Wealth
How to Fight the Wealth Gap
A new study from the Urban Institute finds that the gap between the wealthiest and poorest Americans is rising. It seems as though the old American adage that if you work hard and play by the rules, you’ll achieve some kind of economic stability — if not success — no longer applies to those who […]
Measuring Wealth, One Big Mac at a Time
How do you compare the wealth of nations? An economics professor at Princeton University thinks such a big question has a bite-sized answer: buy a Big Mac. Orley Ashenfelter is the author of the Big Mac Index, which measures a country’s wealth based on a McDonalds worker’s average wage and the cost of a Big […]
How Green Can the GNP Be?
John Greenberg reports from Washington on the trials and tribulations of building a Gross National Product that accounts for environmental change. Advocates of greening up the economic measure claim it is crucial to include costs and gains to natural resources when weighing our national wealth.