Download or read book The Inequality Trap written by William Watson and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2015-09-15 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: US President Barack Obama has called economic inequality the “defining issue of our time.” It has inspired the “Occupy” movements, made a French economist into a global celebrity, and given us a new expression – the “one percent.” But is our preoccupation with inequality really justified? Or wise? In his new book, William Watson argues that focusing on inequality is both an error and a trap. It is an error because much inequality is “good,” the reward for thrift, industry, and invention. It is a trap because it leads us to fixate on the top end of the income distribution, rather than on those at the bottom who need help most. In fact, if we respond to growing inequality by fighting capitalism rather than poverty, we may end up both poorer and less equal. Explaining the complexities of modern economics in a clear, accessible style, The Inequality Trap is the must-read rejoinder to the idea that fighting inequality should be our top policy priority.
Download or read book America s Inequality Trap written by Nathan J. Kelly and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2020-02-11 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The gap between the rich and the poor has grown dramatically in the United States and is now at its widest since at least the early 1900s. While by most measures the economy has been improving, soaring cost of living and stagnant wages have done little to assuage economic anxieties. Conditions like these seem designed to produce a generation-defining intervention to balance the economic scales and enhance opportunities for those at the middle and bottom of the country’s economic ladder—but we have seen nothing of the sort. Nathan J. Kelly argues that a key reason for this is that rising concentrations of wealth create a politics that makes reducing economic inequality more difficult. Kelly convincingly shows that, when a small fraction of the people control most of the economic resources, they also hold a disproportionate amount of political power, hurtling us toward a self-perpetuating plutocracy, or an “inequality trap.” Among other things, the rich support a broad political campaign that convinces voters that policies to reduce inequality are unwise and not in the average voter’s interest, regardless of the real economic impact. They also take advantage of interest groups they generously support to influence Congress and the president, as well as state governments, in ways that stop or slow down reform. One of the key implications of this book is that social policies designed to combat inequality should work hand-in-hand with political reforms that enhance democratic governance and efforts to fight racism, and a coordinated effort on all of these fronts will be needed to reverse the decades-long trend.
Download or read book The Meritocracy Trap written by Daniel Markovits and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2020-09-08 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A revolutionary new argument from eminent Yale Law professor Daniel Markovits attacking the false promise of meritocracy It is an axiom of American life that advantage should be earned through ability and effort. Even as the country divides itself at every turn, the meritocratic ideal – that social and economic rewards should follow achievement rather than breeding – reigns supreme. Both Democrats and Republicans insistently repeat meritocratic notions. Meritocracy cuts to the heart of who we are. It sustains the American dream. But what if, both up and down the social ladder, meritocracy is a sham? Today, meritocracy has become exactly what it was conceived to resist: a mechanism for the concentration and dynastic transmission of wealth and privilege across generations. Upward mobility has become a fantasy, and the embattled middle classes are now more likely to sink into the working poor than to rise into the professional elite. At the same time, meritocracy now ensnares even those who manage to claw their way to the top, requiring rich adults to work with crushing intensity, exploiting their expensive educations in order to extract a return. All this is not the result of deviations or retreats from meritocracy but rather stems directly from meritocracy’s successes. This is the radical argument that Daniel Markovits prosecutes with rare force. Markovits is well placed to expose the sham of meritocracy. Having spent his life at elite universities, he knows from the inside the corrosive system we are trapped within. Markovits also knows that, if we understand that meritocratic inequality produces near-universal harm, we can cure it. When The Meritocracy Trap reveals the inner workings of the meritocratic machine, it also illuminates the first steps outward, towards a new world that might once again afford dignity and prosperity to the American people.
Download or read book America s Inequality Trap written by Nathan J. Kelly and published by Chicago Studies in American Politics. This book was released on 2020-02-11 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In this book Nate Kelly argues that rising concentrations of wealth creates a politics that makes reducing economic inequality more difficult. Kelly convincingly demonstrates that the concentration of economic resources in a small group leads to a concentration of economic and political power that in turn creates a self-perpetuating plutocracy or an "inequality trap." As economic resources become concentrated, those who control them engage in a variety of political activities that seek to perpetuate their advantages. Among other things, the rich support a broad public campaign that convinces voters that policies to reduce inequality are unwise and not in the average voter's interest, notwithstanding the real economic impact. They also manipulate the formal division of our government into separate branches and a federal system to their advantage"--
Download or read book The Inequality Trap written by William G Watson and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "US President Barack Obama has called economic inequality the "defining issue of our time." It has inspired the "Occupy" movements, made a French economist into a global celebrity, and given us a new expression--the "one percent." But is our preoccupation with inequality really justified? Or wise? In his new book, William Watson argues that focusing on inequality is both an error and a trap. It is an error because much inequality is "good," the reward for thrift, industry, and invention. It is a trap because it leads us to fixate on the top end of the income distribution, rather than on those at the bottom who need help most. In fact, if we respond to growing inequality by fighting capitalism rather than poverty, we may end up both poorer and less equal. Explaining the complexities of modern economics in a clear, accessible style, The Inequality Trap is the must-read rejoinder to the idea that fighting inequality should be our top policy priority."--
Download or read book Economic Inequality Trends Traps and Trade offs written by Medani P. Bhandari and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2022-09-01 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book “Economic Inequality – Trends, Traps and Trade-offs” presents the unexplored issues of economic inequality, including case studies of various countries. Inequality is a chronic divisive factor of society. It is well known that inequalities (such as economic, social, cultural, religious, geographical, etc.) have been omnipresent in human society. Inequalities can be found within each family, each community, and each nation and thus globally. Inequality is a major cause of political, economic, social instability, and creates crisis and conflict within society. A major cause of inequality is unequal, uneven, biased, power centric distributions of human economic, social, political, cultural and spiritual human necessities.The edited book examines the major parameters of the socio-economic issues of inequality and focuses on the key economic issues of inequality, namely, income and wealth distribution, equity & equality of outcome, and equality of opportunities. Economic inequality is measured by wealth, income dsiproportions in distribution and consumption patterns in a specific area. Mostly, inequality is measured using various statistical tools including the Gini Coefficient, inequality adjusted human development index, 20:20 ratio, Palma ratio, Hoover index, Galt score, Coefficient of variation, Theil index, wage share etc. However, not all income can be measured by these tools. By using case studies, this book encourages us to reframe economic development through the lens of growing inequalities and disparities. Economic growth per se is disproportional, and the efforts of scholars, practitioners and policymakers should be directed to empower the marginalized of society in a way that ‘no one should left behind’ (UN Slogan).
Download or read book The Education Trap written by Cristina Viviana Groeger and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2021-03-09 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why—contrary to much expert and popular opinion—more education may not be the answer to skyrocketing inequality. For generations, Americans have looked to education as the solution to economic disadvantage. Yet, although more people are earning degrees, the gap between rich and poor is widening. Cristina Groeger delves into the history of this seeming contradiction, explaining how education came to be seen as a panacea even as it paved the way for deepening inequality. The Education Trap returns to the first decades of the twentieth century, when Americans were grappling with the unprecedented inequities of the Gilded Age. Groeger’s test case is the city of Boston, which spent heavily on public schools. She examines how workplaces came to depend on an army of white-collar staff, largely women and second-generation immigrants, trained in secondary schools. But Groeger finds that the shift to more educated labor had negative consequences—both intended and unintended—for many workers. Employers supported training in schools in order to undermine the influence of craft unions, and so shift workplace power toward management. And advanced educational credentials became a means of controlling access to high-paying professional and business jobs, concentrating power and wealth. Formal education thus became a central force in maintaining inequality. The idea that more education should be the primary means of reducing inequality may be appealing to politicians and voters, but Groeger warns that it may be a dangerous policy trap. If we want a more equitable society, we should not just prescribe more time in the classroom, but fight for justice in the workplace.
Download or read book Poverty Traps written by Samuel Bowles and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2016-05-31 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Much popular belief--and public policy--rests on the idea that those born into poverty have it in their power to escape. But the persistence of poverty and ever-growing economic inequality around the world have led many economists to seriously question the model of individual economic self-determination when it comes to the poor. In Poverty Traps, Samuel Bowles, Steven Durlauf, Karla Hoff, and the book's other contributors argue that there are many conditions that may trap individuals, groups, and whole economies in intractable poverty. For the first time the editors have brought together the perspectives of economics, economic history, and sociology to assess what we know--and don't know--about such traps. Among the sources of the poverty of nations, the authors assign a primary role to social and political institutions, ranging from corruption to seemingly benign social customs such as kin systems. Many of the institutions that keep nations poor have deep roots in colonial history and persist long after their initial causes are gone. Neighborhood effects--influences such as networks, role models, and aspirations--can create hard-to-escape pockets of poverty even in rich countries. Similar individuals in dissimilar socioeconomic environments develop different preferences and beliefs that can transmit poverty or affluence from generation to generation. The book presents evidence of harmful neighborhood effects and discusses policies to overcome them, with attention to the uncertainty that exists in evaluating such policies.
Download or read book The Parent Trap written by Nate G. Hilger and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2023-04-04 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How parents have been set up to fail, and why helping them succeed is the key to achieving a fair and prosperous society. A next Big Idea Club nominee. Few people realize that raising children is the single largest industry in the United States. Yet this vital work receives little political support, and its primary workers—parents—labor in isolation. If they ask for help, they are made to feel inadequate; there is no centralized organization to represent their interests; and there is virtually nothing spent on research and development to help them achieve their goals. It’s almost as if parents are set up to fail—and the result is lost opportunities that limit children’s success and make us all worse off. In The Parent Trap, Nate Hilger combines cutting-edge social science research, revealing historical case studies, and on-the-ground investigation to recast parenting as the hidden crucible of inequality. Parents are expected not only to care for their children but to help them develop the skills they will need to thrive in today’s socioeconomic reality—but most parents, including even the most caring parents on the planet, are not trained in skill development and lack the resources to get help. How do we fix this? The solution, Hilger argues, is to ask less of parents, not more. America should consider child development a public investment with a monumental payoff. We need a program like Medicare—call it Familycare—to drive this investment. To make it happen, parents need to organize to wield their political power on behalf of children—who will always be the largest bloc of disenfranchised people in this country. The Parent Trap exposes the true costs of our society’s unrealistic expectations around parenting and lays out a profoundly hopeful blueprint for reform.
Download or read book How China Escaped the Poverty Trap written by Yuen Yuen Ang and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2016-09-06 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: WINNER OF THE 2017 PETER KATZENSTEIN BOOK PRIZE "BEST OF BOOKS IN 2017" BY FOREIGN AFFAIRS WINNER OF THE 2018 VIVIAN ZELIZER PRIZE BEST BOOK AWARD IN ECONOMIC SOCIOLOGY "How China Escaped the Poverty Trap truly offers game-changing ideas for the analysis and implementation of socio-economic development and should have a major impact across many social sciences." ― Zelizer Best Book in Economic Sociology Prize Committee Acclaimed as "game changing" and "field shifting," How China Escaped the Poverty Trap advances a new paradigm in the political economy of development and sheds new light on China's rise. How can poor and weak societies escape poverty traps? Political economists have traditionally offered three answers: "stimulate growth first," "build good institutions first," or "some fortunate nations inherited good institutions that led to growth." Yuen Yuen Ang rejects all three schools of thought and their underlying assumptions: linear causation, a mechanistic worldview, and historical determinism. Instead, she launches a new paradigm grounded in complex adaptive systems, which embraces the reality of interdependence and humanity's capacity to innovate. Combining this original lens with more than 400 interviews with Chinese bureaucrats and entrepreneurs, Ang systematically reenacts the complex process that turned China from a communist backwater into a global juggernaut in just 35 years. Contrary to popular misconceptions, she shows that what drove China's great transformation was not centralized authoritarian control, but "directed improvisation"—top-down directions from Beijing paired with bottom-up improvisation among local officials. Her analysis reveals two broad lessons on development. First, transformative change requires an adaptive governing system that empowers ground-level actors to create new solutions for evolving problems. Second, the first step out of the poverty trap is to "use what you have"—harnessing existing resources to kick-start new markets, even if that means defying first-world norms. Bold and meticulously researched, How China Escaped the Poverty Trap opens up a whole new avenue of thinking for scholars, practitioners, and anyone seeking to build adaptive systems.
Download or read book The Technology Trap written by Carl Benedikt Frey and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-09-22 with total page 488 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the Industrial Revolution to the age of artificial intelligence, Carl Benedikt Frey offers a sweeping account of the history of technological progress and how it has radically shifted the distribution of economic and political power among society's members. As the author shows, the Industrial Revolution created unprecedented wealth and prosperity over the long run, but the immediate consequences of mechanization were devastating for large swaths of the population.These trends broadly mirror those in our current age of automation. But, just as the Industrial Revolution eventually brought about extraordinary benefits for society, artificial intelligence systems have the potential to do the same. Benedikt Frey demonstrates that in the midst of another technological revolution, the lessons of the past can help us to more effectively face the present. --From publisher description.
Download or read book Corruption Inequality and the Rule of Law written by Eric M. Uslaner and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010-04-12 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Corruption flouts rules of fairness and gives some people advantages that others don't have. Corruption is persistent; there is little evidence that countries can escape the curse of corruption easily-or at all. Instead of focusing on institutional reform, Uslaner suggests that the roots of corruption lie in economic and legal inequality and low levels of generalized trust (which are not readily changed) and poor policy choices (which may be more likely to change). Economic inequality provides a fertile breeding ground for corruption-and, in turn, it leads to further inequalities. Just as corruption is persistent, inequality and trust do not change much over time in my cross-national aggregate analyses. Uslaner argues that high inequality leads to low trust and high corruption, and then to more inequality-an inequality trap and identifies direct linkages between inequality and trust in surveys of the mass public and elites in transition countries. Eric M. Uslaner is Professor of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland-College Park, where he has taught since 1975. He has written seven books including The Moral Foundations of Trust (Cambridge University Press, 2002), and The Decline of Comity in Congress (University of Michigan Press, 1993). In 1981-82 he was Fulbright Professor of American Studies and Political Science at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel and in 2005, he was a Fulbright Senior Specialist Lecturer at Novosibirsk State Technical University, Novosibirsk, Siberia, Russia. In 2006 he was appointed the first Senior Research Fellow at the Center for American Law and Political Science at the Southwest University of Political Science and Law, Chongqing, China.
Download or read book Trapped in a Maze written by Leslie Paik and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2021-08-17 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Trapped in a Maze provides a window into families' lived experiences in poverty by looking at their complex interactions with institutions such as welfare, hospitals, courts, housing, and schools. Families are more intertwined with institutions than ever as they struggle to maintain their eligibility for services and face the possibility that involvement with one institution could trigger other types of institutional oversight. Many poor families find themselves trapped in a multi-institutional maze, stuck in between several systems with no clear path to resolution. Tracing the complex and often unpredictable journeys of families in this maze, this book reveals how the formal rationality by which these institutions ostensibly operate undercuts what they can actually achieve. And worse, it demonstrates how involvement with multiple institutions can perpetuate the conditions of poverty that these families are fighting to escape.
Download or read book China Surpassing the Middle Income Trap written by Shaojie Zhou and published by Palgrave Macmillan. This book was released on 2020-10-06 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This open access book explores one of the most fiercely debated issues in China: if and how China will surpass the middle income trap that has plagued many developing countries for years. This book gives readers a clear picture of China today and acts as a reference for other developing countries. China is facing many setbacks and experiencing an economic slowdown in recent years due to some serious issues, and income inequality is one such issue deferring China’s development potential by creating a middle income trap. This book thoroughly investigates both the unpromising factors and favorable conditions for China to overcome the trap. It illustrates that traps may be encountered at any stage of development and argues that political stability is the prerequisite to creating a favorable environment for economic development and addressing this “middle income trap”. Written by one of China's central planners, this book offers precious insights into the industrial policies that are transforming China and the world and will be of interest to China scholars, economists and political scientists.
Download or read book Poverty Traps written by Samuel Bowles and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2016-05-31 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Much popular belief--and public policy--rests on the idea that those born into poverty have it in their power to escape. But the persistence of poverty and ever-growing economic inequality around the world have led many economists to seriously question the model of individual economic self-determination when it comes to the poor. In Poverty Traps, Samuel Bowles, Steven Durlauf, Karla Hoff, and the book's other contributors argue that there are many conditions that may trap individuals, groups, and whole economies in intractable poverty. For the first time the editors have brought together the perspectives of economics, economic history, and sociology to assess what we know--and don't know--about such traps. Among the sources of the poverty of nations, the authors assign a primary role to social and political institutions, ranging from corruption to seemingly benign social customs such as kin systems. Many of the institutions that keep nations poor have deep roots in colonial history and persist long after their initial causes are gone. Neighborhood effects--influences such as networks, role models, and aspirations--can create hard-to-escape pockets of poverty even in rich countries. Similar individuals in dissimilar socioeconomic environments develop different preferences and beliefs that can transmit poverty or affluence from generation to generation. The book presents evidence of harmful neighborhood effects and discusses policies to overcome them, with attention to the uncertainty that exists in evaluating such policies.
Download or read book The Two Income Trap written by Elizabeth Warren and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2016-04-12 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From #1 New York Times bestselling author Senator Elizabeth Warren and consultant Amelia Warren Tyagi, the classic book about America's middle class -- and why economic security remains out of reach for many. In this exposé, Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Warren Tyagi show that modern middle-class families are increasingly trapped by the grinding reality of flat wages and rising costs. Warren and Tyagi reveal how a ferocious bidding war for housing and education has silently engulfed America's suburbs, driving up the cost of keeping families in the middle class, and placing unprecedented pressure on hard-working families. Revolutionary when it was first published in 2003, The Two-Income Trap remains disturbingly relevant today. Now with a new introduction by the authors, The Two Income Trap shows why the usual remedies won't solve the problem and points toward the policy changes that would create better opportunities for both parents and children.
Download or read book The Development Trap written by Adam D. Kiš and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-03-05 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A wave of optimism is sweeping through the international aid and development industry, championed by leaders such as Jeffrey Sachs and Jim Yong Kim, who believe that poverty eradication could be within our grasp. Yet in stark opposition come those who believe that all international development intervention is hegemonic, paternalistic, and neocolonialist and must be done away with. In this book, Adam D. Kiš argues for a middle ground. Poverty is an entrenched, intractable problem that will never be entirely eradicated. However, if we reorientate our objectives in line with realistic goals that improve the way that poverty is confronted on a smaller scale, we can still continue the fight for meaningful change. Using rigorous scholarship illustrated with vivid storytelling and personal anecdotes from fighting against poverty in the field, The Development Trap argues that we need to make progress against poverty on the micro, rather than the macro scale. Instead of shooting for a single overarching end of poverty, our goals must be modest and reachable. Poverty still won’t go away, on a macro scale, but it can go away for specific individuals - in fact, it already happens all the time. The Development Trap is a compelling account of the challenges of eradicating poverty, and the possibilities for meaningful change at a smaller scale. It will be perfect for international development professionals, students and scholars, and for those with a general interest in the future of aid and development.
