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Working Paper
Finance and Inequality: A Tale of Two Tails
We estimate the effects that the different financial deregulations in the U.S. have had on the country’s income distribution. We find that the different reforms have moved inequality in drastically different directions. On the one hand, during the late 1970s and early 1980s, the removal of intra- and inter-state branching restrictions and the elimination of state-varying rates ceilings decreased inequality, as they mostly enhanced the incomes of workers in the lower tail of the income distribution. On the other hand, the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999 substantially increased ...