14
Dec
2019
More Than You Ever Wanted to Know About Measuring Wealth Inequality
If the labor theory of value were correct, this would be the best episode yet of the Bob Murphy Show. My guest is Columbia prof. Wojciech Kopczuk, who is one of the world experts on the inequality literature. But I take a good 25 minutes before the interview, in order to prep the listener on a bunch of issues we end up discussing.
Also, on this one I strongly encourage you to watch the video, at least for my 25 minute intro. I put in a lot of screenshots with graphs etc. to illustrate my points. The interview will make much more sense to you if you at least watch the 25 minute intro of the video.
Here’s the audio version, though, as well as the links to the sources.
I thought this episode was going to be about wealth and income inequality in the sense that inequality is natural, desirable, and not necessarily nefarious.
(That being so because we all have different ends we want to satisfy, and that resources are not spread out evenly across the planet, and we’re not all born at the same time – three basic inescapable facts of human life, any one of which, by itself, would guarantee that free markets are the most efficient way to produce wealth, and that money prices will logically emerge.)
He looked like he was really enjoying the discussion.