IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/fip/fedfel/y2006idec1n2006-33-34.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Economic inequality in the United States

Author

Listed:
  • Janet L. Yellen

Abstract

This Economic Letter is adapted from the 2006-2007 Economics of Governance Lecture delivered by Janet L. Yellen, president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, at the Center for the Study of Democracy, University of California, Irvine, on November 6, 2006. ; My topic today is the performance of the U.S. economy, with a focus on how trends for the economy as a whole have been playing out for our nation's individuals and families. One area I'd like to examine in particular is how the income that has been generated by our economy over the past three decades or so has been distributed among the various income groups, from the top to the bottom.

Suggested Citation

  • Janet L. Yellen, 2006. "Economic inequality in the United States," FRBSF Economic Letter, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue dec1.
  • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedfel:y:2006:i:dec1:n:2006-33-34
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.frbsf.org/publications/economics/letter/2006/el2006-33-34.html
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: http://www.frbsf.org/publications/economics/letter/2006/el2006-33-34.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lazear, Edward P & Rosen, Sherwin, 1981. "Rank-Order Tournaments as Optimum Labor Contracts," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(5), pages 841-864, October.
    2. Steven J. Davis & R. Jason Faberman & John Haltiwanger, 2006. "The Flow Approach to Labor Markets: New Data Sources and Micro-Macro Links," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 20(3), pages 3-26, Summer.
    3. Gruber, Jonathan & Madrian, Brigitte C., 1997. "Employment separation and health insurance coverage," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(3), pages 349-382, December.
    4. Xavier Gabaix & Augustin Landier, 2008. "Why has CEO Pay Increased So Much?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 123(1), pages 49-100.
    5. Ian Dew-Becker & Robert J. Gordon, 2005. "Where Did Productivity Growth Go? Inflation Dynamics and the Distribution of Income," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 36(2), pages 67-150.
    6. David H. Autor & Frank Levy & Richard J. Murnane, 2003. "The skill content of recent technological change: an empirical exploration," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Nov.
    7. Thomas C. Buchmueller & Robert G. Valletta, 2006. "Health insurance costs and declining coverage," FRBSF Economic Letter, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue sep29.
    8. David H. Autor & Lawrence F. Katz & Melissa S. Kearney, 2006. "The Polarization of the U.S. Labor Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(2), pages 189-194, May.
    9. Carneiro, Pedro & Heckman, James J., 2003. "Human Capital Policy," IZA Discussion Papers 821, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Rosen, Sherwin, 1981. "The Economics of Superstars," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(5), pages 845-858, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Marwil J. Dávila-Fernández & Lionello F. Punzo, 2018. "Some New Insights on Financialisation and Income Inequality," Department of Economics University of Siena 792, Department of Economics, University of Siena.
    2. Susan HOUSEMAN, 2007. "Outsourcing, offshoring and productivity measurement in United States manufacturing," International Labour Review, International Labour Organization, vol. 146(1-2), pages 61-80, March.
    3. Michal Jerzmanowski & Malhar Nabar, 2013. "Financial Development And Wage Inequality: Theory And Evidence," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 51(1), pages 211-234, January.
    4. Bieri, David, 2006. "Picking a Winner? Evidence from the Non-Manufacturing High-Tech Industry in the Blacksburg MSA," MPRA Paper 1079, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 06 Dec 2006.
    5. Adam Okulicz-Kozaryn & Joan Maya Mazelis, 2017. "More Unequal in Income, More Unequal in Wellbeing," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 132(3), pages 953-975, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gordon, Robert J. & Dew-Becker, Ian, 2008. "Controversies about the Rise in American Inequality: A Survey," CEPR Discussion Papers 6817, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Monte, Ferdinando, 2011. "Skill bias, trade, and wage dispersion," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(2), pages 202-218, March.
    3. Roine, Jesper & Vlachos, Jonas & Waldenström, Daniel, 2009. "The long-run determinants of inequality: What can we learn from top income data?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(7-8), pages 974-988, August.
    4. Bias, Daniel & Chen, Lin & Lochner, Benjamin & Schmid, Thomas, 2020. "Measuring workers' financial incentives," FAU Discussion Papers in Economics 07/2020, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Institute for Economics.
    5. Yanhui Wu, 2011. "A Simple Theory of Managerial Talent, Pay Contracts and Wage Distribution," CEP Discussion Papers dp1067, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    6. Cavenaile, Laurent, 2021. "Offshoring, computerization, labor market polarization and top income inequality," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    7. Katsiaryna Bardos & Steven E. Kozlowski & Michael R. Puleo, 2021. "Entrenchment or efficiency? CEO‐to‐employee pay ratio and the cost of debt," The Financial Review, Eastern Finance Association, vol. 56(3), pages 511-533, August.
    8. Oyer, Paul & Schaefer, Scott, 2011. "Personnel Economics: Hiring and Incentives," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 20, pages 1769-1823, Elsevier.
    9. T. Gries & R. Grundmann & I. Palnau & M. Redlin, 2017. "Innovations, growth and participation in advanced economies - a review of major concepts and findings," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 14(2), pages 293-351, April.
    10. Anthony B. Atkinson & Thomas Piketty & Emmanuel Saez, 2011. "Top Incomes in the Long Run of History," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 49(1), pages 3-71, March.
    11. Majda Benzidia & Michel Lubrano, 2016. "A Bayesian Look at American Academic Wages: The Case of Michigan State University," AMSE Working Papers 1628, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, France.
    12. repec:esx:essedp:754 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Ian Gregory-Smith & Peter W Wright, 2019. "Winners and losers of corporate tournaments," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 71(1), pages 250-268.
    14. Edward P. Lazear & Kathryn L. Shaw, 2007. "Personnel Economics: The Economist's View of Human Resources," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(4), pages 91-114, Fall.
    15. Robert J. Gordon & Ian Dew-Becker, 2007. "Selected Issues in the Rise of Income Inequality," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 38(2), pages 169-192.
    16. Fredrik Andersson & Matthew Freedman & John Haltiwanger & Julia Lane & Kathryn Shaw, 2009. "Reaching for the Stars: Who Pays for Talent in Innovative Industries?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 119(538), pages 308-332, June.
    17. Lee, Tim & Shin, Yongseok, 2017. "Horizonatal and Vertical Polarization: Task-Specific Technological Change in a Multi-Sector Economy," TSE Working Papers 17-800, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    18. Dmytro Osiichuk, 2022. "The Driver of Workplace Alienation or the Cost of Effective Stewardship? The Consequences of Wage Gap for Corporate Performance," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(13), pages 1-26, June.
    19. Bayer, Christian & Kuhn, Moritz, 2018. "Which Ladder to Climb? Decomposing Life Cycle Wage Dynamics," CEPR Discussion Papers 13158, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    20. Dinara Alpysbayeva & Jozef Konings & Venkat Subramanian & Aigerim Yergabulova, 2022. "Wage dispersion and firm performance: evidence from Kazakhstan," Working Papers 2022/01, Nazarbayev University, Graduate School of Business.
    21. Chris Belfield & Richard Blundell & Jonathan Cribb & Andrew Hood & Robert Joyce, 2017. "Two Decades of Income Inequality in Britain: The Role of Wages, Household Earnings and Redistribution," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 84(334), pages 157-179, April.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fip:fedfel:y:2006:i:dec1:n:2006-33-34. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Research Library (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbsfus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.