New Books In Economics

America's Inequality Trap (University of Chicago Press, 2020) focuses on the relationship between economic inequality and American politics. Nathan J. Kelly, Professor of Political Science at the University of Tennessee, argues that the increasing concentration of economic power effects political power, thus allowing the gap between the rich and everyone else to become more acute and more rigid. The increasing level of inequality, according to Kelly, also tends to be reinforced by public policies. This then creates a self-perpetuating plutocracy because those with more economic resources will have more political power or the capacity to influence those with political power and the kinds of policies that are being made. Thus, we have the theory of the inequality trap. Kelly’s analysis is fairly specific to the United States, since the inequality trap itself combines aspects of the American political system that are rather unique, but he notes that the trip is not exclusive to the U.S., it is part of a “more ge