EC9AA The Practice of Economic Research

Lectures on Economic Inequality

Instructor: Debraj Ray; email: debraj.ray@nyu.edu

Department of Economics, University of Warwick, 2024

My lectures will be divided into five 2-hour sessions. For links to slides used in the lectures and some readings, see below, or in the menu bar.

Lecture location and dates:

All lectures will take place in Social Sciences S0.08.

May 20 (Monday), 10.00-12.00

May 21 (Tuesday), 10.00-12.00

May 22 (Wednesday), 10.00-12.00

May 23 (Thursday), 10.00-12.00

May 24 (Friday), 10.00-12.00

Office Hours: You are free to email me any time and set up an appointment to meet in person or on Zoom, etc. I will be more than happy to talk about the course, or your research, or life in general...

Lecture 1. Introduction  [Slides 1], [Supplement 1 Slides 1] [Supplement 2 Slides 1] [Supplement 3 Slides 1]

Main:

D. Ray (2010), "Uneven Growth: A Framework for Research in Development Economics," Journal of Economic Perspectives 24, No. 3 (Summer 2010), 45--60.

D. Ray (2014), "Nit-Piketty," blog post, published in CESifo Forum 16 (1), 2015, 19-25.

Additional:

T. Piketty (2013), Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

D. Ray, Development Economics, Princeton University Press, Chapter 3, Chapter 4 (new versions)

Lecture 2. Personal Inequality: Occupational Choice [Slides 2] [Supplement 1 Slides 2]

Main:

G. Loury (1981), "Intergenerational Transfers and the Distribution of Earnings,'' Econometrica 49, 843-867.

D. Mookherjee and D. Ray (2003), "Persistent Inequality," Review of Economic Studies 70, 369--393.

D. Mookherjee and D. Ray (2010), "Inequality and Markets," AEJ Microeconomics 2, 38-76.

Additional:

A. Banerjee and A. Newman (1993), "Occupational Choice and the Process of Development,'' Journal of Political Economy 101, 274-298.

O. Galor and J. Zeira (1993), "Income Distribution and Macroeconomics,'' Review of Economic Studies 60, 35-52.

Lecture 3. Functional Inequality: The Falling Labor Share   [Slides 3] [Supplement 1 Slides 3]

Main:

D. Mookherjee and D. Ray (2021), "Growth, Automation and the Long-Run Share of Labor.Review of Economic Dynamics https://doi.org/10.1016/j.red.2021.09.003, September 2021.

Additional:

D. Acemoglu and P. Restrepo (2018), "The Race Between Man and Machine," American Economic Review 2018, 108(6), 1488–1542

P. Ghosh and D. Ray (2021), " A Sovereign Fund for India," in Kaushik Basu, Maitreesh Ghatak, Kenneth Kletzer, Sudipto Mundle and Eric Verhoogen (eds), Development, Distribution, and Markets: Essays in Honour of Pranab Bardhan, Oxford University Press.

Lecture 4. Upward Mobility [Slides 4]

Main:

G. Genicot and D.Ray (20), Measuring Upward Mobility, American Economic Review 2023, 113(11), 3044–3089.

Lecture 5. Inequality and Conflict [Summary Slides] [Slides 5] [Slides 6]

Main:

J. Esteban and D. Ray (2011), "Linking Conflict to Inequality and Polarization," American Economic Review 101(4), 1345–74.

Esteban, J., Mayoral, L. and D. Ray (2012), "Ethnicity and Conflict: An Empirical Study," American Economic Review 102, 1310-1342.

Additional:

D. Ray and J. Esteban (2017), Conflict and Development, Annual Reviews of Economics 9, 263-293.

Montalvo, J. and M. Reynal-Querol (2005), "Ethnic Polarization, Potential Conflict and Civil Wars," American Economic Review 95, 796--815.

Esteban, J., Mayoral, L. and D. Ray (2012), "Ethnicity and Conflict: Theory and Facts," Science 336, 858 - 865.

Genicot, G. and D. Ray (2020), Aspirations and Economic Behavior, Annual Review of Economics 12, 715-746.

Mitra, A. and D. Ray (2014), Implications of an Economic Theory of Conflict: Hindu-Muslim Violence in India, Journal of Political Economy 1, 719-765.

Mitra, A. and D. Ray (2019), Hindu-Muslim Violence in India: A Postscript From the 21st Century, in Advances in the Economics of Religion, (J-P Carvalho, S. Iyer and J. Rubin, eds.) Volume 158, International Economic Association Series.