Macroeconomics of Inequality: Data and Implications

Catalog description

Inequality among economic agents is a defining feature of modern economies: Households at the top of the wealth distribution own billions of dollars, while the bottom half of the population has almost no wealth and lives paycheck to paycheck. Some firms have thousands of employees while others operate only with a handful of workers. And inequality among both households and firms has been on the rise. Which forces shape the distribution of income and wealth across households? Why do some firms hire more employees than others? And how do these differences across households and firms affect aggregate outcomes in the economy? The objective of the course is to introduce students to micro-data evidence on the rich heterogeneity among economic agents and to provide them with simple theories to understand and analyze this heterogeneity and its interaction with macroeconomic outcomes. The course may be loosely structured in two parts, the first focussing on economic differences across households and the second focussing on differences across firms. Topics covered in the first half may include the distribution of income, wealth and spending across households and their determinants, the role of Macroeconomic trends and shocks for inequality among households, and the role of the distribution of income and wealth for macroeconomic dynamics. Topics covered in the second half of the course may include the distribution of employment and output across firms, the misallocation of resources and aggregate productivity, as well as firms' price-setting decision, its implications for trends in inflation, market power and profits.