We hear so often about how economic inequality is bad and getting worse all the time,

that it's easy to overlook some critical questions, like by what metrics are things deteriorating and for whom?

And is it possible that comparing ourselves to the Uber wealthy might mislead us about the

relative differences among pretty much everybody else?

From KERA in Dallas, this is think. I'm Chris Boyd.

My guest is Professor of Economics and head of the Taxes

and Society program at the Research Institute of Industrial Economics in Stockholm. He says

these questions matter because if we don't have an accurate picture of what is not working in

the economy, we can't come up with ways to fix it for everyone. Daniel Waldensstrom is author of the book,

Richer and More Equal, a New History of Wealth in the West. His article for foreign affairs is

titled The Inequality Myth. Daniel, welcome to think. Thank you, Chris. So let's start with this

very obvious question that we don't often ask. What metrics do we most commonly

use to define economic inequality? Well, so yes, this is my favorite question because, you know,

inequality researchers, we love measurement. We love to play around with different kinds of measures

and different kinds of outcomes.

So the most common measure that we talk about is the differences in disposable income of households.

So disposable income is what you earn on your job and maybe having some capital income, but then also after you pay all the taxes.

This is what you have to consume if you want to at the end after all of this.

So comparing that across households in the entire population gives us a picture of the differences and the dispersion and the inequality of these incomes.

As a statistical measure, maybe you have heard of the genie coefficient. So that's basically a single

number between zero on one measuring the kind of the degree of inequality in the population.

Then you can use this coefficient, you can apply it on other outcomes.

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