There is no other event in each academic year that attracts so many scholars of inequality from around the world than ECINEQ. This year the event was co-hosted by George Washington University, The World Bank and organized by Society for the Study of Economic Inequality (ECINEQ).

It offered wonderful keynotes: Daron Acemoglu (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, link here), Garance Genicot (Georgetown University, link here) and the Presidential Address by Nora Lustig (Tulane University). But also all the sessions were cut-through-the-chase specific and detailed discussions of details.

We presented our work on the factors behind rising US wealth inequality. We offer a novel decomposition of wealth inequality, to quantify the three principal factors of changes in wealth inequality: saving behavior, structural changes in the age distribution of population, and the generational exchange. Our findings indicate that the rise in U.S. wealth inequality since mid-1970s is largely driven by between-cohort disparities, a dimension often underestimated. Whereas saving behavior effectively mitigates inequality, demographic dynamics exert an increasingly amplifying effect. Quantitatively, rising longevity magnifies wealth disparities across cohorts. In sum, rising wealth inequality does not signify jeopardizing equity, with important implications for public policy. We also discuss implications of our research for structural models of wealth inequality.