About

Lane Kenworthy is a professor who focuses on the institutions and policies that contribute to human flourishing. His research explores various aspects of society, including basic needs, community, democracy, economic equality, opportunity, prosperity, security, education, employment, family, finance, freedom, and good government.

Research topics

• Sociology
• Political Science
• Economics
• Law
• Political economy
• Economic system
• Mathematics
• Neoclassical economics
• Mathematical analysis

Selected publications

• Inequality Reduction in Rich Nations May Impede Reduction of Worldwide Inequality

  2025-10-01

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Egalitarians have tended to focus on economic inequality within countries. That’s understandable: most of the available inequality data is for countries, and policy is made mostly by national governments. However, in recent decades global income inequality has been decreasing even as inequality within most of the rich democratic nations has been rising. A key contributor to the decline in worldwide inequality is globalization—in particular, trade and migration. But trade and migration tend to boost income inequality within rich nations. Egalitarian policymakers in the rich democracies therefore must, at least to some extent, prioritize one type of inequality reduction over the other. Fairness considerations lean strongly in favor of prioritizing worldwide equality rather than equality within the affluent nations.

  PublisherDOI

• Appendix

  2025-10-01

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Does Income Inequality Obstruct Opportunity?

  2025-10-01

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Income can influence a variety of things that determine children’s chances in life, including family structure, school quality, parents’ spending, health, and neighborhoods. Greater inequality of income may therefore result in greater inequality of economic opportunity. Yet evidence that income inequality is a key contributor to unequal opportunity in the rich longstanding-democratic nations is quite thin.

  PublisherDOI

• Inequality Reduction Should Be a Secondary Goal

  2025-10-01

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Inequality reduction shouldn’t be a top-level priority. We don’t need the Gini coefficient or the top 1 percent’s income share to be among our headline economic and social indicators. We don’t need to enact a policy whereby tax rates shift automatically in order to hold income inequality at a constant level. We shouldn’t impose a cap on the amount of income or wealth a person can have. It wouldn’t be wise to decrease spending on government services in order to fund a universal basic income, even though doing so would sharply reduce income inequality. And while widespread homeownership is an effective way to reduce wealth inequality, we should hesitate to encourage that. Our principal aim should be to make people’s lives better, especially by bringing up the floor of living standards and well-being. A key element of this is public goods and services.

  PublisherDOI

• Is Income Inequality Harmful?

  2025-10-01

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Income inequality very likely has some harmful effects. But in the world’s rich democratic nations during the era of rising income inequality since the late 1970s, the magnitude of any such effects seems to have been quite small. There is little evidence to support a conclusion that reducing income inequality in these countries will significantly improve living standards, democracy, opportunity, longevity, or happiness.

  PublisherDOI

• Does Income Inequality Degrade Democracy?

  2025-10-01

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Income inequality may interfere with a core component of democracy: equality of opportunity to influence government policy. Those with more income can use their money to buy political influence by lobbying, donating to campaigns, shaping opinion through the media or think tanks, getting themselves elected to policymaking positions, and in other ways. The available evidence suggests that income inequality is indeed bad for democracy in that policy decisions tend to reflect the preferences of people with high incomes more than those of people with middle or low incomes. Yet in the United States, which has experienced a very large rise in income inequality since the late 1970s, the magnitude of the gap in political influence hasn’t increased. Nor, as best we can tell, does the gap in the US differ notably from the gap in other nations that have far lower levels of income inequality. This suggests that if we could reduce income inequality in the United States back to its late-1970s level, the lowest it has ever been, there is little reason to expect inequality of political influence would decrease.

  PublisherDOI

• Does Income Inequality Hinder Happiness?

  2025-10-01

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract All of the affluent democratic nations have gotten richer since the late 1970s, with incomes rising even among low-end households. Yet life satisfaction has been largely stagnant in most of these countries. Given that income is one of the strongest determinants of subjective well-being, this is puzzling. Is income inequality the cause? We don't know the answer. But income inequality isn’t correlated with trends in life satisfaction across these countries, and there are lots of other plausible culprits. There is little reason to be confident that reducing income inequality would yield an increase in life satisfaction.

  PublisherDOI

• Would Democratic Socialism Be Better Than Social Democratic Capitalism?

  2025-10-22

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  What kind of economic system do we want? Should democratic socialism be a prominent part of the conversation? The case for a modern, democratic, humane socialism typically has two parts. The first is that capitalism is bad, or at least not especially good. The second is that democratic socialism would be a desirable way of structuring the economy, with its core distinguishing features being extensive public ownership and economic democracy. This chapter’s aim is to push the discussion in the direction of comparison, concreteness, and evidence. It concludes that social democratic capitalism has tended to yield very good outcomes, that the evidence we have offers no reason to presume that more public ownership would improve those outcomes, and that we probably ought to facilitate—but not require—full workplace democracy.

  PublisherDOI

• Inequality Isn’t the Problem

  2025-10-01

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract To a host of thoughtful observers, economic inequality is one of our most important problems and needs to be fixed. Concern about inequality’s injustice has been overtaken by worry that inequality has harmful consequences for a host of things we care about. What does the experience of the rich longstanding-democratic nations in the era of rising inequality from 1979 to 2019 tell us? The evidence offers little support for inequality-is-harmful hypotheses. Reducing income inequality isn’t likely to boost economic growth or living standards. It probably won’t do much to equalize political influence. It’s unlikely to help much with equalization of economic opportunity. It probably won’t make much difference for our health. And it’s doubtful that it will facilitate a rise in happiness. Instead of trying to improve living standards, democracy, opportunity, health, and happiness indirectly via reduction in income inequality or wealth inequality, we’re more likely to make progress by pursuing these goals directly.

  PublisherDOI

• Copyright Page

  2025-10-01

  other1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Joya Misra

  University of Massachusetts Amherst

  17 shared

• Tom Republican

  Emory University

  16 shared

• John Myles

  16 shared

• Leslie E. Martin

  16 shared

• Janos Pontusson

  Emory University

  16 shared

• Roger Friedland

  16 shared

• Robert R. Alford

  16 shared

• Cathy Idiart

  Emory University

  16 shared

Education

• Ph.D., Sociology

  University of Wisconsin-Madison

  1993

• M.A., Sociology

  University of Wisconsin-Madison

  1989

• B.A., Sociology

  University of California, Santa Barbara

  1986