{"title":"Unequal ground: oil booms and income inequality in the USA","authors":"Loujaina Abdelwahed, Cole Campbell","doi":"10.1111/ecca.12517","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>This paper examines the impact of oil price and quantity shocks on income <i>inequality</i> in the USA. Using micro income data, we construct measures of pre-tax money income inequality at the state level for the period 1980–2017. We find that a $10 increase in oil price increases inequality, measured by the ratio of pre-tax income of the 90th percentile to 10th percentile (p90/p10), by 3.8 percentage points in states with high levels of oil endowments per capita. The increase in capital income to households at the top of the distribution drives the observed change in inequality. In addition to price shocks, we study the impact of quantity shocks that arise from oil discoveries. Quantity shocks have no effect on the overall income distribution.</p>","PeriodicalId":48040,"journal":{"name":"Economica","volume":"91 363","pages":"880-910"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6000,"publicationDate":"2024-03-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Economica","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ecca.12517","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"ECONOMICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
This paper examines the impact of oil price and quantity shocks on income inequality in the USA. Using micro income data, we construct measures of pre-tax money income inequality at the state level for the period 1980–2017. We find that a $10 increase in oil price increases inequality, measured by the ratio of pre-tax income of the 90th percentile to 10th percentile (p90/p10), by 3.8 percentage points in states with high levels of oil endowments per capita. The increase in capital income to households at the top of the distribution drives the observed change in inequality. In addition to price shocks, we study the impact of quantity shocks that arise from oil discoveries. Quantity shocks have no effect on the overall income distribution.
期刊介绍:
Economica is an international journal devoted to research in all branches of economics. Theoretical and empirical articles are welcome from all parts of the international research community. Economica is a leading economics journal, appearing high in the published citation rankings. In addition to the main papers which make up each issue, there is an extensive review section, covering a wide range of recently published titles at all levels.