IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/85047.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Inequality and Real Interest Rates

Author

Listed:
  • Lancastre, Manuel

Abstract

We use an overlapping generations New Keynesian model with borrowing constraints and a bequest motive, to show how an increase of income inequality may trigger a permanent reduction of the real interest rate, %, based on the heterogeneity of marginal borrowing and saving rates among household income types. (i) via a contraction of aggregate borrowing, when the marginal borrowing rate of the wealthier is lower than the one of the poorer with respect to income. (ii) We then show how an increase of inequality may trigger an expansion of savings through the channel of a bequest motive where generosity towards the next generation increases endogenously with lifetime income, so that the marginal savings rate of the wealthier is higher than the poorer.

Suggested Citation

  • Lancastre, Manuel, 2016. "Inequality and Real Interest Rates," MPRA Paper 85047, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:85047
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/85047/1/MPRA_paper_85047.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gauti B. Eggertsson & Neil R. Mehrotra, 2014. "A Model of Secular Stagnation," NBER Working Papers 20574, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Atif R. Mian & Amir Sufi, 2014. "House Price Gains and U.S. Household Spending from 2002 to 2006," Working Papers 2014-2, Princeton University. Economics Department..
    3. Barro, Robert J, 1974. "Are Government Bonds Net Wealth?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 82(6), pages 1095-1117, Nov.-Dec..
    4. Havranek, Tomas & Horvath, Roman & Irsova, Zuzana & Rusnak, Marek, 2015. "Cross-country heterogeneity in intertemporal substitution," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(1), pages 100-118.
    5. Edouard Challe & Julien Matheron & Xavier Ragot & Juan F. Rubio‐Ramirez, 2017. "Precautionary saving and aggregate demand," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 8(2), pages 435-478, July.
    6. Oded, Galor, 2011. "Inequality, Human Capital Formation, and the Process of Development," Handbook of the Economics of Education, in: Erik Hanushek & Stephen Machin & Ludger Woessmann (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Education, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 441-493, Elsevier.
    7. Thomas Piketty, 2013. "Le capital au XXIe siècle," PSE-Ecole d'économie de Paris (Postprint) halshs-00979232, HAL.
    8. Cagetti, Marco & De Nardi, Mariacristina, 2008. "Wealth Inequality: Data And Models," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 12(S2), pages 285-313, September.
    9. Karen E. Dynan & Jonathan Skinner & Stephen P. Zeldes, 2004. "Do the Rich Save More?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(2), pages 397-444, April.
    10. De Nardi, Mariacristina & Yang, Fang, 2014. "Bequests and heterogeneity in retirement wealth," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 182-196.
    11. Brinca, Pedro & Holter, Hans A. & Krusell, Per & Malafry, Laurence, 2016. "Fiscal multipliers in the 21st century," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 53-69.
    12. Olivier Jean Blanchard & Stanley Fischer, 1989. "Lectures on Macroeconomics," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262022834, April.
    13. Lawrence H Summers, 2014. "U.S. Economic Prospects: Secular Stagnation, Hysteresis, and the Zero Lower Bound," Business Economics, Palgrave Macmillan;National Association for Business Economics, vol. 49(2), pages 65-73, April.
    14. Sumit Agarwal & Souphala Chomsisengphet & Neale Mahoney & Strö & Johannes bel, 2015. "Do Banks Pass Through Credit Expansions? The Marginal Profitability of Consumer Lending During the Great Recession," CESifo Working Paper Series 5521, CESifo.
    15. Wouter Den Haan & Pontus Rendahl & Markus Riegler, 2015. "Unemployment (Fears) and Deflationary Spirals," Discussion Papers 1521, Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM).
    16. Den Haan, Wouter J. & Rendahl, Pontus & Riegler, Markus, 2015. "Unemployment (fears) and deflationary spirals," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 86288, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    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. Ansgar Rannenberg, 2019. "Inequality, the risk of secular stagnation and the increase in household deb," Working Paper Research 375, National Bank of Belgium.
    2. Apergis, Nicholas, 2024. "The role of loan loss provisions in income inequality: Evidence from a sample of banking institutions," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    3. Michael Buchner, 2020. "Fiscal Policy in an Age of Secular Stagnation," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 62(3), pages 398-429, September.
    4. Christopher D. Cotton, 2020. "The Inflation Target and the Equilibrium Real Rate," Working Papers 20-2, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.

    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. Manuel, Lancastre, 2016. "Age Milestones and Low Interest Rates, an Analytic Approach," MPRA Paper 85046, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Lancastre, Manuel, 2017. "Redistributive Tax Policy at the Zero Bound," MPRA Paper 98947, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Jonathan Heathcote & Fabrizio Perri, 2018. "Wealth and Volatility," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 85(4), pages 2173-2213.
    4. Corsetti, Giancarlo & Dedola, Luca & Jarociński, Marek & Maćkowiak, Bartosz & Schmidt, Sebastian, 2019. "Macroeconomic stabilization, monetary-fiscal interactions, and Europe's monetary union," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 22-33.
    5. Hagedorn, Marcus, 2018. "Prices and Inflation when Government Bonds are Net Wealth," CEPR Discussion Papers 12769, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    6. Lukasz Rachel & Thomas D. Smith, 2017. "Are Low Real Interest Rates Here to Stay?," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 13(3), pages 1-42, September.
    7. Mariacristina De Nardi & Giulio Fella, 2017. "Saving and Wealth Inequality," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 26, pages 280-300, October.
    8. Nils M. Gornemann & Keith Kuester & Makoto Nakajima, 2016. "Doves for the Rich, Hawks for the Poor? Distributional Consequences of Monetary Policy," International Finance Discussion Papers 1167, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    9. Felipe S. Iachan & Plamen T. Nenov & Alp Simsek, 2021. "The Choice Channel of Financial Innovation," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 13(2), pages 333-372, April.
    10. Greg Kaplan & Benjamin Moll & Giovanni L. Violante, 2018. "Monetary Policy According to HANK," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(3), pages 697-743, March.
    11. Kurt Mitman & Iourii Manovskii & Marcus Hagedorn, 2017. "The Fiscal Multiplier," 2017 Meeting Papers 1383, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    12. Kopiec, Paweł, 2020. "Employment prospects and the propagation of fiscal stimulus," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 117(C).
    13. Lukasz Rachel & Lawrence H. Summers, 2019. "On Secular Stagnation in the Industrialized World," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 50(1 (Spring), pages 1-76.
    14. Donal Smith, 2020. "Collateral Constraints and the Interest Rate," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 67(2), pages 137-165, May.
    15. Raphaele Chappe & Willi Semmler, 2019. "Financial Market as Driver for Disparity in Wealth Accumulation—A Receding Horizon Approach," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 54(3), pages 1231-1261, October.
    16. Mariacristina De Nardi, 2015. "Quantitative Models of Wealth Inequality: A Survey," NBER Working Papers 21106, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Mackowiak, Bartosz & Corsetti, Giancarlo & Dedola, Luca & Schmidt, Sebastian & Jarocinski, Marek, 2017. "Macroeconomic Stabilization, Monetary-Fiscal Interactions, and Europe’s Monetary Union," CEPR Discussion Papers 12371, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    18. Weiske, Sebastian, 2019. "Population growth, the natural rate of interest, and inflation," Working Papers 03/2019, German Council of Economic Experts / Sachverständigenrat zur Begutachtung der gesamtwirtschaftlichen Entwicklung.
    19. Max Franks & Ottmar Edenhofer, 2020. "Optimal Redistributive Wealth Taxation When Wealth Is More Than Just Capital," CESifo Working Paper Series 8093, CESifo.
    20. Grossmann, Volker, 2008. "Risky human capital investment, income distribution, and macroeconomic dynamics," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 19-42, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Income Inequality; low interest rates;

    JEL classification:

    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • E43 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Interest Rates: Determination, Term Structure, and Effects

    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:85047. 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.