TENTATIVE COURSE OUTLINE
Poverty Inequality and Social Policy
Autumn Quarter, 2015
Susan E. Mayer
Office: #150
Office hours: Wednesday 1:00 -2:00 and by appointment.
Course description:
This course will address research on the causes and consequences of poverty and economic
inequality and the public policies intended to promote economic well-being. The course covers
the relationship between poverty, inequality and economic mobility and their influence on
economic segregation, educational outcomes, political participation, economic growth, health and
happiness. It takes an international perspective, primarily addressing these issues in middle
income and rich countries. The course format is part lecture and part discussion with two class
projects.
Course requirements:
Students are expected to
 Do all the assigned readings each week.
 Complete two assigned exercises that will replace 2 classes.
 Take an in-class midterm and a take-home final.
 Participate in class discussions
Grading allocation:
 Midterm Exam: 30%
 Take home final: 30%
 Exercise 1: 20%
 Exercise 2: 10%
 Class participation: 10%
Policy on late assignments and exams.
Assignments or exams that are late less than one hour will be docked one half grade.
Assignments that are late between 1 and 12 hours will be docked a whole grade. Assignments
later that 12 hours will not be accepted and the grade will be zero.
Readings: Unless otherwise noted, readings are available on the Internet. Some papers will be
available on Chalk, as indicated in the course outline below. Most papers published in journals
are available on JSTOR. For reference here are two other websites where some papers can be
found:
 NBER Working papers are available at http://www.nber.org/papers.html
 IZA Working papers are available at
http://www.iza.org/en/webcontent/publications/papers
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Course Outline and Required Readings
I. Concepts and measurement
Class 1. Monday, September 28: Inequality measurement and trend
Mankiw, N. Gregory. (2013.) “Defending the 1 Percent.” Journal of Economic
Perspective. 27 (3):21–34.
Brandolini, Andrea and Timothy Smeeding. (2009.) “Income Inequality in richer and
OECD countries,” in The Oxford Handbook of Economic Inequality,” edited by Weimer
Salverda and Timothy Smeeding. New York: Oxford University Press. CHALK
Class 2. Wednesday, September 30: Poverty measurement and trend
Deaton, Angus. (2003) “Measuring poverty.” Research Program on Development
Studies, Princeton University. CHALK
Alkire, Sabina and Christoph Jindra, Gisela Robles Aguilar, Suman Seth and Ana Vaz.
(2015). “Global Multidimensional Poverty Index, 2015.” Oxford Poverty and Human
Development Initiative. CHALK
OECD How’s Life Chapter 1 CHALK
Class 3. Monday October 5: Economic mobility and equality of opportunity
Black, Sandra and Paul Devereaux. (2010.) “Recent developments in intergenerational
mobility,” PART 1. NBER Working Paper # 15889.
Jencks, Christopher. "Whom must we treat equally for educational opportunity to be
equal?" Ethics, April 1988, 98: 518-533. [JSTOR]
Class 4. Wednesday, October 7: Causes of Poverty and Inequality
Ludwig, Jens and Susan Mayer. (2006.) "Culture and the intergenerational transmission
of poverty: The prevention paradox.” The Future of Children, 16 (2): 175-196.
Divided We Stand: Why Inequality Keeps Growing. OECD, 2011.
II. Consequences of Poverty and Inequality
Class 5. Monday, October 12: Overview of the Consequences of Poverty and
Inequality
Mayer, Susan E. “Revisiting an old question: How much does parental income affect
child outcomes?” Focus Vol. 27, No. 2, Winter 2010
Evans, William, Michael Hout and Susan E. Mayer. (2004). “Assessing the effect of
economic inequality” in Social Inequality edited by Kathryn Neckerman. New York:
Russell Sage Foundation Press. On Chalk
Class 6. Wednesday, October 14:
Class Assignment
Class 7: Monday October 19: The geography of economic well-being
Reardon, Sean and Kendra Bischoff. (2011.) “Income inequality and income
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segregation.” American Journal of Sociology, 116 (4): 1092-1153
Class 8. Wednesday, October 21: Social comparison, relative deprivation and health
Leigh, Andrew and Christopher Jencks and Timothy M. Smeeding. (2009.) “Health and
economic inequality,” in The Oxford Handbook of Economic Inequality, edited by W.
Salverda, Bryan Nolan, and Timothy Smeeding.
http://people.anu.edu.au/andrew.leigh/pdf/HealthInequalityOUP.pdf
Gimpelson, Vladimir and Daniel Treisman. (2015.) “Misperceiving inequality.” IZA
Discussion Paper #9100.
Class 9. Monday, October 26: Inequality, poverty and happiness
Easterlin, Richard. (1973.) “Does Money Buy Happiness?” Public Interest CHALK
Alesina, Alberto and Rafael DeTella and Robert MacCulloch “Inequality and happiness:
Are Americans and Europeans different?” Journal of Public Economics, August 2004,
88: 2009-42.
Class 10. Wednesday, October 28: Inequality and income mobility
Corak, Miles. (2013.) “Income inequality, equality of opportunity, and intergenerational
mobility” IZA Discussion Paper #7520
Class 11. Monday, November 2
In Class Midterm
III. Poverty, Inequality and Social Policy
Class 12. Wednesday, November 4: Poverty, inequality and government spending
Lind, Jo Thori. (2005.) “ Why is there so little redistribution?” Nordic Journal of
Political Economy, 31:111-125
http://www.nopecjournal.org/NOPEC_2005_a06.pdf
Class 13. Monday, November 9: Poverty, inequality and economic growth
Barro, Robert. (2008.) “Inequality and growth revisited.” Asian Development Bank,
Working Paper series on Regional Economic Integration #11.
Mayer, Susan and Leonard Lopoo (2014.) “Social spending and the distribution of
economic growth,” Unpublished manuscript. CHALK
Class 14. Wednesday, November 11: Income support policies
Marx, Ive and Brian Nolan and Javier Olivera (2014.) “The welfare state and anti-poverty
policy in rich countries.” IZA Discussion Paper #8154. Section2 onward.
Class 15. Monday November 16: Conditional cash transfer and other incentives
Das, Jishnu and Quy-Toan Do and Berk Ozler. (2005.) “Reassessing conditional cash
transferpPrograms.” World Bank Observer. 20(1):57-80.
Class 16. Wednesday, November 18: Labor market and family policies
Stéphane Carcillo and David Grubb. “From inactivity to work: The role of active labor
market policies.” OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Paper #36.
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Thevenon, Olivier. (2011.) “Family policies in OECD countries: A comparative
analysis.” Population and Development Review, 37(1):57-87.
Class 17. Monday, November 23: Can schooling close the income gap?
Ladd, Helen, “Education and poverty: Confronting the evidence.” (2012.) Journal of
Policy Analysis and Management. 31(2):203-227.
Also available at: http://sanford.duke.edu/research/papers/SAN11-01.pdf
Class 18. Wednesday, November 25
Class assignment
Class 19. Monday, November 30: Behavioral tools and income support
Chetty, Raj. (2015.) “Behavioral economics and public policy: A Pragmatic Perspective”
NBER Working Paper #20928
Class 20 Wednesday, December 2: Conclusion and take home final
Jencks, Christopher. (2002) “Does inequality matter?” Daedalus 131(1): 49-65.
Bertrand, Marianne and Sendhil Mullainathan, and Eldar Shafir. (2006.) “Behavioral
economics and marketing in aid of decision making among the poor.” Journal of public
Policy and Marketing , 25(1); 8-23.
David Brooks “The Inequality Problem”
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/17/opinion/brooks-the-inequality-problem.html?_r=0
Robert Reich “David Brooks Utter Ignorance about Inequality” Huffington Post blog:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/david-brooks-inequality_b_4626943.html
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