----- Original Message ----- From: Brad De Long <delong at econ.Berkeley.EDU> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Sent: Thursday, December 09, 1999 6:28 PM Subject: Re: Forbes on Inequality
> >I was reading Forbes on a recent flight and ran across an article about
> >inequality. Not surprisingly, it suggested that all the fuss over
> >increasing income and wealth inequality was way overblown.
> >
> >The point was this - inequality has increased over the last decade or two
> >solely due to immigration. This was based on a recent study by some
> >academic economist (unfortunately I don't remember the name), who claims
> >that if you remove recent immigrants and analyze the rest of the
> >population, inequality has increased only slightly (they also claim that
> >the immigrants are doing better too, but not only did they not give any
> >evidence for this claim its beside the point), and that even the poor
have
> >gained economically.
> >
> >My question is - do they have a point? Or is this study the equivalent
of
> >the Bell Curve, junk numbers and analysis to "prove" and idoeological
axiom?
> >
> >Brett
>
>
> I thought it was junk...
>
>
> Brad DeLong
>
But why?
Christian