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Why Is Europe More Equal Than the United States?

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Re: Why Is Europe More Equal Than the United States?

#11

Post by aetherson »

Blikkentrekker wrote: post #6

Is there any industrialized, developed nation that is worse than the U.S.A. in this regard? I heard bad things about the U.K. as well. I turns out that having next to no social security, no accessible education for the poor and the bizarre legality of “legacy scholarships” has a certain effect. How is it possible, I ask, that U.S.A. universities openly and notoriously give favorable treatment to the children of past…

This paper is saying that the US distributes a greater share of high income people's income to lower income than Europe. Did you read the article?

Re: Why Is Europe More Equal Than the United States?

#12

Post by endisneigh »

Blikkentrekker wrote: post #8
endisneigh wrote: post #4

I’m unconvinced that inequality matters. A better set of questions would be one like: how much does your parents (lack of) success predict your own? How likely are you to attain some arbitrary yet desirable standard of living, etc. Inequality is related to these things but doesn’t necessarily block them.

Outcome should still be proportional to effort and skill however. There are many top-heavy systems where the top benefits far more than the middle even though the middle is close to as good. Consider sporting events where the second place receives 1/3 of the price of the winner, even if it was a very close finals. Yes, the winner played better, but not to the extent of warranting double the earnings.

Not sure how that’s possible as long as compound results exist.

Re: Why Is Europe More Equal Than the United States?

#14

Post by vlovich123 »

senko wrote: post #5

From the abstract: > Inequality grew in nearly all European countries, but much less than in the US. Contrary to a widespread view, we demonstrate that Europe's lower inequality levels cannot be explained by more equalizing tax and transfer systems. > After accounting for indirect taxes and in-kind transfers, the US redistributes a greater share of national income to low-income groups than any European country. "Pred…

> We refer in this paper to “redistribution” as the operation of the tax-and-transfer system, mea- sured by the difference between pretax and posttax income inequality. By contrast, “predistribution” refers to all forms of government interventions (such as labor market regulations, minimum wages, educational investments, etc.) that drive pretax inequality levels (see section IV as well as Hacker and Pierson (2010) for a discussion of these concepts).

Re: Why Is Europe More Equal Than the United States?

#15

Post by nine_k »

Blikkentrekker wrote: post #6

Is there any industrialized, developed nation that is worse than the U.S.A. in this regard? I heard bad things about the U.K. as well. I turns out that having next to no social security, no accessible education for the poor and the bizarre legality of “legacy scholarships” has a certain effect. How is it possible, I ask, that U.S.A. universities openly and notoriously give favorable treatment to the children of past…

> U.S.A. universities openly and notoriously give favorable treatment to the children of past alumni

Are these public colleges, paid for by tax money?

I suppose that private institutions have more leeway.

To my mind, the problem of the US higher education is that it was made "too" accessible by offering tuition loans, which result in young people taking on a large debt which they cannot even shake off by a personal bankruptcy. These "easy" money made tuition prices grow, while also producing some degrees that don't help to pay them off.

This is not the most helpful kind of higher education.

Re: Why Is Europe More Equal Than the United States?

#16

Post by defrost »

senko wrote: post #5

From the abstract: > Inequality grew in nearly all European countries, but much less than in the US. Contrary to a widespread view, we demonstrate that Europe's lower inequality levels cannot be explained by more equalizing tax and transfer systems. > After accounting for indirect taxes and in-kind transfers, the US redistributes a greater share of national income to low-income groups than any European country. "Pred…

> In other words, Europe has been much more successful than the US at ensuring that its low-income groups benefit from relatively good-paying jobs.

ie By "Predistribution" they assert that most European countries pay better at the low end and thus have less need to "redistribute" from the better paid end.

Re: Why Is Europe More Equal Than the United States?

#17

Post by boulos »

boulos wrote: post #7

Direct Link to a PDF version: https://wid.world/document/why-is-europe-more-equal-than-the...

Amusingly, I'd add that the paper mostly dodges the causal question (other than to say it's more equal with income), so it's title is kinda clickbait :).

Re: Why Is Europe More Equal Than the United States?

#18

Post by defrost »

aetherson wrote: post #11
Blikkentrekker wrote: post #6

Is there any industrialized, developed nation that is worse than the U.S.A. in this regard? I heard bad things about the U.K. as well. I turns out that having next to no social security, no accessible education for the poor and the bizarre legality of “legacy scholarships” has a certain effect. How is it possible, I ask, that U.S.A. universities openly and notoriously give favorable treatment to the children of past…

This paper is saying that the US distributes a greater share of high income people's income to lower income than Europe. Did you read the article?

This paper is also saying that the US concentrates high income more (ie. fewer people are a lot richer) and thus there is more "back pressure" of money flowing from a few very wealthy to many not so wealthy .. and despite that European countries have a "better off" class of "poor" - as they tend to be better paid to begin with than their equivilents in the USofA.

Re: Why Is Europe More Equal Than the United States?

#19

Post by nine_k »

gedy wrote: post #13

I think more important is the reduction in poverty world-wide. "Inequality" has always felt a bit like moving the goalpost.

It's very easy to make (almost) everyone equally poor; Communist regimes tried that, mostly with disastrous results.

I don't care about income inequality too much. I care about the two extremes:

* How bad is the situation of the poorest, can they still live with any decency if they honestly choose to. A society should care about that, if not due to its member being kind and humane, then just due to reasons of self-preservation.

* How powerful the richest become. It's hard to talk about anything like democracy or preserving liberties if extremely well-moneyed interests can seriously affect government and especially law.

If these two extremes are kept within reason, I don't mind if anyone makes 1000x than I do.

Re: Why Is Europe More Equal Than the United States?

#20

Post by skwirl »

Blikkentrekker wrote: post #6

Is there any industrialized, developed nation that is worse than the U.S.A. in this regard? I heard bad things about the U.K. as well. I turns out that having next to no social security, no accessible education for the poor and the bizarre legality of “legacy scholarships” has a certain effect. How is it possible, I ask, that U.S.A. universities openly and notoriously give favorable treatment to the children of past…

USA universities and the US labor markets are so bad. Famously, nobody wants to come here for either.
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