Collaboration between European and American social scientists, each familiar with their own societies and with research data on common topics, provide vital opportunities for an improved, comparative understanding of outstanding theoretical and empirical problems. One such problem addressed here, by such means, is the common but increasingly indefensible reliance on income measures of poverty and inequality. Studies of material well-being (reflecting the consumption of goods and services) or subjective well-being suggest somewhat modest correlations between these and income inequality. Another is the possibly discouraging effects of income equality on social and political participation. A third is the possible effects of the strength of the coupling between different types of inequality (wealth, income, material goods, subjective well-being) on crime and social unrest. Progress on these questions necessitates analyses of cross-national data by researchers able to share their knowledge of these nations in the sensitive interpretation of results. By means of the three modest commissions of papers to be jointly authored and presented by American and European social scientists at a summer conference, this grant will help facilitate valuable studies of various measures of social inequality, their causes and consequences.
