A Yale professor who was among three Americans who won the Nobel prize for economics said Monday that rising economic inequality in the United States and other countries is the most important problem.
Robert Shiller, known for developing a widely used measure of home prices, was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science on Monday. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences honored Shiller and Eugene Fama and Lars Peter Hansen, who are associated with the University of Chicago, “for their empirical analysis of asset prices.”
Shiller, an economist famous for having warned about bubbles in technology stocks and housing, said inequality has been worsening for decades. He said he supports having a contingency plan in place now to raise taxes on the rich if inequality gets worse.
“The most important problem that we are facing now today, I think, is rising inequality in the United States and elsewhere in the world,” Shiller said.
On the government shutdown in Washington, Shiller said he doesn\’t think it will have a major lasting impact on the markets.
“I’m thinking that this crisis will likely be resolved,” Shiller said. “We won’t see a default. Even if we do, it will be for one day or something like that. Even if it’s longer, I think it’s not the end of the world.”
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via Robert Shiller: Income Inequality Is ‘Most Important Problem’.
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