education and inequality

there’s a good article by tyler cowen (of the marginal revolution blog and who also has an ethnic dining guide for the dc area that’s so good many newspapers have cited it) about how increasing returns to education have been the main cause of economic inequality in this country:

Why Is Income Inequality in America So Pronounced? Consider Education – New York Times

this is a really fascinating issue (for me, at least) because labor economists have a lot to say about it, there’s a lot of potential research to be done, and it has profound immediate implications for public policy.

this article about the increasingly competitive nature of college admissions (whenever there’s an article about college admissions, it immediately becomes the most popular on nyt) is related:

Ivy League Crunch Brings New Cachet to Next Tier – New York Times