Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Inequality

Chris Dillow has identified some data that shows the evolution of inequality across the income spectrum.  It comes from the ONS and  shows that there is a substantial increase in inequality between 1977 and 1993.  After that clear peak, it becomes a little more messy.  For the top decile relative to the lowest, the original income ratio fell to 25.69 from 30.53 between 2010-11 and 1993.  However, disposable income (after tax and benefit adjustments) rose to 9.95 from 9.23.  For the 6th decile (the middle) the same figures were 10.77 and 7.96 for original income and 3.25 and 3.86 for disposable income.

Tuesday, May 07, 2013

Cross Discipline

"The Great Inflation of the 2010s: Hoisted from Niall Ferguson's Archives from Two Years Ago" 

A reminder of the limits of disciplines. There are probably numerous inflationary cases that appeared through history.  What of the cases where budget deficits increased but there was no inflation?  It is clear that economists ignored economic history but this appears to be a case of a historian without economic knowledge.