The Great Recession and wealth in the United States: differentials by religious affiliation

2018 ◽  
Vol 45 (9) ◽  
pp. 1335-1354
Author(s):  
Sedefka V. Beck ◽  
Donka Mirtcheva Brodersen

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine wealth dynamics through the Great Recession along a dimension previously not studied, religious affiliation. Specifically, this paper analyzes wealth differentials and relative wealth losses among religious groups at the mean and along the wealth distribution before and after the Great Recession. Design/methodology/approach Drawing on data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and including a wide array of control variables, the paper analyzes the impact of religious affiliation groups on wealth pre- and post-Recession, using OLS, generalized least squares and quantile regression models. Findings The findings show that wealth differentials among religious groups exist both before and after the Recession and that wealth disparities are greater for people at the low end of the wealth distribution, who lost disproportionately more wealth across religious groups. Social implications The results suggest that the Great Recession further increased wealth inequality yet along another dimension, religious affiliation. These findings imply that in order to decrease wealth inequality and minimize other harmful effects of adverse macroeconomic events, religious institutions may provide education on financial management strategies, especially to those at the low end of the wealth distribution. Originality/value This paper is the first of its kind to build upon two bodies of literature: the research on religion and wealth and the research on wealth losses and the Great Recession. It is also the first paper to explore the religion–wealth relationship after the Great Recession and along the wealth distribution.

Author(s):  
Fabian T. Pfeffer ◽  
Sheldon Danziger ◽  
Robert F. Schoeni

The collapse of the labor, housing, and stock markets beginning in 2007 created unprecedented challenges for American families. This study examines disparities in wealth holdings leading up to the Great Recession and during the first years of the recovery. All socioeconomic groups experienced declines in wealth following the recession, with higher wealth families experiencing larger absolute declines. In percentage terms, however, the declines were greater for less advantaged groups as measured by minority status, education, and prerecession income and wealth, leading to a substantial rise in wealth inequality in just a few years. Despite large changes in wealth, longitudinal analyses demonstrate little change in mobility in the ranking of particular families in the wealth distribution. Between 2007 and 2011, one-fourth of American families lost at least 75 percent of their wealth, and more than half of all families lost at least 25 percent of their wealth. Multivariate longitudinal analyses document that these large relative losses were disproportionally concentrated among lower-income, less educated, and minority households.


2018 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 648-694 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kusum Mundra ◽  
Ruth Uwaifo Oyelere

In this paper, we explore factors correlated with immigrant homeownership before and after the Great Recession. We focus solely on immigrants because of recent evidence that suggests homeownership rates declined less for immigrants than natives in the United States during the recession and onward. Specifically, we examine to what extent an immigrant's income, savings, length of stay in the destination country, citizenship status, and birthplace networks affected the probability of homeownership before the recession, and how these impacts on homeownership changed since the recession. We examine these questions using microdata for the years 2000–2012. Our results suggest that citizenship status, birthplace network, family size, savings, household income, and length of stay are significant for an immigrant's homeownership. In comparing the pre‐recession period to the period afterward, we find that the impact of birthplace networks on homeownership probabilities doubled while the impact of savings slightly declined.


2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (7) ◽  
pp. 1319-1346
Author(s):  
Xisco Oliver ◽  
Maria Sard

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyse the wage gap between temporary and permanent workers across the whole wage distribution, not just at the mean, and the evolution before and after the Great Recession on this gap in Spain. Design/methodology/approach An extended Mincer-type wage equation is estimated using ordinary least square regression and unconditional quantile regression. Then, the decomposition of the wage gap between workers with fixed-term and permanent contracts for each quantile is made using the Fortin, Lemieux and Firpo decomposition. Findings The results show that two workers, with identical characteristics, earn different salaries if they have a different type of contract. However, the wage gap is not constant across the wage distribution. The penalty for temporary workers is wider for higher wages. Moreover, the main part of the gap is due to observed characteristics, but other factors (unobserved characteristics and discrimination) become more relevant in the upper part of the wage distribution. Originality/value The study expands upon available studies for Spain in two points. First, it is the first paper to the knowledge that analyse both the wage gap between temporary and permanent workers across the wage distribution and its decomposition. Second, the paper explores what happened before and after the Great Recession. In the years that the paper analyses there is also a labour market reform.


2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (03) ◽  
Author(s):  
RACHEL MB ATKINS

Although Blacks in the United States suffered disproportionately high unemployment, housing and wealth losses during the Great Recession, little is known about the recession’s impact on Black entrepreneurship. This study uses data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) to estimate the difference in probability of starting a business before and after the recession for Black and White households. While the likelihood of starting a business declined for Whites after the Great Recession there were no statistically significant changes in the rate of firm startups among Blacks. Evidence supports the prosperity pull hypothesis for White but not Black entrepreneurs.


Author(s):  
Murat Tasci ◽  
Caitlin Treanor

Though labor market statistics are often reported and discussed at the national level, conditions can vary quite a bit across individual states. We explore differences in these labor market conditions across US states before and after the Great Recession using a ratio of the number of unemployed workers to job vacancies. We show that the intensity of the adverse effects of the recession and the strength of the recovery varied geographically at all points in the process. We also demonstrate that wage growth is delayed until the ratio of unemployed workers to job vacancies returns to prerecession levels.


Author(s):  
Youssef Cassis ◽  
Giuseppe Telesca

Why were elite bankers and financiers demoted from ‘masters’ to ‘servants’ of society after the Great Depression, a crisis to which they contributed only marginally? Why do they seem to have got away with the recent crisis, in spite of their palpable responsibilities in triggering the Great Recession? This chapter provides an analysis of the differences between the bankers of the Great Depression and their colleagues of the late twentieth/early twenty-first century—regarding their position within, and attitude towards the firm, work culture, mental models, and codes of conduct—complemented with a scrutiny of the public discourse on bankers and financiers before and after the two crises. The authors argue that the (relative) mildness of the Great Recession, compared to the Great Depression, has contributed to preserve elite bankers’ and financiers’ status, income, wealth, and influence. Yet, the long-term consequences of their loss of reputational capital are difficult to assess.


Author(s):  
Abraham L. Newman ◽  
Elliot Posner

Chapter 6 examines the long-term effects of international soft law on policy in the United States since 2008. The extent and type of post-crisis US cooperation with foreign jurisdictions have varied considerably with far-reaching ramifications for international financial markets. Focusing on the international interaction of reforms in banking and derivatives, the chapter uses the book’s approach to understand US regulation in the wake of the Great Recession. The authors attribute seemingly random variation in the US relationship to foreign regulation and markets to differences in pre-crisis international soft law. Here, the existence (or absence) of robust soft law and standard-creating institutions determines the resources available to policy entrepreneurs as well as their orientation and attitudes toward international cooperation. Soft law plays a central role in the evolution of US regulatory reform and its interface with the rest of the world.


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