Income Inequality

This course examines the macroeconomic dimensions of income inequality. How much of national income is paid to capital and how much to labor? What determines the gap in wages between workers with different skill levels, as well as variation in wages within skill groups? How have changes in technology, openness to trade, government policy, and the quantities of factors of production contributed to changes in these relative returns? What determines the aggregate quantities of different factors of production as well as their distribution among individuals? How does inequality feed back to affect macroeconomic stability and long term growth?