IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wbk/wbrwps/7317.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Effects of income inequality on aggregate output

Author

Listed:
  • Brueckner,Markus
  • Lederman,Daniel

Abstract

This paper estimates the effect of income inequality on real gross domestic product per capita using a panel of 104 countries during the period 1970?2010. The empirical analysis addresses endogeneity issues by using instrumental variables estimation and controlling for country and time fixed effects. The analysis finds that, on average, income inequality has a significant negative effect on transitional gross domestic product per capita growth and the long-run level of gross domestic product per capita. However, the impact varies by the level of economic development, so much so that in poor countries income inequality has a significant positive effect on gross domestic product per capita.

Suggested Citation

  • Brueckner,Markus & Lederman,Daniel, 2015. "Effects of income inequality on aggregate output," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7317, The World Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:7317
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2015/06/22/090224b082f720f2/1_0/Rendered/PDF/Effects0of0inc00on0aggregate0output.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sarah Voitchovsky, 2005. "Does the Profile of Income Inequality Matter for Economic Growth?," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 10(3), pages 273-296, September.
    2. Panizza, Ugo, 2002. "Income Inequality and Economic Growth: Evidence from American Data," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 7(1), pages 25-41, March.
    3. Markus Brueckner & Era Dabla Norris & Mark Gradstein, 2015. "National income and its distribution," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 20(2), pages 149-175, June.
    4. Easterly, William, 2007. "Inequality does cause underdevelopment: Insights from a new instrument," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(2), pages 755-776, November.
    5. Oded Galor & Joseph Zeira, 1993. "Income Distribution and Macroeconomics," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 60(1), pages 35-52.
    6. Antonio Fatás & Ilian Mihov, 2003. "The Case for Restricting Fiscal Policy Discretion," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(4), pages 1419-1447.
    7. Barro, Robert J. & Lee, Jong Wha, 2013. "A new data set of educational attainment in the world, 1950–2010," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 184-198.
    8. Oded Galor & Omer Moav & Dietrich Vollrath, 2009. "Inequality in Landownership, the Emergence of Human-Capital Promoting Institutions, and the Great Divergence," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 76(1), pages 143-179.
    9. Kristin J. Forbes, 2000. "A Reassessment of the Relationship between Inequality and Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(4), pages 869-887, September.
    10. Markus Brückner & Kerstin Gerling & Hans Grüner, 2010. "Wealth inequality and credit markets: evidence from three industrialized countries," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 15(2), pages 155-176, June.
    11. Olivier Blanchard & Roberto Perotti, 2002. "An Empirical Characterization of the Dynamic Effects of Changes in Government Spending and Taxes on Output," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(4), pages 1329-1368.
    12. Mr. Jonathan David Ostry & Mr. Andrew Berg & Mr. Charalambos G Tsangarides, 2014. "Redistribution, Inequality, and Growth," IMF Staff Discussion Notes 2014/002, International Monetary Fund.
    13. Banerjee, Abhijit V & Duflo, Esther, 2003. "Inequality and Growth: What Can the Data Say?," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 8(3), pages 267-299, September.
    14. Perotti, Roberto, 1996. "Growth, Income Distribution, and Democracy: What the Data Say," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 1(2), pages 149-187, June.
    15. Jonathan David Ostry & Andrew Berg & Charalambos G Tsangarides, 2014. "Redistribution, Inequality, and Growth," IMF Staff Discussion Notes 14/02, International Monetary Fund.
    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. Andy Sumner, 2016. "The world's two new middles: Growth, precarity, structural change, and the limitations of the special case," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2016-34, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    2. Kopp, Thomas & Nabernegg, Markus, 2022. "Inequality and Environmental Impact – Can the Two Be Reduced Jointly?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 201(C).
    3. Gan-Ochir Doojav & Ariun-Erdene Bayarjargal, 2017. "Implications of Economic Growth, Poverty and Inequality in Mongolia over the Period of 2008-2012," The Northeast Asian Economic Review, ERINA - Economic Research Institute for Northeast Asia, vol. 5(2), pages 15-29, October.
    4. Tusawar Iftikhar Ahmad & Abdul Rehman & Abid Mehmood & Nosheena Sattar, 2022. "Nexus among Democracy, Human Resource Development, and Income Inequality: Three Stage Least Square Estimation for 47 Developing Economies," iRASD Journal of Economics, International Research Alliance for Sustainable Development (iRASD), vol. 4(4), pages 607-620, December.
    5. Mohammed TOUITOU & Ahmed BOUDEGHDEGH, 2021. "Estimating the relationship between governance, economic growth, inequality and poverty," Theoretical and Applied Economics, Asociatia Generala a Economistilor din Romania / Editura Economica, vol. 0(3(628), A), pages 115-128, Autumn.
    6. Marcos Gómez & Francisco Parro, 2018. "The Fundamental Contradiction Of Capitalism Revisited," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 70(4), pages 381-399, October.
    7. Wencong Cai & Yuanjie Deng & Qiangqiang Zhang & Haiyu Yang & Xuexi Huo, 2021. "Does Income Inequality Impair Health? Evidence from Rural China," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-18, March.
    8. E. Wesley F. Peterson, 2017. "Is Economic Inequality Really a Problem? A Review of the Arguments," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 6(4), pages 1-25, December.

    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. Markus Brueckner & Daniel Lederman, 2018. "Inequality and economic growth: the role of initial income," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 23(3), pages 341-366, September.
    2. Andrew Berg & Jonathan D. Ostry & Charalambos G. Tsangarides & Yorbol Yakhshilikov, 2018. "Redistribution, inequality, and growth: new evidence," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 23(3), pages 259-305, September.
    3. Adnen Ben Nasr & Mehmet Balcilar & Rangan Gupta & Seyi Saint Akadiri, 2018. "Asymmetric Effects of Inequality on Per Capita Real GDP of the United States," Working Papers 201820, University of Pretoria, Department of Economics.
    4. Ademola Obafemi Young, 2019. "Growth Impacts of Income Inequality: Empirical Evidence From Nigeria," Research in World Economy, Research in World Economy, Sciedu Press, vol. 10(3), pages 226-262, December.
    5. Adnen Ben Nasr & Mehmet Balcilar & Rangan Gupta & Seyi Saint Akadiri, 2020. "Asymmetric effects of inequality on real output levels of the United States," Eurasian Economic Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 10(1), pages 47-69, March.
    6. Andros Kourtellos & Charalambos G. Tsangarides, 2022. "Robust Correlates of Growth Spells: Do Inequality and Redistribution Matter?," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 84(6), pages 1302-1328, December.
    7. Paweł Bukowski & Filip Novokmet, 2021. "Between communism and capitalism: long-term inequality in Poland, 1892–2015," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 26(2), pages 187-239, June.
    8. Gustavo A. Marrero & Luis Servén, 2022. "Growth, inequality and poverty: a robust relationship?," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 63(2), pages 725-791, August.
    9. Bogang Jun & Tai-Yoo Kim, 2017. "Non-financial hurdles for human capital accumulation: landownership in Korea under Japanese rule," Cliometrica, Springer;Cliometric Society (Association Francaise de Cliométrie), vol. 11(1), pages 63-92, January.
    10. Mehmet Balcilar & Rangan Gupta & Wei Ma & Philton Makena, 2021. "Income inequality and economic growth: A re‐examination of theory and evidence," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(2), pages 737-757, May.
    11. Aiyar, Shekhar & Ebeke, Christian, 2020. "Inequality of opportunity, inequality of income and economic growth," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 136(C).
    12. Lubimov, I.L. (Любимов, И.Л.), 2016. "Inequality and Growth: Theoretical Aspects of Dependence [Неравенство И Экономический Рост: Теоретические Аспекты Зависимости]," Working Papers 2042, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration.
    13. Marrero, Gustavo A. & Rodríguez, Juan G., 2013. "Inequality of opportunity and growth," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 107-122.
    14. Roxana Gutiérrez-Romero, 2020. "Inequality affects long-run growth: Cross-industry, cross-country evidence," Working Papers 102, Queen Mary, University of London, School of Business and Management, Centre for Globalisation Research.
    15. Roy van der Weide & Branko Milanovic, 2018. "Inequality is Bad for Growth of the Poor (but Not for That of the Rich)," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 32(3), pages 507-530.
    16. Gutiérrez-Romero, Roxana, 2021. "How does inequality affect long-run growth? Cross-industry, cross-country evidence," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 274-297.
    17. Vincent Leyaro, 2015. "Threshold and interaction effects in the trade, growth, and inequality relationship," WIDER Working Paper Series 009, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    18. Matías Braun & Francisco Parro & Patricio Valenzuela, 2019. "Does Finance Alter The Relation Between Inequality And Growth?," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 57(1), pages 410-428, January.
    19. Bagchi, Sutirtha & Svejnar, Jan, 2015. "Does wealth inequality matter for growth? The effect of billionaire wealth, income distribution, and poverty," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(3), pages 505-530.
    20. Fischer, Ronald & Huerta, Diego & Valenzuela, Patricio, 2019. "The inequality-credit nexus," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 105-125.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Pro-Poor Growth; Economic Theory&Research; Services&Transfers to Poor; Inequality; Poverty Impact Evaluation;
    All these keywords.

    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:wbk:wbrwps:7317. 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: Roula I. Yazigi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dvewbus.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.