[cover]

Changes in Income Inequality within U.S. Metropolitan Areas

Janice F. Madden, University of Pennsylvania

 

Introductory chapter | Table of Contents

"Changes in Income Inequality represents an important contribution to the inequality literature. The impressive data set along with the careful and comprehensive analysis allows the author to uncover new and interesting results. The book is useful for those interested in these issues and it will serve as a benchmark for those researching the subsequent changes for the 1990s and beyond. Practitioners would also benefit due to its completeness and engaging presentation." Growth and Change

"Madden's monograph is a valuable contribution to the micro literature on income inequality and poverty. When combined with recent macro studies of income inequality, a much clearer understanding of the determinants and implications of income inequality and poverty starts to emerge." Southern Economic Journal

"This is a very useful book for researchers in the area of income distribution since it contains an excellent review of the empirical literature and contains a broad although non-theoretical discussion of measures and theories of inequality. The empirical findings are numerous and many of them should be of great relevance to policy aimed at reducing inequality. Yet even seasoned researchers will see for themselves and their students many questions that are raised in several of Madden's findings which beg for further investigation." Urban Studies

What if one were to use metropolitan statistical area (MSA) data instead of nationwide data to study income redistribution? Might this reveal that certain regions or MSAs within regions are "hot beds" of income inequality? Can patterns of income inequality be discerned within MSAs, e.g., between central cities and suburbs? If so, what local characteristics influence income inequality?

Janice F. Madden tackles these questions by studying MSA data that link the characteristics of metropolitan economies to significant changes in income inequality. This allows her to study changes in poverty rates, household income inequality, and wage inequality within 182 of the largest MSAs and to identify what she says are the three factors most likely to influence changes in income inequality in metropolitan areas.

Those factors are
  • demographics, which define how income is shared across the generations and how earnings and other income flows translate into economic well-being;
  • the labor market, which strongly influences U.S. household income through the supply of and demand for workers, and through wages and salaries;
  • the geographic structure, which impacts residents' local tax liabilities, access to publicly provided goods and services, personal security and safety, and the ability to commute to work -- including the increased locational isolation based on income or race.
Related titles
  • Rising Wage Inequality: The 1980s Experience in Urban Labor Markets, Thomas Hyclak
  • Poverty and Inequality: The Political Economy of Redistribution, Jon Neill, Editor
  • Wage Flexibility and Unemployment Dynamics in Local Labor Markets, Thomas Hyclak
    Also visit our Economic Development and Local Labor Markets Research Hub.
    • The results presented strongly support a number of policy recommendations pertaining to antipoverty policies, and address issues such as targets within MSAs for job growth and creation, the types of jobs created, and antidiscrimination policies in housing and labor markets.

    186 pp. 2000
    $40 cloth ISBN 0-88099-204-2 / ISBN-13 978-0-88099-204-6
    $15 paper ISBN 0-88099-203-4 / ISBN-13 978-0-88099-203-9.

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