College Education, Income Inequality, and Market Power

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oz Shy
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-124
Author(s):  
Ahmad Lashkaripour

Export price levels exhibit tremendous cross-national and spatial variation, even within narrowly defined industries. Standard theories attribute this variation to within-industry quality specialization. This paper argues that a significant portion of the export price variation is driven by rich and remote economies specializing in high-market power segments of industries. I also argue that this particular pattern of specialization (i) accounts for 30 percent of the overall gains from trade, and (ii) explains more than 37 percent of the observed cross-national income inequality. (JEL D43, F12, F13, F14, L15, L22, O19)


2020 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 871-890 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Stelzner ◽  
Mayuri Chaturvedi

Abstract Starting in the 1980s, market concentration began to rise dramatically decreasing competition and increasing market power for the firms that remain. Such developments have important effects on a number of economic variables such as the efficiency of our economy and income inequality. Thus, it is important to ask: how has the administration of antitrust policy changed over the last half century? To shed more light on these important questions, we explore both change in policy outline by the Department of Justice in its Horizontal Merger Guidelines and change in administrative actions looking at both secondary requests for mergers and acquisitions of different sizes, and pre, post and change in Herfindahl–Hirschman Index in mergers and acquisitions contested by the Department of Justice through the courts.


2020 ◽  
Vol 61 (3) ◽  
pp. 275-289
Author(s):  
Ryan P. Thombs ◽  
Dennis L. Thombs ◽  
Andrew K. Jorgenson ◽  
Taylor Harris Braswell

The demand-side perspective argues that the drug overdose epidemic is a consequence of changes in the economy that leave behind working-class people who lack a college education. In contrast, the supply-side perspective maintains that the epidemic is primarily due to changes in the licit and illicit drug environment, whereas a third, distinct perspective argues that income inequality is likely a key driver of the epidemic. To evaluate these competing perspectives, we use a two-level random intercept model and U.S. state-level data from 2006 to 2017. Contrary to the demand-side approach, we find that educational attainment is not associated with drug-related mortality. In support of the supply-side approach, we provide evidence indicating that opioid prescription rates are positively associated with drug-related mortality. We also find that income inequality is a key driver of the epidemic, particularly the lack of resources going to the bottom 20% of earners. We conclude by arguing that considerations of income inequality are an important way to link the arguments made by the demand-side and the supply-side perspectives.


Author(s):  
Hoi Le Quoc ◽  
Hoi Chu Minh

Financial development could exert various effects on income distribution of a country. By employing Generalized Method of Moment, this paper aims at examining the impacts of credit market depth, one of most used financial development barometers, on income inequality in Vietnam. The empirical findings show that expanding credit market in the country could lead to higher income inequality. We have not found evidence that supports the hypothesis of an inverted U-shaped relation ever introduced by Greenwood and Jovanovich, although this hypothesis may still hold in a sense that Vietnam has not reached to the inflection point to generate such a curve alike.


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