IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/72719.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The (F)Laws of Piketty’s Capitalism: A Fundamental Approach

Author

Listed:
  • de la Fonteijne, Marcel R.

Abstract

The book 'Capital in the Twenty-First Century' by the French economist Piketty about the inequality of income and wealth distribution is already quite a while in the spotlights. Throughout his book he uses two formulas which he has named ‘the first fundamental law of capitalism’ and ‘the second fundamental law of capitalism’. With his reasoning he tries to show that, with these laws in place, he is capable to explain inequality phenomena with respect to the income and wealth distribution. Without going into the significance of his reasoning and conclusions, we will show that the use of the laws, the way he does, is fundamentally wrong. We suggest alternative formulas and a new approach. The inequality r>g is in our opinion not a meaningful equation with respect to inequality.

Suggested Citation

  • de la Fonteijne, Marcel R., 2014. "The (F)Laws of Piketty’s Capitalism: A Fundamental Approach," MPRA Paper 72719, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:72719
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/72719/1/MPRA_paper_72719.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Carmen M. Reinhart & Kenneth S. Rogoff, 2010. "Growth in a Time of Debt," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(2), pages 573-578, May.
    2. Thomas Piketty & Gabriel Zucman, 2014. "Capital is Back: Wealth-Income Ratios in Rich Countries 1700–2010," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 129(3), pages 1255-1310.
    3. de la Fonteijne, Marcel, 2013. "The Monetary Profit Paradox and a Sustainable Economy - A Fundamental Approach," MPRA Paper 55235, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 10 Apr 2014.
    4. de la Fonteijne, Marcel R., 2014. "An inconsistency in using stock flow consistency in modelling the monetary profit paradox," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 8, pages 1-7.
    5. repec:hal:pseose:halshs-01109372 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. de la Fonteijne, Marcel, 2014. "An inconsistency in using stock flow consistency in modelling the monetary profit paradox," Economics Discussion Papers 2014-3, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    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. Peppel-Srebrny, Jemima, 2021. "Not all government budget deficits are created equal: Evidence from advanced economies' sovereign bond markets," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).
    2. de la Fonteijne, Marcel R., 2015. "Jones on Piketty's r>g: A critique," MPRA Paper 83830, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Konstantin A. Kholodilin & Sebastian Kohl & Florian Müller, 2023. "Government-Made House Price Bubbles? Austerity, Homeownership, Rental, and Credit Liberalization Policies and the “Irrational Exuberance” on Housing Markets," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 2061, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    4. de la Fonteijne, Marcel R., 2018. "Why the concept of Hicks, Harrod, Solow neutral and even non-neutral augmented technical progress is flawed in principle in any economic model," MPRA Paper 107730, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Jemima Peppel-Srebrny, 2018. "Government borrowing cost and balance sheets: do assets matter?," Economics Series Working Papers 860, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    6. Balima, Hippolyte Weneyam, 2020. "Coups d’état and the cost of debt," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(3), pages 509-528.
    7. Paul, Saumik, 2019. "A Decline in Labor's Share with Capital Accumulation and Complementary Factor Inputs: An Application of the Morishima Elasticity of Substitution," IZA Discussion Papers 12219, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. Grossmann, Volker & Larin, Benjamin & Löfflad, Hans Torben & Steger, Thomas, 2021. "Distributional consequences of surging housing rents," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 196(C).
    9. Bertrand Garbinti & Jonathan Goupille-Lebret & Thomas Piketty, 2016. "Accounting for Wealth Inequality Dynamics: Methods, Estimates and Simulations for France (1800-2014)," PSE Working Papers halshs-02794339, HAL.
    10. Manuel Funke & Moritz Schularick & Christoph Trebesch, 2023. "Populist Leaders and the Economy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 113(12), pages 3249-3288, December.
    11. Roberto Martino & Phu Nguyen-Van, 2014. "Labour market regulation and fiscal parameters: A structural model for European regions," Working Papers of BETA 2014-19, Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, UDS, Strasbourg.
    12. Junyi Zhu, 2014. "Bracket Creep Revisited - with and without r > g: Evidence from Germany," Journal of Income Distribution, Ad libros publications inc., vol. 23(3), pages 106-158, November.
    13. Mara Leticia Rojas & María María Ibáñez Martín & Carlos Dabús, 2023. "Is Debt Always Harmful for Economic Growth? Evidence from Developing Countries," Working Papers 292, Red Nacional de Investigadores en Economía (RedNIE).
    14. Brahmbhatt, Milan & Canuto, Otaviano & Vostroknutova, Ekaterina, 2010. "Dealing with Dutch Disease," World Bank - Economic Premise, The World Bank, issue 16, pages 1-7, June.
    15. Block, Joern H. & Hirschmann, Mirko & Kranz, Tobias & Neuenkirch, Matthias, 2023. "Public family firms and economic inequality across societies," Journal of Business Venturing Insights, Elsevier, vol. 19(C).
    16. Paul J.J. Welfens, 2011. "The Twin Crisis: From the Transatlantic Banking Crisis to the Euro Crisis?," EIIW Discussion paper disbei187, Universitätsbibliothek Wuppertal, University Library.
    17. İbrahim Özmen & Mihai Mutascu, 2024. "Public Debt and Growth: New Insights," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 15(2), pages 8706-8736, June.
    18. European Commission, 2013. "Tax reforms in EU Member States - Tax policy challenges for economic growth and fiscal sustainability – 2013 Report," Taxation Papers 38, Directorate General Taxation and Customs Union, European Commission.
    19. Matteo G. Richiardi & Luis Valenzuela, 2024. "Firm heterogeneity and the aggregate labour share," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 38(1), pages 66-101, March.
    20. Janice Boucher Breuer & John McDermott, 2019. "Debt And Depression," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 37(4), pages 714-730, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    sustainability; inequality; unemployment; GDP growth; income; wealth distribution;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E00 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General - - - General
    • E10 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General Aggregative Models - - - General
    • E20 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)
    • E60 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - General
    • H20 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - General
    • H30 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - General
    • H60 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - General

    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:pra:mprapa:72719. 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    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.