(NYTIMES) - The Federal Reserve's low interest rate policies and other steps meant to boost the economy are driving the value of stocks and other assets to the moon and thus are a major cause of high wealth inequality. New evidence suggests high inequality is the cause, not the result, of the low interest rates and high asset prices evident in recent years. That is a provocative implication of new research by Dr Atif Mian of Princeton, Dr Ludwig Straub of Harvard and Dr Amir Sufi of the University of Chicago. The research looks at two leading explanations: the demographic effects of the baby boom generation's accumulation of retirement savings and the effects of higher inequality, given the fact that rich people save a larger share of their income than the middle class and the poor. They found that the role of higher inequality was far more important than that of demographics. It's not that the high earners increased their savings rates. Rather, they were winning a bigger piece of the economic pie; by the researchers' calculations, the share of income going to the top 10 per cent of earners rose to more than 45 per cent in recent years, up from about 30 per cent in the early 1970s....