Morten N. Støstad
@MortenStostad
Post-doc at @TheChoiceLab @NHHEcon. Prev: Lecturer at @BerkeleyEcon, PhD @PSEinfo. Inequality is an externality. Once upon a time I was an astrophysicist.
New publication: "Inequality as an Externality", w. F. Cowell in the Journal of Public Economics. We argue that most major economic models assume that economic inequality has essentially no societal consequences. Why? The idea is that economic inequality is an externality.
Economists argue for an American industrial policy to counter a China Shock 2.0. From @davidautor and Gordon Hanson. nytimes.com/2025/07/14/opi…
Research by @MortenStostad & Lobeck finds most say rising inequality fuels crime, corruption, polarization, unrest & unemployment — while narrowing it boosts trust, well‑being, democracy, public services, growth & innovation. #EconTwitter
I'm looking forward to dinner tonight with @davidautor where we will discuss his wonderful article with @gordon_h_hanson on the New China Shock. I hope policymakers implement all four of their recommendations.
Good thread. I'll add one point. A big assumption in the Atkinson-Stiglitz result of zero tax on wealth is that wealth itself has no externalities. So wealth does not affect anyone in society except the wealth holder. This is unlikely to be true
1/ Week 28: Theory paper in focus this week is the seminal article by Anthony Atkinson and @JosephEStiglitz that is now famously referred to as the "zero commodity/capital taxation" benchmark in public economics. It has led to much technical & policy debates. Let's find out.
It was a real pleasure to host the Stone Center Summer School on inequality @UCBerkeley Wonderful to see so many talented students working on inequality! Special thanks to our amazing lecturers @SeimSeim @cmontialoux @cmtneztt @MortenStostad @amorygethin K Danesh & E Saez
Could giving $1,000 to the poor and $2,000 to the rich be a progressive policy? Yes. (For legal purposes I do not endorse this policy)
Perfect example of why inequality externality beliefs drive policy preferences. The original poster believes that inequality is not an externality. The reply guy thinks inequality is a strong negative externality. And so we debate
Billionaires hoard wealth, which they've accumulated through tax loopholes and massive worker exploitation. They work you to death so that they can line their pockets, while being overwhelmingly responsible for the environmental crisis that threatens the very survival of ...
Ever feel like everything online is getting angrier? You’re not imagining it. Tweets with anger have surged since 2013, while neutral content has declined. 📉 And it matters for policy—our new paper shows how emotions shape what people support. socialeconomicslab.org/research/worki…
(But you are right, in production there are so many inputs that, if you were to remove them, the output would fall to zero, which is precisely why it is impossible to *mathematically* determine how much of the output each input is *responsible* for, Sen's point below)