Marriott Marquis, Yerba Buena Salons 5 & 6
780 Mission St San Francisco, CA 94103
Dec 04, 2015
5:30 PM (GMT-5)
Host:
Union for Radical Political Economics, as part of American Economic Association Annual Meeting
David Gordon Memorial Lecture
Hosts:
Union for Radical Political Economics, as part of American Economic Association Annual Meeting (registration is required)
Presenting the David Gordon Memorial Lecture, CEPR's Dean Baker will present Rising Inequality: Are Rents the Problem? based on a CEPR Working Paper.
This paper argues that most of the increase in inequality since 1980 can be attributed to the growth of rents in four areas: excessive CEO pay, a bloated financial sector, the expansion of patent and copyright protection, and protectionist policies to benefit highly paid professionals. The paper produces a range of estimates of amount of additional income going to high-income households from each source. It also outlines alternative policies and institutional structures that can reduce the rents in these areas back to their pre-1980 levels measured as a share of GDP.
Presiding: Fred Moseley (Mount Holyoke College)
Discussants: Heather Boushey (Washington Center for Equitable Growth)
