IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/wpaper/halshs-00793209.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Income Inequality, Mobility, and the Accumulation of Capital: The Role of Heterogeneous Labor Productivity

Author

Listed:
  • Cecilia García-Peñalosa

    (GREQAM - Groupement de Recherche en Économie Quantitative d'Aix-Marseille - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - AMU - Aix Marseille Université - ECM - École Centrale de Marseille - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

  • Stephen J. Turnovsky

    (University of Washington [Seattle])

Abstract

We examine the determinants of income inequality and mobility in a Ramsey model with elastic labor supply. Individuals differ both in their initial capital endowment and productive ability (labor endowment). With two sources of heterogeneity, initially poorer agents may catch up with the income and wealth of initial richer ones, implying that the Ramsey model is compatible with rich distributional dynamics. We show that the elasticity of the labor supply plays a key role in the extent of mobility in the economy. Capital-rich individuals supply less labor while ability-rich agents tend to work more. The more elastic the labor supply is, the stronger these effects tend to be and hence the greater the degree of income mobility is.

Suggested Citation

  • Cecilia García-Peñalosa & Stephen J. Turnovsky, 2012. "Income Inequality, Mobility, and the Accumulation of Capital: The Role of Heterogeneous Labor Productivity," Working Papers halshs-00793209, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-00793209
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-00793209
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-00793209/document
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Douglas Holtz-Eakin & David Joulfaian & Harvey S. Rosen, 1993. "The Carnegie Conjecture: Some Empirical Evidence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 108(2), pages 413-435.
    2. Maliar Lilia & Maliar Serguei & Mora Juan, 2005. "Income and Wealth Distributions Along the Business Cycle: Implications from the Neoclassical Growth Model," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 5(1), pages 1-28, June.
    3. Diaz, Antonia & Pijoan-Mas, Josep & Rios-Rull, Jose-Victor, 2003. "Precautionary savings and wealth distribution under habit formation preferences," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(6), pages 1257-1291, September.
    4. Yann Algan & Arnaud Cheron & Jean-Olivier Hairault & Francois Langot, 2003. "Wealth Effect on Labor Market Transitions," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 6(1), pages 156-178, January.
    5. Edward C. Prescott, 2004. "Why do Americans work so much more than Europeans?," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, vol. 28(Jul), pages 2-13.
    6. Maliar, Lilia & Maliar, Serguei, 2001. "Heterogeneity in capital and skills in a neoclassical stochastic growth model," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 25(9), pages 1367-1397, September.
    7. Turnovsky, Stephen J, 2004. "The Transitional Dynamics of Fiscal Policy: Long-Run Capital Accumulation and Growth," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 36(5), pages 883-910, October.
    8. Stefano Bosi & Raouf Boucekkine & Thomas Seegmuller, 2010. "The dynamics of wealth inequality under endogenous fertility: A remark on the Barro-Becker model with heterogenous endowments," Working Papers halshs-00503195, HAL.
    9. Gerhard Sorger, 2000. "Income and wealth distribution in a simple model of growth," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 16(1), pages 23-42.
    10. Alvarez-Pelaez, Maria J. & Diaz, Antonia, 2005. "Minimum consumption and transitional dynamics in wealth distribution," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(3), pages 633-667, April.
    11. Cecilia Garc√Ça-Pe√Ëalosa & Stephen J. Turnovsky, 2011. "Taxation and Income Distribution Dynamics in a Neoclassical Growth Model," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 43(8), pages 1543-1577, December.
    12. Ing-Haw Cheng & Eric French, 2000. "The effect of the run-up in the stock market on labor supply," Economic Perspectives, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, vol. 25(Q IV), pages 48-65.
    13. Duffy, John & Papageorgiou, Chris, 2000. "A Cross-Country Empirical Investigation of the Aggregate Production Function Specification," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 5(1), pages 87-120, March.
    14. Lilia Maliar & Serguei Maliar, 2003. "The Representative Consumer in the Neoclassical Growth Model with Idiosyncratic Shocks," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 6(2), pages 368-380, April.
    15. Cecilia García‐Peñalosa & Stephen J. Turnovsky, 2007. "Growth, Income Inequality, and Fiscal Policy: What Are the Relevant Trade‐offs?," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(2‐3), pages 369-394, March.
    16. Turnovsky, Stephen J. & Garci­a-Peñalosa, Cecilia, 2008. "Distributional dynamics in a neoclassical growth model: The role of elastic labor supply," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 32(5), pages 1399-1431, May.
    17. Berndt, Ernst R, 1976. "Reconciling Alternative Estimates of the Elasticity of Substitution," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 58(1), pages 59-68, February.
    18. Bourguignon, Francois, 1979. "Decomposable Income Inequality Measures," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 47(4), pages 901-920, July.
    19. David Domeij & Jonathan Heathcote, 2004. "On The Distributional Effects Of Reducing Capital Taxes," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 45(2), pages 523-554, May.
    20. Kirill Borissov & Stéphane Lambrecht, 2009. "Growth and distribution in an AK-model with endogenous impatience," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 39(1), pages 93-112, April.
    21. Becker, Robert A. & Foias, Ciprian, 1987. "A characterization of Ramsey equilibrium," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 173-184, February.
    22. Guvenen, Fatih, 2006. "Reconciling conflicting evidence on the elasticity of intertemporal substitution: A macroeconomic perspective," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(7), pages 1451-1472, October.
    23. Chatterjee, Satyajit, 1994. "Transitional dynamics and the distribution of wealth in a neoclassical growth model," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(1), pages 97-119, May.
    24. Chatterjee, Satyajit & Ravikumar, B., 1999. "Minimum Consumption Requirements: Theoretical And Quantitative Implications For Growth And Distribution," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 3(4), pages 482-505, December.
    25. Chamley, Christophe, 1986. "Optimal Taxation of Capital Income in General Equilibrium with Infinite Lives," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 54(3), pages 607-622, May.
    26. Giuseppe Bertola & Reto Foellmi & Josef Zweimüller, 2005. "Income Distribution in Macroeconomic Models," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 8058.
    27. Jaume Ventura & Francesco Caselli, 2000. "A Representative Consumer Theory of Distribution," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(4), pages 909-926, September.
    28. Robert A. Becker, 1980. "On the Long-Run Steady State in a Simple Dynamic Model of Equilibrium with Heterogeneous Households," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 95(2), pages 375-382.
    29. Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1969. "Distribution of Income and Wealth among Individuals," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 37(3), pages 382-397, July.
    30. Sorger, Gerhard, 2002. "On the Long-Run Distribution of Capital in the Ramsey Model," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 105(1), pages 226-243, July.
    31. E. Eisenberg, 1961. "Aggregation of Utility Functions," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 7(4), pages 337-350, July.
    32. Cecilia García-Peñalosa & Stephen Turnovsky, 2006. "Growth and income inequality: a canonical model," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 28(1), pages 25-49, May.
    33. Judd, Kenneth L., 1985. "Redistributive taxation in a simple perfect foresight model," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 59-83, October.
    34. Rainer Klump & Peter McAdam & Alpo Willman, 2007. "Factor Substitution and Factor-Augmenting Technical Progress in the United States: A Normalized Supply-Side System Approach," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 89(1), pages 183-192, February.
    35. Francesc Obiols-Homs & Carlos Urrutia, 2005. "Transitional dynamics and the distribution of assets," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 25(2), pages 381-400, February.
    36. Castaneda, Ana & Diaz-Gimenez, Javier & Rios-Rull, Jose-Victor, 1998. "Exploring the income distribution business cycle dynamics," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 93-130, June.
    37. Wang, Neng, 2007. "An equilibrium model of wealth distribution," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(7), pages 1882-1904, October.
    38. Eva Sierminska & Andrea Brandolini & Timothy Smeeding, 2006. "The Luxembourg Wealth Study – A cross-country comparable database for household wealth research," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 4(3), pages 375-383, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Zheng, Zhijie & Huang, Chien-Yu & Wan, Xi, 2020. "Human Capital and Income Inequality in a Monetary Schumpeterian Growth Model," MPRA Paper 101912, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    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. Marcel Aloy & Gilles de Truchis, 2012. "Estimation and Testing for Fractional Cointegration," AMSE Working Papers 1215, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, France.
    2. Turnovsky, Stephen J. & Garci­a-Peñalosa, Cecilia, 2008. "Distributional dynamics in a neoclassical growth model: The role of elastic labor supply," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 32(5), pages 1399-1431, May.
    3. Cecilia García‐Peñalosa & Stephen J. Turnovsky, 2011. "Taxation and Income Distribution Dynamics in a Neoclassical Growth Model," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 43(8), pages 1543-1577, December.
    4. García-Peñalosa, Cecilia & Turnovsky, Stephen J., 2015. "Income Inequality, Mobility, And The Accumulation Of Capital," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 19(6), pages 1332-1357, September.
    5. Stephen Turnovsky & Cecilia Garcia Penalosa, 2006. "The Dynamics of Wealth and Income distribution in a Neoclassical Growth Model," Computing in Economics and Finance 2006 318, Society for Computational Economics.
    6. Turnovsky, Stephen J., 2015. "Economic growth and inequality: The role of public investment," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 204-221.
    7. Stephen J. Turnovsky, 2013. "The relationship between economic growth and inequality," New Zealand Economic Papers, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(2), pages 113-139, August.
    8. Atolia, Manoj & Chatterjee, Santanu & Turnovsky, Stephen J., 2012. "Growth and inequality: Dependence on the time path of productivity increases (and other structural changes)," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 331-348.
    9. Chen, Yu-chin & Turnovsky, Stephen J., 2010. "Growth and inequality in a small open economy," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 497-514, June.
    10. Koyuncu, Murat, 2011. "Can progressive taxation account for cross-country variation in labor supply?," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 35(9), pages 1474-1488, September.
    11. Carneiro, Fernando Moraes & Turnovsky, Stephen J. & Tourinho, Octavio Augusto Fontes, 2022. "Economic growth and inequality tradeoffs under progressive taxation," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    12. Turnovsky, Stephen J., 2011. "On the role of small models in macrodynamics," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 35(9), pages 1605-1613, September.
    13. Nakamoto, Yasuhiro, 2015. "Heterogeneous EIS and Wealth Distribution in a Neoclassical Growth Model," MPRA Paper 67026, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Yoichi Gokan & Stephen J. Turnovsky, 2021. "Wealth and income inequality in a monetary economy," Economic Theory Bulletin, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 9(2), pages 225-245, October.
    15. Chatterjee, Santanu & Turnovsky, Stephen J., 2012. "Infrastructure and inequality," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(8), pages 1730-1745.
    16. Masakazu Emoto & Tamotsu Nakamura, 2021. "Intertemporal elasticity of substitution and the transitional dynamics and steady state of wealth distribution," Discussion Papers 2101, Graduate School of Economics, Kobe University.
    17. Wei-Bin Zhang, 2017. "Discrimination and Inequality in an Integrated Walrasian-General-Equilibrium and Neoclassical-Growth Theory," Asian Journal of Economic Modelling, Asian Economic and Social Society, vol. 5(1), pages 57-76, March.
    18. Kazuo Mino & Yasuhiro Nakamoto, 2008. "Progressive Taxation, Wealth Distribution, and Macroeconomic Stability," Discussion Papers in Economics and Business 08-22, Osaka University, Graduate School of Economics.
    19. Gokan, Yoichi & Turnovsky, Stephen J., 2023. "Taylor rules: Consequences for wealth and income inequality," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    20. ZHANG Wei-Bin, 2013. "Time, Income And Wealth Distribution Among Heterogeneous Households In A Two-Sector Model With Sector-Specific Externalities: A Synthesis Of The Arrow-Debreu Equilibrium Theory And Solow-Uzawa Growth ," Studies in Business and Economics, Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, Faculty of Economic Sciences, vol. 8(3), pages 103-124, Decembre.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    endogenous labor supply; income mobility; inequality; transitional dynamics;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • O41 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - One, Two, and Multisector Growth Models

    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:hal:wpaper:halshs-00793209. 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: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    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.