Cover: Unbound: How Inequality Constricts Our Economy and What We Can Do about It, from Harvard University PressCover: Unbound in HARDCOVER

Unbound

How Inequality Constricts Our Economy and What We Can Do about It

  • List of Figures and Tables*
  • Preface
  • Introduction
  • I. How Inequality Obstructs
    • 1. Learning and Human Capital
    • 2. Skills, Talent, and Innovation
  • II. How Inequality Subverts
    • 3. Public Spending
    • 4. Market Structure
  • III. How Inequality Distorts
    • 5. The Economic Cycle
    • 6. Investment
  • Conclusion: The Economic Imperative of Equitable Growth
  • Notes
  • Acknowledgments
  • Index
  • * Figures and Tables
    • Figures
      • I.1.
        • a. Average growth is used to represent most Americans’ experience
        • b. Only the top 10 percent have seen above-average income growth
      • I.2. Wealth is increasingly concentrated at the top
      • I.3. Recent generations are less likely to earn more than their parents
      • 1.1. Early childhood education has important lifetime outcomes
      • 1.2. Moving to a different US neighborhood as a child affects income in adulthood
      • 1.3. School spending levels matter for adult poverty
      • 1.4. College completion gaps persist and grow
      • 2.1. Patent rates vary with parents’ incomes
      • 2.2. Patent rates vary with third-grade math test scores
        • a. By parental income
        • b. By race and ethnicity
        • c. By gender
      • 2.3. Women in economics are held to higher standards
      • 3.1. There is no obvious relationship between top tax rates and growth rates
      • 3.2. Inequality and political polarization have risen in tandem
      • 4.1. Market concentration has risen in recent decades
      • 4.2. Startup rates are declining
      • 4.3. Share of income going to labor has declined over time
      • 4.4. Employment is increasingly concentrated
      • 5.1. Household debt has grown significantly since the 1950s
      • 5.2. Mortgage debt has grown over time
      • 6.1. The wealthy are more likely to save their income
      • 6.2. Firms are holding more cash as a share of net assets
      • C.1. Disaggregating national income is revealing
        • a. Aggregate numbers say nothing about how growth is distributed
        • b. Disaggregation shows growth flowing to high-income Americans
    • Tables
      • 4.1. Share of revenue earned by the largest US firms is on the rise
      • C.1. What we’ve learned about how economic inequality affects economic growth and stability

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