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Measuring local, salient economic inequality in the UK

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  • Suss, Joel

Abstract

Neighbourhood-level economic inequality is thought to have important implications for social, political, and economic attitudes and behaviours. However, due to a lack of available data, to date it has been impossible to investigate how inequality varies across neighbourhoods in the UK. In this paper, I develop a novel measure of within-neighbourhood inequality in the UK by exploiting data on housing values for over 26.6 million addresses – nearly the universe of residential properties in the UK. Across two surveys, I demonstrate that housing value inequality is perceptually-salient – what people see around them in terms of housing discrepancies is associated with their beliefs about inequality. This new measure of local, salient inequality represents a powerful tool with which to investigate both the anatomy of local inequality in the UK, as well as its attitudinal and behavioural consequences.

Suggested Citation

  • Suss, Joel, 2023. "Measuring local, salient economic inequality in the UK," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 117884, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:117884
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    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/117884/
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    built environment; housing; local inequality; perceptions; Internal OA fund;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement

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