Reference : The Distribution of Wealth in the United States from 1983 to 2004: Inequality and Pol...
Parts of books : Contribution to collective works
Business & economic sciences : Social economics
http://hdl.handle.net/10993/12963
The Distribution of Wealth in the United States from 1983 to 2004: Inequality and Polarization
English
D'Ambrosio, Conchita[University of Luxembourg > Faculty of Language and Literature, Humanities, Arts and Education (FLSHASE) > Integrative Research Unit: Social and Individual Development (INSIDE) >]
Fiaschi, Davide[Università degli Studi di Pisa, Pisa, Italy]
[en] Polarization ; Inequality ; Wealth Distribution
[en] Recent work has documented a rising degree of wealth inequality in the United States between 1983 and 2004. In this paper, we compare the increase in the spread of the distribution with another dimension, polarization. Using alternative approaches proposed in the literature, we examine whether a similar pattern exists with regard to trends in wealth polarization over this period. Perhaps, our most notable finding is the huge increase in wealth polarization that occurred in the U.S. from 1983 to 2004, particularly from 1998 to 2004. In contrast, the Gini coefficient shows an increase in wealth inequality from 1983 to 1989 and little change thereafter.