How to Measure Micro Economic Growth by Income Groups

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There is a large gap between the total income that you see in survey and time data. The way that we try to bridge this gap is by combining national accounts, tax data and soli data. And i want to stress that this, what we've done, in my viewis is very much a prototype. So theiruncertainties could be improved in many ways. But i think the active is worth while. It's important to try to not only measure growth, but to be able to say, here is how rot looks like for people like you.

Gabriel Zucman of the University of California, Berkeley talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about his research on inequality and the distribution of income in the United States over the last 35 years. Zucman finds that there has been no change in income for the bottom half of the income distribution over this time period with large gains going to the top 1%. The conversation explores the robustness of this result to various assumptions and possible explanations for the findings.