IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/osf/socarx/njk67.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Redistributing Income Through Hierarchy

Author

Listed:
  • Fix, Blair

    (York University)

Abstract

Although the determinants of income are complex, the results are surprisingly uniform. To a first approximation, top incomes follow a power-law distribution, and the redistribution of income corresponds to a change in the power-law exponent. Given the messiness of the struggle for resources, why is the outcome so simple? This paper explores the idea that the (re)distribution of top incomes is uniform because it is shaped by a ubiquitous feature of social life, namely hierarchy. Using a model first developed by Herbert Simon and Harold Lydall, I show that hierarchy can explain the power-law distribution of top incomes, including how income gets redistributed as the rich get richer.

Suggested Citation

  • Fix, Blair, 2021. "Redistributing Income Through Hierarchy," SocArXiv njk67, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:njk67
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/njk67
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://osf.io/download/6172a0496d1fed0095237ad4/
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.31219/osf.io/njk67?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
    ---><---

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Fix, Blair, 2021. "Redistributing Income Through Hierarchy," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, issue 98, pages 58-86.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:osf:socarx:njk67. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: OSF (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://arabixiv.org .

    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.