income

November 21, 2014

Three Keys to a Flourishing Middle Class

In the latest edition of his monthly newsletter, Economic Prospect, John Teevan offers three keys to cultivating a flourishing middle class, as excerpted below: Income and Jobs: America looks at jobs and incomes alone and can only explain fading middle class by blaming rich people. Continue Reading...

January 29, 2014

What Every Christian Should Know About Income Inequality

In his recent State of the Union address, President Obama has signaled that income inequality will be his domestic focus during the remainder of his term in office. The fact that the president considers income inequality, rather than employment or economic growth, to be the most important economic issue is peculiar, though not really surprising. Continue Reading...

December 17, 2013

Donors vs. Owners in ‘Business as Mission’ (and Beyond)

“Do economic incentives help or hinder ‘business as mission’ (BAM) practitioners?” In a forthcoming study, Dr. Steven Rundle of Biola University explores the question through empirical research. Unsatisfied with the evidence thus far, consisting mostly of case studies and anecdotes, Rundle conducted an anonymous survey of 119 “business as mission” practitioners, focusing on a variety of factors, including (1) “the source of their salary (does it come from the revenues of the business or from donors?),” Continue Reading...

December 30, 2011

America’s Real Inequality Problem

David Deavel’s review of Mitch Pearlstein’s From Family Collapse to America’s Decline: The Educational, Economic, and Social Costs of Family Fragmentation has been picked up by First Things and Mere Comments. Continue Reading...

January 25, 2011

The Golden Mean and the Problem of Executive Compensation

There was a good deal of discussion in the media over “unfair” executive compensation, especially in light of the bonuses, golden parachutes, and other forms of remuneration received by CEOs during the bailout. Continue Reading...

April 14, 2008

Absolute and relative poverty: The ‘dogma’ of economic equality

On Friday April 11, the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, featured a front-page article on the progress made in international development since Pope Paul VI wrote the encyclical Populorum Progressio in 1967. Continue Reading...

September 05, 2007

Globalization By Itself is Not Enough

A recent NBER paper, “Distributional Effects of Globalization in Developing Countries,” by Pinelopi Koujianou Goldberg and Nina Pavcnik examines some effects of trade liberalization on low-skill workers. Les Picker summarizes the findings, “Not surprisingly, the entry of many developing countries into the world market in the last three decades coincides with changes in various measures of inequality in these countries. Continue Reading...

December 11, 2006

Objective and Subjective Well-Being

Gary Becker and Richard Posner examine the increasing gap between the rich and poor in terms of wealth and income. This gap was most recently highlighted in a report that “the richest 2% of adults in the world own more than half of global household wealth,” and the richest 1% hold 40% of wealth. Continue Reading...

October 05, 2006

How Long Will Our Prosperity Cycle Last?

Mark Whitehouse reported in the September 25th issue of the Wall Street Journal that the living standards of average Americans will have to be adjusted downward in coming years because a larger share of our national debt is going to debt-service. Continue Reading...