IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecmode/v65y2017icp106-118.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The distributive effect of monetary policy: The top one percent makes the difference

Author

Listed:
  • Davtyan, Karen

Abstract

The paper evaluates the distributional effect of monetary policy. The empirical analysis is implemented for the USA, where the dynamics in income inequality is mainly driven by the variation in the top one percent of the income distribution. The paper uses the inequality measures that represent the whole income distribution. The distributive effect of monetary policy is evaluated in the cases of different frequency data. To identify a monetary policy shock, the paper applies the contemporaneous and the long run identification methods. In particular, a cointegration relation is determined among the considered variables and the vector error correction methodology is used for the identification. The obtained results indicate that contractionary monetary policy decreases income inequality. These results can have important implications for the design of policies to reduce income inequality by giving more weight to monetary policy.

Suggested Citation

  • Davtyan, Karen, 2017. "The distributive effect of monetary policy: The top one percent makes the difference," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 106-118.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecmode:v:65:y:2017:i:c:p:106-118
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econmod.2017.05.011
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264999316305806
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econmod.2017.05.011?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Blanchard, Olivier Jean & Quah, Danny, 1989. "The Dynamic Effects of Aggregate Demand and Supply Disturbances," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(4), pages 655-673, September.
    2. Uhlig, Harald, 2005. "What are the effects of monetary policy on output? Results from an agnostic identification procedure," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(2), pages 381-419, March.
    3. Albanesi, Stefania, 2007. "Inflation and inequality," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(4), pages 1088-1114, May.
    4. Mumtaz, Haroon & Theophilopoulou, Angeliki, 2017. "The impact of monetary policy on inequality in the UK. An empirical analysis," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 410-423.
    5. Christiano, Lawrence J & Eichenbaum, Martin & Evans, Charles, 1996. "The Effects of Monetary Policy Shocks: Evidence from the Flow of Funds," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 78(1), pages 16-34, February.
    6. Christina D. Romer & David Romer, 1999. "Monetary policy and the well-being of the poor," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, vol. 84(Q I), pages 21-49.
    7. Anthony B. Atkinson & Thomas Piketty & Emmanuel Saez, 2011. "Top Incomes in the Long Run of History," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 49(1), pages 3-71, March.
    8. Benjamin Born & Gernot J. Müller & Johannes Pfeifer, 2020. "Does Austerity Pay Off?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 102(2), pages 323-338, May.
    9. Bernanke, Ben S & Blinder, Alan S, 1992. "The Federal Funds Rate and the Channels of Monetary Transmission," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(4), pages 901-921, September.
    10. Veronika Selezneva & Martin Schneider & Matthias Doepke, 2015. "Distributional Effects of Monetary Policy," 2015 Meeting Papers 1099, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    11. Thomas Piketty & Emmanuel Saez, 2003. "Income Inequality in the United States, 1913–1998," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(1), pages 1-41.
    12. A. B Atkinson & Andrew Leigh, 2013. "The Distribution of Top Incomes in Five Anglo-Saxon Countries Over the Long Run," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 89, pages 31-47, June.
    13. Easterly, William & Fischer, Stanley, 2001. "Inflation and the Poor," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 33(2), pages 160-178, May.
    14. Ben S. Bernanke & Ilian Mihov, 1998. "Measuring Monetary Policy," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(3), pages 869-902.
    15. Daron Acemoglu & James A. Robinson, 2008. "Persistence of Power, Elites, and Institutions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(1), pages 267-293, March.
    16. Andrew Leigh, 2007. "How Closely Do Top Income Shares Track Other Measures of Inequality?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 117(524), pages 619-633, November.
    17. Sims, Christopher A., 1992. "Interpreting the macroeconomic time series facts : The effects of monetary policy," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 36(5), pages 975-1000, June.
    18. Philipp Doerrenberg & Andreas Peichl, 2014. "The impact of redistributive policies on inequality in OECD countries," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(17), pages 2066-2086, June.
    19. Roland Benabou, 2000. "Unequal Societies: Income Distribution and the Social Contract," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(1), pages 96-129, March.
    20. António Afonso & Ludger Schuknecht & Vito Tanzi, 2010. "Income distribution determinants and public spending efficiency," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 8(3), pages 367-389, September.
    21. Matthias Doepke & Martin Schneider, 2006. "Inflation and the Redistribution of Nominal Wealth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 114(6), pages 1069-1097, December.
    22. By Ales BulÌr, 2001. "Income Inequality: Does Inflation Matter?," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 48(1), pages 1-5.
    23. Anthony B. Atkinson & Salvatore Morelli, 2014. "Chartbook of economic inequality," Working Papers 324, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    24. Lane Kenworthy & Timothy Smeeding, 2013. "GINI Country Report: Growing Inequalities and their Impacts in the United States," GINI Country Reports united_states, AIAS, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies.
    25. Johansen, Soren, 1995. "Likelihood-Based Inference in Cointegrated Vector Autoregressive Models," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198774501.
    26. Anthony Atkinson & Thomas Piketty, 2007. "Top incomes over the twentieth century: A contrast between continental european and english-speaking countries," Post-Print halshs-00754859, HAL.
    27. Villarreal, Francisco G., 2014. "Monetary Policy and Inequality in Mexico," MPRA Paper 57074, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    28. Hongyi Li & Heng-fu Zou, 2002. "Inflation, Growth, and Income Distribution: A Cross-Country Study," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 3(1), pages 85-101, May.
    29. Mumtaz, Haroon & Theophilopoulou, Angeliki, 2017. "The impact of monetary policy on inequality in the UK. An empirical analysis," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 410-423.
    30. Rita Duarte & Carlos Marques, 2013. "The dynamic effects of shocks to wages and prices in the United States and the Euro Area," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 44(2), pages 613-638, April.
    31. Edward N. Wolff & Ajit Zacharias, 2007. "The Distributional Consequences Of Government Spending And Taxation In The U.S., 1989 And 2000," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 53(4), pages 692-715, December.
    32. Stephen Knowles, 2005. "Inequality and Economic Growth: The Empirical Relationship Reconsidered in the Light of Comparable Data," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(1), pages 135-159.
    33. David M. Cutler & Lawrence F. Katz, 1991. "Macroeconomic Performance and the Disadvantaged," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 22(2), pages 1-74.
    34. Ayako Saiki & Jon Frost, 2014. "Does unconventional monetary policy affect inequality? Evidence from Japan," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(36), pages 4445-4454, December.
    35. Bank of England, Bank of England, 2012. "The distributional effects of asset purchases," Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin, Bank of England, vol. 52(3), pages 254-266.
    36. Rory O’Farrell & Łukasz Rawdanowicz & Kei-Ichiro Inaba, 2016. "Monetary Policy and Inequality," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 1281, OECD Publishing.
    37. James K. Galbraith & Olivier Giovannoni & Ann J. Russo, 2007. "The Fed's Real Reaction Function: Monetary Policy, Inflation, Unemployment, Inequality-and Presidential Politics," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_511, Levy Economics Institute.
    38. Erosa, Andres & Ventura, Gustavo, 2002. "On inflation as a regressive consumption tax," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(4), pages 761-795, May.
    39. Ayako Saiki & Jon Frost, 2014. "How does unconventional monetary policy affect inequality? Evidence from Japan," DNB Working Papers 423, Netherlands Central Bank, Research Department.
    40. Peersman, Gert & Smets, Frank, 2001. "The monetary transmission mechanism in the euro area: more evidence from VAR analysis," Working Paper Series 91, European Central Bank.
    41. J. C. G. Boot & W. Feibes & J. H. C. Lisman, 1967. "Further Methods of Derivation of Quarterly Figures from Annual Data," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series C, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 16(1), pages 65-75, March.
    42. Atkinson, A. B. & Piketty, Thomas (ed.), 2007. "Top Incomes Over the Twentieth Century: A Contrast Between Continental European and English-Speaking Countries," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199286881.
    43. Pedro Cunha Neves & Sandra Maria Tavares Silva, 2014. "Inequality and Growth: Uncovering the Main Conclusions from the Empirics," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(1), pages 1-21, January.
    44. Makoto Nakajima, 2015. "The redistributive consequences of monetary policy," Business Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, issue Q2, pages 9-16.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Karen Davtyan, 2016. "“Income Inequality and Monetary Policy: An analysis on the Long Run Relation”," IREA Working Papers 201604, University of Barcelona, Research Institute of Applied Economics, revised Apr 2016.
    2. Karen Davtyan, 2016. "“Income Inequality and Monetary Policy: An Analysis on the Long Run Relation”," AQR Working Papers 201604, University of Barcelona, Regional Quantitative Analysis Group, revised Apr 2016.
    3. Goodness C. Aye & Matthew W. Clance & Rangan Gupta, 2019. "The effectiveness of monetary and fiscal policy shocks on U.S. inequality: the role of uncertainty," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 53(1), pages 283-295, January.
    4. Karen Davtyan, 2016. "“The Distributive effects of conventional and unconventional monetary policies”," AQR Working Papers 201606, University of Barcelona, Regional Quantitative Analysis Group, revised Apr 2016.
    5. Kim, Dong-Hyeon & Lin, Shu-Chin, 2023. "Income inequality, inflation and financial development," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 468-487.
    6. Andrea Colciago & Anna Samarina & Jakob de Haan, 2019. "Central Bank Policies And Income And Wealth Inequality: A Survey," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(4), pages 1199-1231, September.
    7. Karen Davtyan, 2016. "“The Distributive Effects of Conventional and Unconventional Monetary Policies”," IREA Working Papers 201606, University of Barcelona, Research Institute of Applied Economics, revised Apr 2016.
    8. Johnson Worlanyo Ahiadorme, 2022. "Monetary policy transmission and income inequality in Sub-Saharan Africa," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 55(3), pages 1555-1585, August.
    9. Arkadiusz Sieron, 2017. "Inflation and Income Inequality," Prague Economic Papers, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2017(6), pages 633-645.
    10. Jérôme Creel & Mehdi El Herradi, 2024. "Income inequality and monetary policy in the euro area," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(1), pages 332-355, January.
    11. Andrea Boitani & Lorenzo Di Domenico & Giorgio Ricchiuti, 2024. "Monetary policy and inequality: an heterogenous agents’ approach," DISCE - Working Papers del Dipartimento di Economia e Finanza def133, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Dipartimenti e Istituti di Scienze Economiche (DISCE).
    12. Serena Merrino, 2021. "Wage inequality under inflationtargeting in South Africa," Working Papers 11018, South African Reserve Bank.
    13. Coibion, Olivier & Gorodnichenko, Yuriy & Kueng, Lorenz & Silvia, John, 2017. "Innocent Bystanders? Monetary policy and inequality," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 70-89.
    14. Mehdi el Herradi & Jakob de Haan & Aurélien Leroy, 2020. "Inflation and the Income Share of the Rich: Evidence for 12 OECD Countries," CESifo Working Paper Series 8203, CESifo.
    15. Mehdi El Herradi & Jakob Haan & Aurélien Leroy, 2023. "Inflation and the Income Share of the Rich: Evidence for 14 OECD Countries," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 69(1), pages 170-194, March.
    16. Areosa, Waldyr Dutra & Areosa, Marta B.M., 2016. "The inequality channel of monetary transmission," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 214-230.
    17. Merrino, Serena, 2022. "Monetary policy and wage inequality in South Africa," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(C).
    18. Chen, Siyan & Desiderio, Saul, 2018. "Computational evidence on the distributive properties of monetary policy," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 12, pages 1-32.
    19. repec:prg:jnlpep:v:preprint:id:630:p:1-13 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Sima Siami‐Namini & Conrad Lyford & A. Alexandre Trindade, 2020. "The Effects of Monetary Policy Shocks on Income Inequality Across U.S. States," Economic Papers, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 39(3), pages 204-221, September.
    21. Casiraghi, Marco & Gaiotti, Eugenio & Rodano, Lisa & Secchi, Alessandro, 2018. "A “reverse Robin Hood”? The distributional implications of non-standard monetary policy for Italian households," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 215-235.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Income inequality; Monetary policy; Cointegration; Identification;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C32 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models; Diffusion Processes; State Space Models
    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecmode:v:65:y:2017:i:c:p:106-118. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/30411 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.