group of *very, very * wealthy people have enough wherewithal to greatly reduce basic poverty in the world) - there may be different ways of presenting this notion in the article - the present text/references seems to do the job *very* well imo (see below):
Copied from December 16, 2013 diff and related version:
In January 2013, an Oxfam International report stated that the annual income of the top 100 wealthiest individuals would be enough to end global poverty four times over. Executive Director Jeremy Hobbs noted that "We can no longer pretend that the creation of wealth for a few will inevitably benefit the many – too often the reverse is true."< ref name="OXF-20130119">Slater, John (19 January 2013). "Annual income of richest 100 people enough to end global poverty four times over". Oxfam International. Retrieved 15 December 2013.</ref>< ref name="WP-20130120">Khazan, Olga (20 January 2013). "Can we fight poverty by ending extreme wealth?". Washington Post. Retrieved 16 December 2013.</ref>< ref name="BBC-20130118"> "Oxfam seeks 'new deal' on inequality from world leaders". BBC News. 18 January 2013. Retrieved 16 December 2013.
{{ cite news}}
: Cite uses deprecated parameter|authors=
( help)</ref>
plus - there seems to be numerous references supporting this presentation - in any regards - hope this helps in some way - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan ( talk) 16:20, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
The problem (several actually) with the statement is that it's based on Bloomberg's list of changes in rich individuals *net worth*. A change in a person's net worth is not the same as "annual income". If I make 100k a year and spend 120k, financing the difference by borrowing the change in my networth is negative (by the present value of the newly incurred debt). However that doesn't mean that my income in that year was PV(-20k). If I make 100k a year and spend 80k, and use the other 20k to purchase assets, that doesn't mean that my annual income was PV(20k).
As another example. If I and a whole bunch of other "wealthy" people buy a house, then a housing bubble develops and the price goes up then our recorded networth will go up. But suppose we all tried to sell our houses so that we can use the proceeds to eradicate poverty (or any other purpose). Obviously, the price of the houses would quickly drop and those networth gains would be erased and the actual revenue would not be as high as expected on the basis of the initial value.
That's the main mistake in that claim. There might be some others. The Bloomberg's list is actually the top 200 biggest *changes* not 100, and not top 100 wealthiest. Maybe Oxfarm only counted the first 100. Ok. But the 100 biggest changes is not the same thing as the increases in the net worth of the top 100 wealthiest.
An accurate statement would be something like "the 100 largest changes in wealthy individual's networth in 2012 was enough to eliminate poverty four times over".
It's sourced and all but this is where you get into the whole WP:V vs actual accuracy issue. Volunteer Marek 08:57, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
I think the Measurement of inequality in the modern world section need some cleanup work. Specifically, while it contains a lot of interesting and relevant statistics, but it would be nice if they were arranged in a more logical fashion. Maybe it could be organized by metric, and the section could report the most recent (or any notable) findings using that metric? I'm not an expert on this stuff. What are the ways to give a cohesive picture of wealth distribution rather than just a list of facts? GuineaPigC77 ( talk) 06:43, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
Re this deletion, why is the summary claimed to be inaccurate? EllenCT ( talk) 11:37, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
Thanks. Agree with Rubin that the material is not helpful. (The DSGE info was interesting, but did not clarify.) Will be reverting the latest edit because consensus to include the material has not been achieved. – S. Rich ( talk) 06:08, 5 May 2014 (UTC)
I've read the Nash article, which is a general description of equilibrium in an n-player game, with absolutely no mention of a government nor the effects of progressive taxation and/or spending. The reference you originally provided was Stewart & Plotkin, which I have read and whose methods I partially understand, and whose conclusions I understand. Again, no mention of any agency with special powers to, for example, enforce contracts, collect or spend taxes, regulate monopolies. Indeed, their results show that no contract-enforcing agency is required to guarantee that cooperative behavior will naturally emerge in a long-term donation variant of the prisoner's dilemma game with many players. For the Von Neumann 640-page book, I have only read the "economic conclusions" section beginning at page 555. While not understanding it in detail, the discussion is clearly not about a prisoner's dilemma game, but rather a free market game in which cooperation (in the Stewart and Plotkin sense) is always assumed. Again, absolutely no mention of a central agency with the power to tax and spend, or to regulate monopolies.
But again, this is all beside the point. As the editor who made the revision, the question is not whether I understand it, but rather if you understand it. From your repeated inability or refusal to quote where, in any of the above three articles, support for your revision is found, I'm beginning to wonder if you have read or understand any of the three articles. If you have read and understand them, for the fourth time, please point out where, in any of them, support for your revision is stated. If you can or will not, then I will have to agree with the reversion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by PAR ( talk • contribs)
I don't understand how progressive taxation can be conflated with cooperation among autonomous individuals. I also don't understand why severe income inequality is considered a cause rather than a symptom of injustice. Eliminating the symptom does not eliminate the disease. PAR ( talk) 08:21, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
I can't address every point that has been made above, but, echoing some of the things that Arthur and Arzel sort of said above, game theory is a method. You can have a game theoretic model which shows one thing, or, with different assumptions and structure, another game theoretic model which gives different results. To put it in other words, the method - game theory - that is used to establish a particular result is sort of secondary. Anyway, looking at why the refs were removed it appears to be because the papers don't really support the claim being made in the text (although there may be other sources which do). Honestly, the whole relationship between inequality and growth, or even in a purely Keynesian context, between inequality and aggregate demand is uncleear and somewhat controversial (the latter less than the former). There are different channels through which inequality can affect demand and/or savings and investment and sorting it out can be messy (not least because in the short run and long run demand vs saving can have opposite effects). Hence I support the removal of this claim as presented.
Also note that "cooperation" and "inequality" are different things. Greater cooperation can in fact lead to more inequality. The relevant question when talking about cooperation is always "cooperation by whom and against whom?". Cartels are great examples of cooperation. Which rip off consumers and potentially increase inequality. Be careful about drawing WP:SYNTH conclusions here. Volunteer Marek ( talk) 06:01, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
One idea above is to split the article in two with this (perhaps) as the superior article. Wealth inequality and income inequality. Overlaps perhaps contained in this article.
It seems to me that wealth is often "unrealized," which makes a difference. Income is (or should be for discussion purposes) realized, that is, money or a close equivalent, and certainly not a change in unrealized wealth.
The article would be more convincing if the "Effects of inequality" were moved earlier in the article, ahead of "Factors impacting economic inequality" which are more vague and maybe more controversial.
Social unrest can either lead to domestic breakdown. Somalia, for example. Or World Wars I & II. Note that the argument changes. I want to relieve poverty in Somalia out of a sense of justice. I want to relieve poverty in North Korea because I might get a bomb on my head! A bit more of an incentive! I want to relieve poverty in Liberty City because they might riot and "cause problems." More incentive than Somalia, less than North Korea.
While editors seem to have no problem with discussing "social justice" or whatever, as a virtue, omitted seems to be "greed", as a vice, driving both wealth/income builders and people watching television in the inner city whose needs are provided for but "want more." It's not just Wall Street that is greedy and causing immediate problems.
While we have at one extreme "millions of millionaires" discussed and how they could (alone) relieve poverty (media hype IMO), at the other extreme, and Gini index at the other which usually seems more obscure than helpful. A statement of a) income and b)wealth by levels of say each 20% of the population would seem to be more understandable. Having said that, Ginis have to be used as well. They can't be avoided. They just aren't particularly noticeable. Kind of like a list of little finger lengths in centimeters. Great for somebody, just not your average reader.
The "millions of millionaires" types of comment ought to be removed as pov, WP:OR, undue or not useful. Yes, if we all shot our neighbor and took his money, those of us who survived would be better off, at least on paper. But hardly a practical, workable economic solution. Secondly, the money would not be worth the same afterwards. Prices would tend to rise.
We seem to have true economics mixed in with political wishful thinking.
Taking stock from billionaire Bill Gates and giving it to 43 (still billionaires!) prospective Bill Gateses would do what good? Unrealized wealth can cause housing bubbles, stock market overinvestment, etc. but doesn't seem to affect everyday life.
This was different than when Marx was writing his book. Money was "hard." If I put in "under my mattress" and I had a lot of money, I could do real damage, particularly if followed by a lot of other people. Indeed, this happened in 1929 and was the reason for kicking the gold standard in part in the 1930s (US again), and finally, for good in 1972 or so. If the economy flags today, the Federal Reserve can (supposedly) pump in a bit more money, or take it out, as need be. Accumulated wealth is mostly unrealized and is either invested (and creates jobs) or is in capital investment like a house, which, in fluctuating, neither creates nor removes jobs. Wealth itself, important in Marx' day, seems nearly irrelevant today, because it is "soft" (malleable).
Income (realized) may be important, but a separate article could do this better justice IMO. Student7 ( talk) 22:31, 27 June 2014 (UTC)
Expanding the "Effects of inequality" section as per my comments at [15] would be a much better improvement than moving it, but I support both. I agree that lack of realization of wealth also needs to be addressed as per my comments at [16]. EllenCT ( talk) 05:12, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
A factoid from the UN was added with what I assume is a reliable source, "The United Nations Development Programme in 2014 asserted that greater investments in social security, jobs and laws that protect vulnerable populations are necessary to prevent widening income inequality, fluctuating food prices, disasters and conflict from reducing human development."
This might be great in some higher level article, but strays well from the mark that is supposed to be focusing on an "economic inequality" article. "fluctuating food prices" - well, I hate to see them fluctuate, but people tend to buy whatever is cheapest. If I was buying "soybeans" and prices went up, I would then buy "butterbeans" or whatever, if they were cheaper. This is one of the problems everyone has with "cost of living" index - it tracks a more or less fixed basket despite the fact that people no longer consume the items in the basket, but buy more wisely.
Disasters? huh? Conflict" What? What are they talking about?
I tried to rm this because of its overreaching scope but was myself reverted because ""economic inequality" includes both income and wealth inequality." Not sure how that justifies the inclusion of an overstatement with odd words in it. Student7 ( talk) 23:46, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 |
I think the innate abilities section as a cause for economic inequality is seriously flawed. Here's why: For the purposes of acquiring wealth (which is the subject of discussion) it doesn't matter if a person is charismatic because they got a certain gene from their parents, or if that person is charismatic because their teacher encouraged them to join the debate team (or whatever). The point of this example is to illustrate that what we should really be talking about are those personality traits that make people good at acquiring wealth. We can remain agnostic about where they got those traits. It's also worth pointing out that claims about innate intelligence and its relationship with other things is very much contested in the literature.
I think the appropriate theoretical framework to approach this is that of Cultural capital, due to the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. The idea is that individuals have a certain amount of "cultural capital" in a given social context, which they can use to get what they want (for our discussion, the assumption is that they want wealth). So for example, if a business-person can play golf, they could use this ability to help build relationships with clients. Notice that it makes no difference whatsoever whether or not the person's golf game came from superior genetics, or where ever.
Cultural capital also provides a better account of intelligence. Maybe there is such a thing as innate intelligence, maybe not. But the point is it doesn't really matter in the marketplace. In the marketplace, "raw intelligence" (if such a thing even exists) is never encountered. What is encountered is socially conditioned "signs of intelligence."
Just a warning IANAS (I am not a Sociologist) so it would be nice if somebody more competent than I could write in the actual article. I just wanted to motivate why the assumptions of this sub-section as its written are flawed.
Jaisenberg ( talk) 10:49, 9 November 2011 (UTC)jaisenberg
In the gender section a quote is included:
"The U.S. Census's report on the wage gap reported "When we account for difference between male and female work patterns as well as other key factors, women earned, on average, 80 percent of what men earned in 2000… Even after accounting for key factors that affect earnings, our model could not explain all of the differences in earnings between men and women."[38] "
But this gives a misleading impression. Going by that statement, one would assume hours-worked (a MAJOR factor) was properly accounted for, but when you actually look at the source, it's clear hours were not accounted for. Instead, they simply counted "full-time year-round employees", and their definition of this is as follows:
" Year-round means an individual worked 50 or more weeks in 1999 (or is an elementary or secondary school teacher who worked 37 or more weeks). 3 Full-time means the individual worked 35 or more hours a week. Workers in the armed forces are excluded. "
A person working 37 weeks a year, 35 hours a week, is counted the same as a person working 52 weeks a year, 60 hours a week. If both parties earned only $10 an hour, you would have person 1 earning $12,950 a year, and person 2 earning $31,200 a year. They also stated that "paid vacations count as weeks worked" which could further skew the numbers.
I believe that quote should either be removed, or its misleading effects should be tempered with information on how they "accounted" for these "key factors". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.60.172.249 ( talk) 10:42, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
Besides restoring some unexplained deletions, I have removed the following:
Inequality occurs when some people work harder, but receive less economic rewards, while others work less and receive most of the rewards. (citing book|author=Ornstein, Allan C.|title=Class counts: education, inequality, and the shrinking middle class|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield|year=2007|isbn=9780742547421|page=123|url= http://books.google.com/books?id=RurktfSO-y4C&pg=PA123)
I don't know whether the book actually says that or not, but its not clear whether this is a redefinition of inequality or whether it is supposed to be one cause of inequality, or the only cause. As a redefinition, it is not useful. Surely it is one possible cause of inequality, but definitely not the only cause. For example, inequality also occurs when some people work harder, and receive more economic rewards, while others work less and receive fewer rewards (without implying a value judgement on either possibility). PAR ( talk) 06:46, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
Good article:
Brangifer ( talk) 01:23, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
A paragraph in the Wealth concentration section reads as follows:
"Related to wealth concentration are the effects of intergenerational inequality and housing inequality. The rich tend to provide their offspring with a better education, increasing their chances of achieving a high income. Furthermore, the wealthy often leave their offspring with a hefty inheritance, jump-starting the process of wealth condensation for the next generation. However, it has been contended by some sociologists such as Charles Murray that this has little effect on one's long-term outcome and that innate ability is by far the best determinant of one's lifetime outcome."
I've deleted the sentence in bold, which is an out of place addition (diff) that seems to have gone mostly unnoticed. I've brought it up here simply because of how long it has been on site. Regarding the sentence itself, it's under a branch of Causes of Inequality, which already contains another subsection entitled Innate ability. There's no reason for an unsourced statement like this, which (if even relevant) should have been included in the correct section. As a further note, the Wealth concentration article itself includes no reference to Murray or to the argument regarding innate ability at all. Vel non ( talk) 15:20, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
The graph in the "social cohesion" section needs to be fixed. Nowhere in the article is "social capital index" defined, and the links provided in the graph's data page are dead. PAR ( talk) 05:11, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
At the moment this is simply a one sided summary of a low quality popular book. It should be deleted until someone can write a proper summary of the academic literature, which is much more mixed overall. As an example, "Is Income Inequality a Determinant of Population Health? Part 1. A Systematic Review" by Lynch et al is the most thorough review of the literature I know and finds that "The evidence suggests that income inequality is not associated with population health differences—at least not as a general phenomenon—among wealthy nations". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.61.165.78 ( talk) 00:52, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
No, I showed that the section did not accurately reflect the academic literature. Please do not revert my edits without justification. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.61.181.253 ( talk) 13:04, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
This chart:
...purportedly comes from the table on page 5 of this PDF. [1]
But the chart is not a faithful representation. It omits an entire category, by folding two categories together. Thus, it's original research, and it should be removed. I pulled it out once, with an edit summary that explains the reason. Another editor has reverted it back in, with the rationale that WP:OI allows original graphics. True enough, WP:OI would allow the creation of a chart from a table found in a reliable source. But it does not allow manipulation of the data in this way. Discuss... Belchfire- TALK 08:39, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
Currently we have a montage of slums in the lede with the caption: Slums, also called favelas and townships, are a visible indicator of economic inequality. They are a common feature midst major cities of the world. Above are nine examples.
There are several problems here. First and most importantly, what slums are not necessarily indicators of inequality (they could be, but not necessarily) but rather of poverty. Two different things, often confused by lack of careful thinking, and as such the image is misleading.
Second, the term "favela" is specific to Brazil. Not sure why this particular alternative name should be privileged since slums exist in all kinds of places and have all kinds of names.
I'm removing the montage for that reason, and will probably put back the map that was there originally. Volunteer Marek 20:51, 23 June 2013 (UTC)
The bullet list under "Causes of inequality" is also a bit embarrassing. For one thing, several items in the list are not causes of economic inequality they are economic inequality - inequality in wages, wealth, racial inequality. Volunteer Marek 21:12, 23 June 2013 (UTC)
I asked on WT:ECON#Another request to review a questionable deletion about reverting this edit, and I agree it should be replaced. Could someone give me a clue as to how the edit summary is supposed to describe the deleted text, please? EllenCT ( talk) 06:08, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
Further discussion at User_talk:Srich32977#Early_studies_of_income_inequality. EllenCT ( talk) 16:04, 16 June 2013 (UTC)
Did you read http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/sdn/2011/sdn1108.pdf or http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2011/09/berg.htm and what the latter says about Art Okun's regression error and how it carried forth the early view and dominated all studies until it was corrected in 2011, including Garret's 2010 work? Did you read http://economics.mit.edu/files/753 showing that any year-over-year regression is inconclusive because the pertinent economic factors often take more than a year to have an effect, therefore requiring regression with total years of growth as the dependent variable, as Berg & Ostry were the first to do in 2011? What is your source for your statement that "the issue (in the real world) is not resolved"? What in Morphh's and my compromise do you think is flawed? I believe you are mistaken. EllenCT ( talk) 16:00, 16 June 2013 (UTC)
The economics profession convinced governments that growth would be enhanced if they reduced the tax rates for top income earners, the so-called wealth generators. The evidence didn’t support these claims and even the IMF (Berg and Ostry, 2011: 3) recently admitted “that longer growth spells are robustly associated with more equality in the income distribution.” — Mitchell (2013)
Finally, the empirical, largely cross-country, evidence generally tends to deny a negative inequality-growth relationship (e.g. Bénabou, 1997; Berg and Ostry, 2011). An interesting case study of Korea and the Philippines suggests the advantages of lower inequality for growth. These countries had similar macroeconomic indicators in the early 1960s (GDP per capita, investment and savings), but substantial differences in inequality. Korea was a much less unequal society in terms of income and grew much faster than the Philippines. — Paunov (2013)
Does B&O show a "causal relationship" between equality and growth? Very few studies have tried time-series analysis. If B&O doesn't, one might as well report it says that growth causes equality. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 17:49, 23 June 2013 (UTC)
Considering the length of this talk page, I think the archiving set up was a good idea. Could someone manually archive the sections with "improper" signatures so that the bot won't see them. ("Improper", only in not having the material necessary to identify the time of the comment. Most potentially identify the commentor.) — Arthur Rubin (talk) 17:03, 5 July 2013 (UTC)
My reason for visiting this article was to learn methods of measuring inequality, but the first section titled "measurement..." fails to give any definition of any measure of inequality, so what follows is a mess of almost contradictory explanations for inequality. While one chart uses gini, that is only one attempt to quantify inequality, and it isn't clear any of the other sections are discussing inequality in terms of gini.
The talk above reflects the problems the lack of a coherent measure of inequality poses. The article and the talk criticizing it all have merit, but without a definition of the framework, the article will never have coherence.
Given I came looking for insight, I'm hardly the one to solve the problem with the article, but I'm make a few stabs at direction:
Math metrics like gini coefficient, but I'm pretty sure other esist
Social metrics, like social mobility hindered by class or caste
Land, like farming based family centered societies vs nomadic vs economy largely independent of land
Wealth in terms of control of land, resources, or corporations vs earning ability
Mulp ( talk) 22:01, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
I'm opening this section to discuss this suggested removal. At first glance, it looks like the inline citations support it. MilesMoney ( talk) 01:51, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
Rather than follow BRD and join this discussion, Rocco edit-warred to remove the material under discussion. This is despite the fact that there's a consensus for keeping the second half of it, and perhaps some version of the first. This is extremely counterproductive behavior which violates policy. Oh, and just for fun, they tagged my talk page with a false accusation. MilesMoney ( talk) 05:48, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
For the record, Rocco claims that the previous edit was a valid removal. The previous was this.
In other words, the previous edit was vandalism. If you agree that vandalism is valid, vote for Rocco! MilesMoney ( talk) 06:06, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
What are the specific objections to the text in question? There are several measures of tax progressiveness and several measures of economic inequality, but all other things being equal, all of the former tend to decrease all of the latter. EllenCT ( talk) 07:55, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
Regarding this deletion, I believe the text was correct when actual historical effective tax rates are used, as opposed to the much larger nominal U.S. tax rates. However, I don't really understand the edit summary and the URL doesn't work, so if I am misunderstanding it or mistaken, please let me know. EllenCT ( talk) 15:27, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
In the lede: "A 2010 study considered it beneficial,".
No. The study said it was "not that bad". That's different. "Beneficial" means useful, good for some purpose. "Not that bad" means a (possibly) bad thing of which there isn't as much of as was thought. Volunteer Marek 09:31, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
Policies aren't just an acronym that you use to justify pushing the article in your preferred direction. Policies are rules that editors are supposed to respect.
If either of you are still unable to comply with the rules you're citing, please let me know. bobrayner ( talk) 22:19, 15 December 2013 (UTC)
FWIW - seems there's numerous references re the
Oxfam International
text/ref including the
Washington Post => < ref name="WP-20130120">Khazan, Olga (20 January 2013).
"Can we fight poverty by ending extreme wealth?".
Washington Post. Retrieved 16 December 2013.</ref> - and
BBC News => < ref name="BBC-20130118">
"Oxfam seeks 'new deal' on inequality from world leaders".
BBC News. 18 January 2013. Retrieved 16 December 2013. {{
cite news}}
: Cite uses deprecated parameter |authors=
(
help)</ref> - many, many more references can be seen in a casual
Google Search - seems to be sufficiently worthwhile to present in Wikipedia I would think - in any case - Enjoy! :)
Drbogdan (
talk)
14:01, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
Seems all may agree with the basic notion (ie, a *very, very* small group of *very, very * wealthy people have enough wherewithal to greatly reduce basic poverty in the world) - there may be different ways of presenting this notion in the article - the present text/references seems to do the job *very* well imo (see below):
Copied from December 16, 2013 diff and related version:
In January 2013, an Oxfam International report stated that the annual income of the top 100 wealthiest individuals would be enough to end global poverty four times over. Executive Director Jeremy Hobbs noted that "We can no longer pretend that the creation of wealth for a few will inevitably benefit the many – too often the reverse is true."< ref name="OXF-20130119">Slater, John (19 January 2013). "Annual income of richest 100 people enough to end global poverty four times over". Oxfam International. Retrieved 15 December 2013.</ref>< ref name="WP-20130120">Khazan, Olga (20 January 2013). "Can we fight poverty by ending extreme wealth?". Washington Post. Retrieved 16 December 2013.</ref>< ref name="BBC-20130118"> "Oxfam seeks 'new deal' on inequality from world leaders". BBC News. 18 January 2013. Retrieved 16 December 2013.
{{ cite news}}
: Cite uses deprecated parameter|authors=
( help)</ref>
plus - there seems to be numerous references supporting this presentation - in any regards - hope this helps in some way - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan ( talk) 16:20, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
The problem (several actually) with the statement is that it's based on Bloomberg's list of changes in rich individuals *net worth*. A change in a person's net worth is not the same as "annual income". If I make 100k a year and spend 120k, financing the difference by borrowing the change in my networth is negative (by the present value of the newly incurred debt). However that doesn't mean that my income in that year was PV(-20k). If I make 100k a year and spend 80k, and use the other 20k to purchase assets, that doesn't mean that my annual income was PV(20k).
As another example. If I and a whole bunch of other "wealthy" people buy a house, then a housing bubble develops and the price goes up then our recorded networth will go up. But suppose we all tried to sell our houses so that we can use the proceeds to eradicate poverty (or any other purpose). Obviously, the price of the houses would quickly drop and those networth gains would be erased and the actual revenue would not be as high as expected on the basis of the initial value.
That's the main mistake in that claim. There might be some others. The Bloomberg's list is actually the top 200 biggest *changes* not 100, and not top 100 wealthiest. Maybe Oxfarm only counted the first 100. Ok. But the 100 biggest changes is not the same thing as the increases in the net worth of the top 100 wealthiest.
An accurate statement would be something like "the 100 largest changes in wealthy individual's networth in 2012 was enough to eliminate poverty four times over".
It's sourced and all but this is where you get into the whole WP:V vs actual accuracy issue. Volunteer Marek 08:57, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
I think the Measurement of inequality in the modern world section need some cleanup work. Specifically, while it contains a lot of interesting and relevant statistics, but it would be nice if they were arranged in a more logical fashion. Maybe it could be organized by metric, and the section could report the most recent (or any notable) findings using that metric? I'm not an expert on this stuff. What are the ways to give a cohesive picture of wealth distribution rather than just a list of facts? GuineaPigC77 ( talk) 06:43, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
Re this deletion, why is the summary claimed to be inaccurate? EllenCT ( talk) 11:37, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
Thanks. Agree with Rubin that the material is not helpful. (The DSGE info was interesting, but did not clarify.) Will be reverting the latest edit because consensus to include the material has not been achieved. – S. Rich ( talk) 06:08, 5 May 2014 (UTC)
I've read the Nash article, which is a general description of equilibrium in an n-player game, with absolutely no mention of a government nor the effects of progressive taxation and/or spending. The reference you originally provided was Stewart & Plotkin, which I have read and whose methods I partially understand, and whose conclusions I understand. Again, no mention of any agency with special powers to, for example, enforce contracts, collect or spend taxes, regulate monopolies. Indeed, their results show that no contract-enforcing agency is required to guarantee that cooperative behavior will naturally emerge in a long-term donation variant of the prisoner's dilemma game with many players. For the Von Neumann 640-page book, I have only read the "economic conclusions" section beginning at page 555. While not understanding it in detail, the discussion is clearly not about a prisoner's dilemma game, but rather a free market game in which cooperation (in the Stewart and Plotkin sense) is always assumed. Again, absolutely no mention of a central agency with the power to tax and spend, or to regulate monopolies.
But again, this is all beside the point. As the editor who made the revision, the question is not whether I understand it, but rather if you understand it. From your repeated inability or refusal to quote where, in any of the above three articles, support for your revision is found, I'm beginning to wonder if you have read or understand any of the three articles. If you have read and understand them, for the fourth time, please point out where, in any of them, support for your revision is stated. If you can or will not, then I will have to agree with the reversion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by PAR ( talk • contribs)
I don't understand how progressive taxation can be conflated with cooperation among autonomous individuals. I also don't understand why severe income inequality is considered a cause rather than a symptom of injustice. Eliminating the symptom does not eliminate the disease. PAR ( talk) 08:21, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
I can't address every point that has been made above, but, echoing some of the things that Arthur and Arzel sort of said above, game theory is a method. You can have a game theoretic model which shows one thing, or, with different assumptions and structure, another game theoretic model which gives different results. To put it in other words, the method - game theory - that is used to establish a particular result is sort of secondary. Anyway, looking at why the refs were removed it appears to be because the papers don't really support the claim being made in the text (although there may be other sources which do). Honestly, the whole relationship between inequality and growth, or even in a purely Keynesian context, between inequality and aggregate demand is uncleear and somewhat controversial (the latter less than the former). There are different channels through which inequality can affect demand and/or savings and investment and sorting it out can be messy (not least because in the short run and long run demand vs saving can have opposite effects). Hence I support the removal of this claim as presented.
Also note that "cooperation" and "inequality" are different things. Greater cooperation can in fact lead to more inequality. The relevant question when talking about cooperation is always "cooperation by whom and against whom?". Cartels are great examples of cooperation. Which rip off consumers and potentially increase inequality. Be careful about drawing WP:SYNTH conclusions here. Volunteer Marek ( talk) 06:01, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
One idea above is to split the article in two with this (perhaps) as the superior article. Wealth inequality and income inequality. Overlaps perhaps contained in this article.
It seems to me that wealth is often "unrealized," which makes a difference. Income is (or should be for discussion purposes) realized, that is, money or a close equivalent, and certainly not a change in unrealized wealth.
The article would be more convincing if the "Effects of inequality" were moved earlier in the article, ahead of "Factors impacting economic inequality" which are more vague and maybe more controversial.
Social unrest can either lead to domestic breakdown. Somalia, for example. Or World Wars I & II. Note that the argument changes. I want to relieve poverty in Somalia out of a sense of justice. I want to relieve poverty in North Korea because I might get a bomb on my head! A bit more of an incentive! I want to relieve poverty in Liberty City because they might riot and "cause problems." More incentive than Somalia, less than North Korea.
While editors seem to have no problem with discussing "social justice" or whatever, as a virtue, omitted seems to be "greed", as a vice, driving both wealth/income builders and people watching television in the inner city whose needs are provided for but "want more." It's not just Wall Street that is greedy and causing immediate problems.
While we have at one extreme "millions of millionaires" discussed and how they could (alone) relieve poverty (media hype IMO), at the other extreme, and Gini index at the other which usually seems more obscure than helpful. A statement of a) income and b)wealth by levels of say each 20% of the population would seem to be more understandable. Having said that, Ginis have to be used as well. They can't be avoided. They just aren't particularly noticeable. Kind of like a list of little finger lengths in centimeters. Great for somebody, just not your average reader.
The "millions of millionaires" types of comment ought to be removed as pov, WP:OR, undue or not useful. Yes, if we all shot our neighbor and took his money, those of us who survived would be better off, at least on paper. But hardly a practical, workable economic solution. Secondly, the money would not be worth the same afterwards. Prices would tend to rise.
We seem to have true economics mixed in with political wishful thinking.
Taking stock from billionaire Bill Gates and giving it to 43 (still billionaires!) prospective Bill Gateses would do what good? Unrealized wealth can cause housing bubbles, stock market overinvestment, etc. but doesn't seem to affect everyday life.
This was different than when Marx was writing his book. Money was "hard." If I put in "under my mattress" and I had a lot of money, I could do real damage, particularly if followed by a lot of other people. Indeed, this happened in 1929 and was the reason for kicking the gold standard in part in the 1930s (US again), and finally, for good in 1972 or so. If the economy flags today, the Federal Reserve can (supposedly) pump in a bit more money, or take it out, as need be. Accumulated wealth is mostly unrealized and is either invested (and creates jobs) or is in capital investment like a house, which, in fluctuating, neither creates nor removes jobs. Wealth itself, important in Marx' day, seems nearly irrelevant today, because it is "soft" (malleable).
Income (realized) may be important, but a separate article could do this better justice IMO. Student7 ( talk) 22:31, 27 June 2014 (UTC)
Expanding the "Effects of inequality" section as per my comments at [15] would be a much better improvement than moving it, but I support both. I agree that lack of realization of wealth also needs to be addressed as per my comments at [16]. EllenCT ( talk) 05:12, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
A factoid from the UN was added with what I assume is a reliable source, "The United Nations Development Programme in 2014 asserted that greater investments in social security, jobs and laws that protect vulnerable populations are necessary to prevent widening income inequality, fluctuating food prices, disasters and conflict from reducing human development."
This might be great in some higher level article, but strays well from the mark that is supposed to be focusing on an "economic inequality" article. "fluctuating food prices" - well, I hate to see them fluctuate, but people tend to buy whatever is cheapest. If I was buying "soybeans" and prices went up, I would then buy "butterbeans" or whatever, if they were cheaper. This is one of the problems everyone has with "cost of living" index - it tracks a more or less fixed basket despite the fact that people no longer consume the items in the basket, but buy more wisely.
Disasters? huh? Conflict" What? What are they talking about?
I tried to rm this because of its overreaching scope but was myself reverted because ""economic inequality" includes both income and wealth inequality." Not sure how that justifies the inclusion of an overstatement with odd words in it. Student7 ( talk) 23:46, 30 July 2014 (UTC)