Arnold Kling

Imported Inequality

Arnold Kling, Great Questions of Economics
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How much of the income inequality of the 1990's was imported? A New York Times story on unequal income growth in the 1990's says,

"You see how the arithmetic works?" asked Gary Burtless, an economist at the Brookings Institution. "When you have a lot of people entering from the rest of the world, and many of them enter at the lower rungs of the wage distribution, then you can have a situation where everyone is prospering and the median income is declining."

Discussion Question. How could increased immigration reduce world inequality while increasing inequality within the U.S.?

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