The causes and consequences of income and wealth inequality are central concerns in economic research and policy discussions. This column presents findings from the 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances on the state of US economic inequality. Three key patterns emerge: wealth remains highly concentrated, younger generations are accumulating less wealth than their predecessors, and wealth […]
The performance of stock markets often appears worse in the daily news than it actually is. This column argues that this negative news bias arises from two factors: (1) journalists tend to focus on major events, and (2) the daily performance of stock market indices is negatively skewed. It shows that about half of the […]
The recent global rise in prices has renewed interest in the distributional effects of the Fisherian debt-inflation channel, and its impact on firms’ activities. This column examines this channel using a novel high-frequency identification strategy that analyses firms’ stock market returns around inflation announcement dates. It finds that, following positive inflation surprises, firms with higher […]
