Suresh Naidu, Dani Rodrik, & Gabriel Zucman
We live in an age of astonishing inequality. Income and wealth disparities in the United States have risen to heights not seen since the Gilded Age and are among the highest in the developed world. Median wages for U.S. workers have stagnated for nearly fifty years. Fewer and fewer younger Americans can expect to do better than their parents. Racial disparities in wealth and well-being remain stubbornly persistent. In 2017 life expectancy in the United States declined for the third year in a row, and the allocation of healthcare looks both inefficient and unfair. Advances in automation and digitization threaten greater labor market disruptions in the years ahead. Climate change–fueled disasters increasingly disrupt everyday life.
We believe that these are solvable problems—at the very least, that we can make serious headway on them. But addressing them will require a broad public discussion of new policy ideas. Social scientists have a responsibility to be part of this discussion. And economists have an indispensable role to play. Indeed, they have already started to play it. Economics is in a state of creative ferment that is often invisible to outsiders. While the sociology of the profession—career incentives, norms, socialization patterns—often militates against engagement with the policy world, a sense of public responsibility is bringing people into the fray.