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LONG SWINGS IN AMERICAN INEQUALITY: THE KUZNETS CONJECTURE REVISITED
Author(s) -
Berry Brian J. L.,
Harpham Edward J.,
Elliott Euel
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
papers in regional science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.937
H-Index - 64
eISSN - 1435-5957
pISSN - 1056-8190
DOI - 10.1111/j.1435-5597.1995.tb00634.x
Subject(s) - economics , reinterpretation , economic inequality , stagflation , inequality , keynesian economics , redistribution (election) , democracy , dialectic , development economics , politics , political economy , political science , monetary policy , mathematical analysis , philosophy , physics , mathematics , epistemology , acoustics , law
In the two hundred year history of American macroeconomic development there have been four great surges in inequality. Each followed a stagflation crisis and was accompanied by a turn of the electorate to more conservative commercially‐oriented candidates for the presidency and congress. Each stage was followed, in turn, by an egalitarian backlash in which a political agenda dominated by technological innovation, efficiency and growth was replaced by one concerned with social innovation, equity and redistribution. These interlocking macroeconomic and political rhythms point to a long wave reinterpretation of the Kuznets conjecture on the relations of the inequality and economic growth within the contact of a containing dialectic between capitalism and democracy in America.