Research slam: (In-)Equality and prosperity
Oct
21
04:30 PM - 05:30 PM
Video
Research slam
What is the role of education and skills in rising inequality? How crucial are childhood and family environments, including schooling? What is the role of economic institutions? Also, how important are global issues in inequality, such as outsourcing, immigration, and trade? In the past four decades, the incomes of many of the world’s poorest citizens have increased and extreme poverty has fallen faster than ever before in human history. However, while we are now living in a period of falling global inequality, overall inequality is still high and new forms of inequality in income, health, and life prospects have emerged. What are the reasons for this and how can we improve the situation to ultimately build a more prosperous and just world?
The 35 minutes session is packed with insights from ongoing research on different aspects of inequality. The first talk provides a political perspective, showing how confidence about one’s own future opportunities influences voting behavior. Three presenters focus on innovation, labor, and taxation, discussing the interplay between rising automation, job losses and corresponding policy measures. Another group presents findings from the field of development and behavioral economics, showing that early interventions in children’s life as well as learning to be more patient can make a huge difference in education outcomes and wealth accumulation.
What is the role of education and skills in rising inequality? How crucial are childhood and family environments, including schooling? What is the role of economic institutions? Also, how important are global issues in inequality, such as outsourcing, immigration, and trade? In the past four decades, the incomes of many of the world’s poorest citizens have increased and extreme poverty has fallen faster than ever before in human history. However, while we are now living in a period of falling global inequality, overall inequality is still high and new forms of inequality in income, health, and life prospects have emerged. What are the reasons for this and how can we improve the situation to ultimately build a more prosperous and just world?
The 35 minutes session is packed with insights from ongoing research on different aspects of inequality. The first talk provides a political perspective, showing how confidence about one’s own future opportunities influences voting behavior. Three presenters focus on innovation, labor, and taxation, discussing the interplay between rising automation, job losses and corresponding policy measures. Another group presents findings from the field of development and behavioral economics, showing that early interventions in children’s life as well as learning to be more patient can make a huge difference in education outcomes and wealth accumulation.
Presentations
1. Inequality, labor market opportunities and electoral preferences by Silja Häusermann
"Rising income and labor market inequality has been associated with increasing vote shares for radical political parties in many studies. However, voters' perceptions of their risks and opportunities are better predictors of political preferences than actual grievances. The presentation will show that people's evaluation of their future labor market opportunities is an important driver of vote choice: confident, aspirational voters prefer mainstream parties, even if they have low incomes, while apprehensive voters prefer radical parties, even if they have high incomes."
2. Inequality and wealth Taxation by Florian Scheuer
"The rising concentration of top wealth has revived the idea to tax wealth directly, on top of the income that generates wealth. This presentation will discuss research on the effects of such wealth taxes on inequality, fiscal revenues and economic growth. We will also review the experience of countries that currently have or have had wealth taxes in the past."
3. Patience, parental wealth & wealth inequality by Ernst Fehr
"Wealth inequalities have important macro-economic implications. They amplify the propagation of shocks, influence the social cost of economic fluctuations, and affect the impact of government interventions. My presentation documents two important sources of wealth inequality - inequalities in education and individual differences in time discounting (patience)."
4. Worth your weight: On the benefits of obesity in low-income countries by Elisa Macchi
"A large share of the poors’ budget is spent on status goods. In my presentation I investigate if there can be economic benefits from status goods consumption in such low-resource settings. I look the case of obese borrowers in Kampala, Uganda. Obesity signals wealth. Accordingly, obese individuals have easier access to credit because loan officers screen borrowers by their body mass, and such obesity premium is larger when lenders have little information about the borrowers."
5. Automation and wages: A two-way street by David Hémous
"Automation has deeply transformed labor markets in the last four decades and is likely to shape our economies further. But it does not happen in a vacuum: it responds to profit incentives and increases notably with labor costs. My presentation documents this relationship and shows how it can explain salient features of the evolution of the income distribution in advanced economies."
6. Increasing educational opportunity in primary school by Ulf Zölitz
"Inequality of opportunity strikes when children with the same ability are tracked into different school because of their parents socio-economic status. In my presentation I show how an early intervention targeting socio-emotional skills can increase educational opportunity. The intervention increases the share of disadvantaged children entering the academic high school track in Switzerland. Intervention effects remain visible 12 years after the intervention was completed."
7. To UBI or not to UBI: That is the Question by Nir Jaimovich
"Discussions surrounding universal basic income (UBI hereafter) have become prevalent in recent years within policy circles and across various popular media outlets. The interest in this policy stems from structural changes in the labor market, where specific types of workers seem to have permanently lost their employment opportunities in the face of advances in automation and globalization. Introduction of a such a massive redistributive program entails significant changes in distortionary taxation. Yet, despite the recent emergence of the UBI as a possible policy tool, there is no formal quantitive evaluation of the effects its introduction will have on the economy. In this talk we fill this alarming gap; we quantify the impact that different UBI programs wiill have on the aggregate allocations in the economy, as well as their distributional consequences."
1. Inequality, labor market opportunities and electoral preferences by Silja Häusermann
"Rising income and labor market inequality has been associated with increasing vote shares for radical political parties in many studies. However, voters' perceptions of their risks and opportunities are better predictors of political preferences than actual grievances. The presentation will show that people's evaluation of their future labor market opportunities is an important driver of vote choice: confident, aspirational voters prefer mainstream parties, even if they have low incomes, while apprehensive voters prefer radical parties, even if they have high incomes."
Forum for Economic Dialogue
Special times call for special measures. That is why our annual forum this year took place online. Despite the change in format, we had sought to maintain our customary standards. We had a series of events in store, focusing on different aspects of inequality – a topic that has become even more important in light of the global pandemic and its devastating consequences, which has hit many of the most vulnerable people in the world particularly hard. Visit our event hub for timely updates and background information.
Special times call for special measures. That is why our annual forum this year took place online. Despite the change in format, we had sought to maintain our customary standards. We had a series of events in store, focusing on different aspects of inequality – a topic that has become even more important in light of the global pandemic and its devastating consequences, which has hit many of the most vulnerable people in the world particularly hard. Visit our event hub for timely updates and background information.
Program overview
| Research slam: (In-)Equality and prosperity |
Wednesday, 21.10.2020 | 16:30–17:30 (CET) Moderator: Nir Jaimovich Speakers: participants as listed |
| Panel session: Inequality - facts and consequences |
Wednesday, 28.10.2020 | 16:00–17:15 (CET) Moderator: James Mackintosh Speakers: Janet Currie, David Dorn, Branko Milanovic |
| Webinar: Taxing the superrich |
Tuesday, 3.11.2020 | 16:00–17:00 (CET) Speaker: Florian Scheuer |
| Keynote lecture: Inequality and the future of capitalism |
Wednesday, 11.11.2020 | 18:00–19:00 (CET) Speaker: Nobel Laureate Sir Angus Deaton |
| Research slam: (In-)Equality and prosperity |
Wednesday, 21.10.2020 | 16:30–17:30 (CET) Moderator: Nir Jaimovich Speakers: participants as listed |
| Panel session: Inequality - facts and consequences |
Wednesday, 28.10.2020 | 16:00–17:15 (CET) Moderator: James Mackintosh Speakers: Janet Currie, David Dorn, Branko Milanovic |
| Webinar: Taxing the superrich |
Tuesday, 3.11.2020 | 16:00–17:00 (CET) Speaker: Florian Scheuer |
| Keynote lecture: Inequality and the future of capitalism |
Wednesday, 11.11.2020 | 18:00–19:00 (CET) Speaker: Nobel Laureate Sir Angus Deaton |
Speakers
Silja Häusermann ist Professorin für Politikwissenschaft an der Universität Zürich in der Schweiz, wo sie Vorlesungen über Schweizer Politik, vergleichende politische Ökonomie, vergleichende Politikwissenschaft und Wohlfahrtsstaatsforschung hält. Ihre Forschungsinteressen liegen im Bereich der vergleichenden Politikwissenschaft und der vergleichenden politischen Ökonomie.
UBS Foundation Professor of Economics of Institutions, Research Fellow CEPR
Florian Scheuer promovierte 2010 am MIT. Er interessiert sich für die politischen Implikationen zunehmender Ungleichheit mit Schwerpunkt Steuerpolitik. Insbesondere hat er daran gearbeitet, wichtige Merkmale der realen Arbeitsmärkte in die Gestaltung optimaler Einkommens- und Vermögenssteuern einzubeziehen. Dazu gehören Volkswirtschaften mit Rentensuche, Superstar-Effekten oder einem wichtigen Unternehmenssektor, reibungslose Finanzmärkte sowie politische Einschränkungen der Steuerpolitik und die daraus resultierende Ungleichheit. Seine Arbeiten wurden unter anderem im American Economic Review, im Journal of Political Economy, im Quarterly Journal of Economics und im Review of Economic Studies veröffentlicht. 2017 erhielt er ein ERC-Startstipendium für seine Forschung zu „Ungleichheit - öffentliche Ordnung und politische Ökonomie“. Bevor er nach Zürich kam, war er an der Fakultät in Stanford, hatte Gastpositionen bei Harvard und UC Berkeley inne und war National Fellow an der Hoover Institution. Er ist Mitherausgeber von Theoretical Economics und Mitglied des Herausgebergremiums der Review of Economic Studies. Er ist ausserdem Co-Direktor der Arbeitsgruppe für Macro Public Finance bei der NBER. Er hat die Steuerpolitik in verschiedenen US- und Schweizer Medien kommentiert.
Professor of Economics, Direktor am UBS Center
Ernst Fehr promovierte 1986 an der Universität Wien. Seine Arbeit hat gezeigt, wie soziale Motive die Zusammenarbeit, Verhandlungen und Koordination zwischen Akteuren beeinflussen und wie sich dies auf das Funktionieren von Anreizen, Märkten und Organisationen auswirkt. Seine Arbeit identifiziert wichtige Bedingungen, unter denen die Zusammenarbeit floriert und zusammenbricht. Die Arbeit an den psychologischen Grundlagen von Anreizen informiert uns über die Vorzüge und Grenzen finanzieller Anreize für die Vergütung von Mitarbeitern. In anderen Arbeiten hat er die Bedeutung der Unternehmenskultur für die Leistung von Unternehmen gezeigt. In neueren Arbeiten zeigt er, wie sich soziale Motive darauf auswirken, wie Menschen über Fragen im Zusammenhang mit der Umverteilung von Einkommen abstimmen und wie Unterschiede in der inneren Geduld der Menschen mit der Ungleichheit des Wohlstands zusammenhängen. Seine Arbeit hat innerhalb und außerhalb der Wissenschaft mit mehr als 100.000 Zitaten von Google Scholar große Resonanz gefunden, und seine Arbeit wurde mehrfach in internationalen und nationalen Zeitungen erwähnt.
Elisa Macchi is a 5th year PhD student in Economics at the University of Zurich. Her advisors are David Yanagizawa-Drott and Lorenzo Casaburi. Macchi's research falls at the interesection of Development, Health and Experimental Economics. She is interested in how social enviroments affect economic and health outcomes, with a focus on developing countries.
UBS Foundation Associate Professor of Economics of Innovation and Entrepreneurship
David Hémous received his PhD from Harvard University in 2012. He is a macroeconomist working on economic growth, climate change and inequality. His work highlights that innovation responds to economic incentives and that public policies should be designed taking this dependence into account. In particular, he has shown in the context of climate change policy that innovations in the car industry respond to gas prices and that global and regional climate policies should support clean innovation to efficiently reduce CO2 emissions. His work on technological change and income distribution shows that higher labor costs lead to more automation, and that the recent increase in labor income inequality and in the capital share can be explained by a secular increase in automation. He has also shown that innovation affects top income shares. He was awarded an ERC Starting Grant on 'Automation and Income Distribution – a Quantitative Assessment' and he received the 2022 'European Award for Researchers in Environmental Economics under the Age of Forty'.
Ulf Zölitz forscht vor allem auf dem Gebiet der angewandten Mikroökonomie. Er interessiert sich für Arbeitsökonomie, Bildungsökonomie und Verhaltensökonomie. Seine aktuellen Forschungsschwerpunkte sind Peer-Effekte, die Rolle der Persönlichkeit in der Bildung und Interventionen zur Förderung der Entwicklung kognitiver Fähigkeiten bei Kindern.
Nir Jaimovich ist ein Makroökonom, der sich mit Konjunkturzyklen und der Dynamik des Arbeitsmarktes befasst. Er ist wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter am Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) und Mitherausgeber des Journal of Monetary Economics und des Journal of Economic Theory. Bevor er an die Universität Zürich kam, war Professor Jaimovich an der Fakultät der Marshall School of Business an der USC, der Duke University, der Stanford University und der University of California, San Diego, tätig. Darüber hinaus war er wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter im Rahmen des Programms "Economic Fluktuationen und Wachstum" des National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER).
Silja Häusermann ist Professorin für Politikwissenschaft an der Universität Zürich in der Schweiz, wo sie Vorlesungen über Schweizer Politik, vergleichende politische Ökonomie, vergleichende Politikwissenschaft und Wohlfahrtsstaatsforschung hält. Ihre Forschungsinteressen liegen im Bereich der vergleichenden Politikwissenschaft und der vergleichenden politischen Ökonomie.
UBS Foundation Professor of Economics of Institutions, Research Fellow CEPR
Florian Scheuer promovierte 2010 am MIT. Er interessiert sich für die politischen Implikationen zunehmender Ungleichheit mit Schwerpunkt Steuerpolitik. Insbesondere hat er daran gearbeitet, wichtige Merkmale der realen Arbeitsmärkte in die Gestaltung optimaler Einkommens- und Vermögenssteuern einzubeziehen. Dazu gehören Volkswirtschaften mit Rentensuche, Superstar-Effekten oder einem wichtigen Unternehmenssektor, reibungslose Finanzmärkte sowie politische Einschränkungen der Steuerpolitik und die daraus resultierende Ungleichheit. Seine Arbeiten wurden unter anderem im American Economic Review, im Journal of Political Economy, im Quarterly Journal of Economics und im Review of Economic Studies veröffentlicht. 2017 erhielt er ein ERC-Startstipendium für seine Forschung zu „Ungleichheit - öffentliche Ordnung und politische Ökonomie“. Bevor er nach Zürich kam, war er an der Fakultät in Stanford, hatte Gastpositionen bei Harvard und UC Berkeley inne und war National Fellow an der Hoover Institution. Er ist Mitherausgeber von Theoretical Economics und Mitglied des Herausgebergremiums der Review of Economic Studies. Er ist ausserdem Co-Direktor der Arbeitsgruppe für Macro Public Finance bei der NBER. Er hat die Steuerpolitik in verschiedenen US- und Schweizer Medien kommentiert.
Professor of Economics, Direktor am UBS Center
Ernst Fehr promovierte 1986 an der Universität Wien. Seine Arbeit hat gezeigt, wie soziale Motive die Zusammenarbeit, Verhandlungen und Koordination zwischen Akteuren beeinflussen und wie sich dies auf das Funktionieren von Anreizen, Märkten und Organisationen auswirkt. Seine Arbeit identifiziert wichtige Bedingungen, unter denen die Zusammenarbeit floriert und zusammenbricht. Die Arbeit an den psychologischen Grundlagen von Anreizen informiert uns über die Vorzüge und Grenzen finanzieller Anreize für die Vergütung von Mitarbeitern. In anderen Arbeiten hat er die Bedeutung der Unternehmenskultur für die Leistung von Unternehmen gezeigt. In neueren Arbeiten zeigt er, wie sich soziale Motive darauf auswirken, wie Menschen über Fragen im Zusammenhang mit der Umverteilung von Einkommen abstimmen und wie Unterschiede in der inneren Geduld der Menschen mit der Ungleichheit des Wohlstands zusammenhängen. Seine Arbeit hat innerhalb und außerhalb der Wissenschaft mit mehr als 100.000 Zitaten von Google Scholar große Resonanz gefunden, und seine Arbeit wurde mehrfach in internationalen und nationalen Zeitungen erwähnt.
Elisa Macchi is a 5th year PhD student in Economics at the University of Zurich. Her advisors are David Yanagizawa-Drott and Lorenzo Casaburi. Macchi's research falls at the interesection of Development, Health and Experimental Economics. She is interested in how social enviroments affect economic and health outcomes, with a focus on developing countries.