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Promoting discussion and collaboration in social and cultural evolution
Browsing All posts tagged under »inequality«
More on Labor Supply (Why Real Wages Stopped Growing V)
The previous blog in this series showed that a simple three-factorial model can reproduce very faithfully the long-term dynamics of real wages. The model not only explains why the real wages stopped growing in the late 1970s, but also (surprisingly) the ups and downs since 1980. Furthermore, the model predicts the real wage five years […]
Putting It All Together (Why Real Wages Stopped Growing IV)
April 15, 2013 by Peter Turchin
Previous installments in this series posed the question and examined potential components of an answer: first, long-term trend in GDP and labor demand and supply curves, next, cultural influences. It is time to put it all together and analyze quantitatively the relative contributions, if any, of the three factors. What I will do now is […]
The End of Prosperity: Why Did Real Wages Stop Growing in the 1970s?
April 4, 2013 by Peter Turchin
Something happened in the 1970s. Take a look at this graphic: During most of the 20th century—until the 1970s—wages of American workers grew much faster than inflation. In the half-century after 1927 real wages of unskilled labor increased by a factor of 3.5, while wages of manufacturing workers, expressed in inflation-adjusted dollars, increased 4-fold. Then […]
Questions from a 13-year old
February 5, 2013 by Peter Turchin
VKL: My name is Vinh-Kha. I recently turned 13 and am in the eighth grade. I participate in a program called QuEST, which provides to above-average performing students the opportunity to engage in creating projects of personal interest. This year, I am working on a paper on population growth tendencies and how they affect and […]
Why is Haiti So Poor?
December 9, 2012 by Peter Turchin
In a previous blog I asked, why is Haiti a failed state? A related question is, why is Haiti so poor? It’s the poorest state in the Western Hemisphere. These two questions are clearly related, although the correlation between strong polity and strong economy is not perfect. There are wealthy countries whose central governments are […]
Inequality of Wealth. Inequality of Health.
September 22, 2012 by Peter Turchin
Two interesting news were reported this week. Forbes Magazine reported that the net worth of the wealthiest 400 Americans increased by 13 percent compared to last year. This is hardly surprising, since the magnitude of the top fortunes have been growing rapidly over the last 30 years. The second news, reported by New York Times’ […]
Joseph Stiglitz. The Price of Inequality. Cultural Evolution. The Evolution Institute
September 13, 2012 by Peter Turchin
I am about two-thirds of my way through the latest book by Joseph Stiglitz, The Price of Inequality. Stiglitz is a recipient of the Nobel prize in Economics and a former chief economist of the World Bank. But he is not a traditional economist. First, unlike most academic economists Stiglitz is sympathetic to Leftist ideas. […]
April 21, 2013 by Peter Turchin
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