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A Note on Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century

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  • Robert Rowthorn

Abstract

Thomas Piketty's Capital documents long-term trends in income and wealth in advanced economies. It also provides a theoretical framework for analysing the past and projecting the future. Piketty argues that the ratio of wealth to national income is on an upward trend and that this is responsible for the rising income share of wealth-owners. This paper accepts Piketty's main empirical findings, but questions his interpretation. The rising income share of wealth-owners is not due to the over-accumulation of capital, as he claims, but just the opposite. There has been too little real investment. The paper also considers the long-term dynamics of Piketty's model and explores the effect of modifying his assumptions about savings behaviour. Finally, it considers the implications of rising asset prices, which are documented by Piketty but are not adequately taken into account in his theoretical analysis or projection of future trends.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert Rowthorn, 2014. "A Note on Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century," Working Papers wp462, Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge.
    • Handle: RePEc:cbr:cbrwps:wp462
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    File URL: https://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/cbrwp462/
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Brent Neiman, 2014. "The Global Decline of the Labor Share," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 129(1), pages 61-103.
    2. Edward J. Balistreri & Christine A. McDaniel & Eina Vivian Wong, 2003. "An Estimation of U.S. Industry-Level Capital-Labor Substitution," Computational Economics 0303001, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Raurich, Xavier & Sala, Hector & Sorolla, Valeri, 2012. "Factor shares, the price markup, and the elasticity of substitution between capital and labor," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 181-198.
    4. Rainer Klump & Peter McAdam & Alpo Willman, 2007. "The long-term sucCESs of the neoclassical growth model," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 23(1), pages 94-114, Spring.
    5. Barnes, Sebastian & Price, Simon & Sebastia Barriel, Maria, 2008. "The elasticity of substitution: evidence from a UK firm-level data set," Bank of England working papers 348, Bank of England.
    6. Rowthorn, Robert, 1999. "Unemployment, Wage Bargaining and Capital-Labour Substitution," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 23(4), pages 413-425, July.
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Soon Ryoo, 2016. "Inequality of Income and Wealth in the Long Run: A Kaldorian Perspective," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 67(2), pages 429-457, May.
    2. Filippo Gusella & Anna Maria Variato, 2021. "Financial Instability and Income Inequality: why the connection Minsky-Piketty matters for Macroeconomics," Working Papers - Economics wp2021_15.rdf, Universita' degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Scienze per l'Economia e l'Impresa.
    3. Palma, José Gabriel, 2020. "Why the rich always stay rich (no matter what, no matter the cost)," Revista CEPAL, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL), December.
    4. Luca Zamparelli, 2017. "Wealth Distribution, Elasticity of Substitution and Piketty: An ‘Anti-Dual’ Pasinetti Economy," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 68(4), pages 927-946, November.
    5. Lainé, Michael, 2023. "How to reconcile actual climate change mitigation with prosperity? A proposal," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 204(PA).
    6. Soskice, David, 2014. "Capital in the twenty-first century: a critique," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 64429, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    7. Gregor Semieniuk, 2017. "Piketty’s Elasticity of Substitution: A Critique," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(1), pages 64-79, January.
    8. José Gabriel Palma, 2014. "Has the Income Share of the Middle and Upper-middle Been Stable around the ‘50/50 Rule’, or Has it Converged towards that Level? The ‘Palma Ratio’ Revisited," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 45(6), pages 1416-1448, November.
    9. Lee, Jangyoun, 2021. "Behind rising inequality and falling growth," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    10. Ton van Schaik, 2015. "On the Link between Piketty’s Laws," CESifo Forum, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 16(01), pages 11-18, May.
    11. Gonzalez, Ignacio & Trivin, Pedro, 2019. "The Global Rise of Asset Prices and the Decline of the Labor Share," MPRA Paper 94587, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Yasunori Fujita, 2015. "Missing equation in Piketty’s r-g theory," Economics and Business Letters, Oviedo University Press, vol. 4(2), pages 57-62.
    13. Michael Lainé, 2023. "How to reconcile actual climate change mitigation with prosperity? A proposal," Post-Print hal-04265121, HAL.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Piketty; distribution of income; distribution of wealth; economic growth;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • E25 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Aggregate Factor Income Distribution
    • N10 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - General, International, or Comparative

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