We will, first, discuss economic inequality, its causes, and how it is affected by policy. Second, we will discuss empirical methods that are used to study economic inequality.

The course is structured to prepare you to conduct your own research on this or related topics, perhaps in a Bachelor or Master thesis.

The course will provide an introduction to the Economics of Inequality and Poverty and focuses both on theoretical and empirical issues. By the end of the course, students are familiar with the basic theoretical concepts and central empirical methods for the study of  inequality or poverty.

The course focuses on theoretical and practical questions of how to analyze (income) distribution, including poverty. The themes are:

• Formal methods and standard tools of aggregation to describe distributions.
• Theoretical and distributional principles on which to base comparisons of inequality, including criteria of social justice: social welfare analysis, the concept of distance between income distributions, and an introduction to the axiomatic approach to inequality measurement.
• Representing and aggregating information of distribution, such as modeling the income distribution and poverty.
• Practical problems of analysing (income) distributions, e.g., measurement problems, equivalence scales, zero values, et cet.

• Homework: 40%
• Class work: 10%
• Final exam: 50%

• Lecture: I will present material in the lectures on campus. The lecture notes (slides) will be available in KUSSS. The lecture notes are intended to accompany the reading of the assigned literature (i.e., the notes alone are probably not sufficient). The purpose of these notes is to give you a compact overview of concepts, definitions, and empirical  methods. Any feedback on the notes is welcome!
• Homework: Students will have to prepare a (short) empirical analysis as homework. This is an individual project (no team work!).
• Class projects: I will regularly assign short class projects during the lectures.
• Final exam: Regular written exam at the end of the term

English

Main text:

Martin Ravallion, The Economics of Poverty, Oxford University Press, 2016

Additional literature:

• Atkinson, A. B., Piketty, T., and Saez, E. (2011). Top incomes in the long run of history. Journal of Economic Literature, 49(1):3–71.
• Card, D. (2009). Immigration and inequality. The American Economic Review, 99(2):1–21.
• Cowell, Frank, 2011, Measuring inequality, Chapters 1-4, Oxford University Press.
• Piketty, Thomas, 2000, “Theories of persistent inequality and intergenerational mobility", Chapter 8 of Handbook of Income Distribution, Vol 1, Elsevier.
• Sen, Amartya, 2000, "Social justice and the distribution of income", Chapter 1 of Handbook of Income Distribution, Vol 1, Elsevier.
• Other texts as appropriate

• KS Introduction to Economics
• High school mathematics (derivatives!)
• High school statistics (analysis of distributions)
• Basic knowledge of a statistical software is recommended (e.g., Stata, R), but not required
• NOTE: while most analyses could be done with a spreadsheet (e.g., google sheets, Excel) this is not recommended!