Income Growth and Its Distribution from Eisenhower to Obama

Creating comparable Current Population Survey (CPS) based income series from 1967 through 2016 coupled with decennial Census data for 1959, this chapter traces the effect of government taxes and transfers in this first survey-based look at income and its distribution from the Eisenhower through the Obama administrations. The dramatic decline in the middle class’s market income (measured as the median American tax unit or the mean value of the middle quintile of American tax units) began in 1969. However, this decline was more than offset by income from government tax and transfer programs—especially in-kind transfers. Conventional measures of median income and income inequality that exclude the market value of in-kind transfers and focus on tax units rather than the household size-adjusted income of all Americans will substantially understate the success of government policies in offsetting the stagnation of median market income growth and the rise in market income inequality since 1969.

The economic consequences of the Celali revolts: the destruction and re-establishment of the state’s taxation organisation

At the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth centuries the Celali revolts resulted in wide-scale destruction throughout the entire Anatolian region. While research has been done on the general effects of this destruction, in-depth work investigating the economic consequences of the Celali revolts based on extant economic data has yet to be undertaken. Using archival material it is, however, possible to show the economic effects of these revolts. Taking the fall in tax collected by the state from the population as a result of the Celali revolts, this article aims to show how these revolts affected the economic structure of the state. By comparing the levels of avarız taxes collected before and after the revolts, and by trying to establish the levels of tax set according to the tax unit, the avarız hanes, the article thus sets out the economic impact the revolts had in Anatolia.