Wealth Inequality and the Great Recession

The study of wealth and wealth inequality has received far less attention than income, but the increasing importance of wealth, debt and wealth inequality means closer attention must be paid to their concomitant dynamics. Policy interventions to reduce economic inequality continue to target income more than wealth, but targeting the latter – especially through taxes on financial assets – is arguably more effective.     

Soziale Marktwirtschaft – das Fundament für Wachstum und Gerechtigkeit

Among all G20 countries, Germany has the lowest level of inequality in terms of disposable income. Germany’s tax and transfer system – which has a strong and effective redistributive impact compared with other countries – plays a key role in this connection. Over the past ten years, positive growth and employment trends have significantly improved opportunities for economic participation and have put a stop to previous trends towards greater income inequality. In order to safeguard efficient growth and redistributive policies in the future, it is essential for Germany to maintain sufficient incentives for investment, innovation and employment. Political reform strategies to ensure equality of opportunity should aim to achieve a more broad-based accumulation of private wealth and to strengthen labour force participation. The promotion of lifelong education and training, and the economic and social application of the knowledge created in this process, will play a decisive role in achieving these objectives.     

Relative Intragenerational Economic Mobility: A Cross-Period Analysis from 1968 to 2009

Recent debate about income inequality has occurred with good reason, as changes in income inequality are critically important for long-term economic prosperity, business profitability, and particularly for the quality and accessibility of labor in the market today. However, what is equally important and less discussed is economic mobility, or the capacity of an individual or a family to improve their financial standing, specifically as it relates to income and wealth. In this paper, we examine statistics on economic mobility in the United States. Our findings suggest that while economic mobility still exists, the likelihood of a household making a large jump out of poverty and into wealth declined from 1999 to 2009. The message of our findings to policymakers is that, rather than a redistribution of wealth from the top of the income distribution to the bottom, what is really needed is broader access to affordable education, better essential nutrition, more stable early childhood development experiences, and basic financial literacy training for all income groups.     

Deutschlands hohe Ungleichheit verursacht wirtschaftlichen Schaden

“Welfare for everyone”, according to former chancellor and economics minister Ludwig Erhard, has been the credo of Germany’s economic and social policy for the past 60 years. However, Germany is increasingly failing to achieve this objective.Germany is a country of enormous inequality – income, wealth and opportunities are distributed more unequally in Germany than in almost any other industrialised country. This inequality imposes huge economic costs for Germany, as evidenced by lower economic growth and declines in other indicators of well-being. And it has triggered a harmful fight among groups of society for public resources. This fight will further intensify with the dramatic changes Germany is currently undergoing, from demographic change to globalisation to the migration challenge. The main culprit for the high and rising inequality is not a lack of public redistribution of income and wealth, but rather the unusually high inequality of opportunity, through which an ever higher share of citizens is deprived of the chance to develop and use their talents and skills. Such barriers have become massive, beginning already in early childhood.     

International Inequality and the COVID-19 Pandemic

The lockdowns and stimulus programmes that governments have adopted to fight the COVID-19 pandemic and the associated economic crisis have affected the distribution of income and production within and between countries. Considering both, current evidence indicates that the EU-wide and global inequality of disposable income did not change dramatically in 2020. However, the unequal impact on the wealth and health of people is likely to worsen income inequality in the future.

     

Income and Wealth Inequality in OECD Countries

This paper summarises some of the key findings and policy recommendations of the latest OECD report on income inequality - “In It Together: Why Less Inequality Benefits All”. In particular, the paper presents new findings regarding the trade-off between inequality and growth, as well as with regard to the impact of the economic crisis and of female employment on the distribution of income and the distribution of wealth. Key policy recommendations derived from these findings are the need to promote employment and good quality jobs, to further improve female participation, to invest in education and skills, and to foster well-designed redistribution policies.     

The income inequality,financial depth and economic growth nexus in China

Income inequality has increased in China despite rapid economic growth. Income inequality could impinge on future development, leading to social tension or political instability. Our study investigates the short-run and long-run relationship between three important macroeconomic indicators—income inequality, economic growth and financial depth. We utilise a two-step procedure of ARDL bounds and Granger causality for the analysis. The bounds test indicates the presence of a cointegrating relationship between income inequality, financial depth and economic growth in the long run. In the second step, we utilise the Granger causality approach. Results show a bidirectional causality between financial depth-growth and a unidirectional causality between inequality-growth in the short run. In the long run, results reveal that growth and financial depth determine Gini. Our findings provide support for the inequality-widening effect due to economic growth and higher credit provided to the private sector. We find no evidence of inequality-narrowing or income-equalising effect in the long run for the period of study. It is possible that the government's inclusive growth policies which started less than a decade ago have not taken effect for us to capture the inverted U-shape income equalising effect significantly.     

Einkommens- und Vermögensverteilung — zu ungleich?

The distribution of income and wealth in Germany grew increasingly unequal until the beginning of the financial crisis. But inequality has not risen in either Germany or Switzerland since 2005. Nevertheless, Germans overestimate inequality. The German gap between reality and perception of inequality is important to investigate, as the subjective assessment of inequality influences redistribution preferences. Rising inequality may damage social stability and democracy, but it is unclear whether economists are able to assess a “proper and just” distribution. Interdependencies are discussed: Does a more equal distribution create negative effects on economic growth? How does Germany rank internationally with regard to distribution? Social mobility rates differ substantially across countries; what are the implications for economic policy?     

Distributional Effects of Public Investment when Wealth and Classes are Back

In developed economies, wealth inequality is high, while public capital is underprovided. Here, we study the impact of heterogeneity in saving behavior and income sources on the distributional effects of public investment. A capital tax is levied to finance productive public capital in an economy with two types of households: high income households who save dynastically and middle income households who save for retirement. We find that inequality is reduced the higher the capital tax rate is and that low tax rates are Pareto‐improving. There is no clear‐cut trade‐off between efficiency and equality: middle income households’ consumption is maximal at a capital tax rate that is higher than the rate which maximizes high income households’ consumption.     

收入不平等对经济增长的负面影响机制——近二十年文献综述

近年来,国内外学者运用各种方法探讨了收入不平等与经济增长的关系。大部分研究结论显示,收入差距对经济增长存在间接的负面影响,两者之间存在一个多因素的传导过程,包括人力资本积累机制、政治经济决策机制、社会冲突机制、需求传导机制以及其他传导机制。总的来看,这些研究加深了对于两者关系性质和相互影响的认识,但研究结论的分歧和研究方法的局限性仍然存在,有必要对两者关系进行更深入的研究。     

Political Rivalry Effects on Human Capital Accumulation and Inequality: A New Political Economy Approach

We propose an endogenous growth model with new political economy elements in order to (1) examine how political incentives affect economic allocations and (2) study the effects of political rivalry on human capital accumulation and income inequality. Focusing on two important policies affecting economic performance—fiscal policy and public investments in human capital accumulation—we find that different political incentives have distinct effects on policies and economic allocations. We also find that political rivalry increases income inequality and reduces economic growth and human capital accumulation through its negative impact on public investments in education, wages and individual learning choice.     

城乡收入差距与经济增长关系的实证研究——基于中国1978—2007年数据的协整检验与脉冲响应分析

对中国1978—2007年数据的实证研究结果表明：城乡收入差距与经济增长之间存在着长期稳定的双向因果关系：城乡收入差距只在短期内对经济增长产生影响;而经济增长并不会自动导致城乡收入差距的缩小,相反,经济增长在中长期内还会进一步加大城乡收入差距。     

The Engines of Inequality

In Europe and in the United States, one of the legacies of the economic and financial crisis will no doubt be a high and particularly worrying level of economic inequality. Inequality has roots that go well beyond the 2008 collapse, but the stagnation that has followed it has made disparities in income and wealth more serious and more difficult to eradicate. The challenge now is to turn the injustice of current inequality into a theme of public mobilisation and political action.     

未被观测经济与居民收入不平等——基于中国省级面板数据的实证研究

未被观测经济（NOE）对经济发展具有诸多影响,但对居民收入不平等的影响尚未引起足够重视。文章基于动态均衡解的劳动报酬模型得到,随着NOE规模扩大,收入不平等程度（即劳动者从事NOE部门的报酬与从事可观测部门的报酬之差）呈现单调递增的变化过程,但边际变化率先增后减。当考虑劳动者决策的随机动态调整因素时,NOE规模与收入不平等之间存在高低两个动态变化均衡点。在该模型基础上,基于2000-2010年中国省级面板数据,证实了NOE规模与居民收入不平等之间存在显著正向影响关系,人力资本水平、市场化程度和腐败水平也与居民收入不平等呈正向影响关系,而城市化水平则呈较显著的负向影响关系。基于实证结果,提出了相关的政策建议,并对未来研究方向进行展望。     

The impact of monetary and tax policy on income inequality in Japan

This paper assesses the effects of the most recent monetary policy behaviour of the Bank of Japan (in particular, zero interest rate policy and negative interest rate policy) and Japanese tax policy on income inequality in this country during the period of 2002Q1 to 2017Q3. The vector error correction model (VECM) that develops in this research shows that increase in money stock (m1) through Quantitative Easing (QE) and Quantitative and Qualitative Easing (QQE) policies of the BOJ significantly increases the income inequality. On the contrary, Japanese tax policy was effective in reducing the income inequality. Variance decomposition results show that increasing of income inequality by monetary policy is larger when comparing to decreasing effects of tax policy on income inequality. Cointegration and VECM results show that monetary policy has both short-run and long-run impacts but for tax policy paper could not find any significant short-run impact on income inequality. In addition, paper found that technological progress only in long-run can reduce the income inequality by increasing the marginal productivity of labour with positive impacts on employment and wages.     

Timing of trade liberalization

Abstract

This paper studies the effects of trade liberalization on growth and long-run global income inequality using a two-country model of human capital accumulation by credit-constrained households. I show that the timing of trade liberalization is a crucial determinant of its effects on growth. Moreover, I show that the size of the long-run income gap between the two countries depends on the difference in domestic income inequality when they open up to trade. Based on these results, I analyze the effects of redistributive policy within a country. I show that redistribution in one country may increase income per capita of its trading partner if it is undertaken in a steady state, while the opposite is true if the policy is undertaken during transition.     

Ungleiche Verteilung der Einkommen bremst das Wirtschaftswachstum

In Germany in the last decade, corporate incomes have increased much more sharply than private household incomes. At the same time, the inequality of household incomes has increased. High-income households have profited particularly from investment income and self-employment. The income gap has not widened further in recent years, but the high level of inequality already reached in 2005 has resulted in a sustained reduction of consumer spending. What is needed now is a level of income and wealth distribution that will strengthen domestic demand.     

Income Per Capita Inequality in China: The Role of Economic Geography and Spatial Interactions

(1241) Laura Hering and Sandra Poncet This paper contributes to the analysis of growing income inequality in China. We apply a structural model of economic geography to data on per capita income over 190 Chinese cities between 1995 and 2002, and evaluate the extent to which market proximity and spatial dependence can explain the growing income inequality between Chinese cities. The econometric specification explicitly incorporates spatial dependence in the form of spatially‐lagged per capita income. We show that the geography of market access and spatial dependence are significantly correlated with per capita income in China. Market access is particularly important in cities with smaller migration inflows, which is consistent with NEG theory, whereas spatially‐lagged per capita income matters more in cities with greater immigration. We conclude that the positive impact of spatially‐lagged income partly results from labour mobility between neighbours, so that spatial dependence reflects the influence of migration, knowledge transfers and increasing competition between cities.     

The Distribution of U.S. Income and Food Expenditures

Food expenditure and income distributions over 1980–1985 are examined using two welfare criteria: less inequality and more available resources. Intertemporal changes in the distributions are studied from the perspectives of inequality, relative economic affluence, society's satisfaction with the distributions, asymmetries, and average propensities to spend. Major conclusions are that inequality has increased over time in both the income and food spending distributions, relative economic affluence has generally risen, society is less satisfied with the food spending distribution, and average propensities to spend on food have been constant.     

技术创新、市场分割与收入不平等——基于中国省级面板数据的分析

基于1998—2017年中国省级面板数据，分析了省级层面收入不平等程度及其影响因素，重点研究了技术创新和市场分割对收入不平等的作用。研究结果显示，样本期内基尼系数总体水平较高，呈现出了先上升后下降的走势。地区收入差距与技术创新之间存在U型关系，当前“知识溢出”效应超过了“技能溢价”效应，创新水平的提高将有助于缩小地区收入差距；市场分割不仅会加剧地区收入不平等，还会通过阻碍技术创新间接弱化创新对收入差距的缓解作用。地区收入不平等与经济发展水平之间存在倒U型关系，贸易依存度、人均受教育年限和人均社会保障支出的提高有助于缩小地区收入差距，工业化率的提高则会加剧地区收入差距，财政支出对地区收入差距的作用不明显；动态面板模型的研究结果表明，地区收入差距具有惯性特征。最后，基于研究结论，给出了有针对性的政策建议。