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Savings externalities and wealth inequality

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  • Konstantinos Angelopoulos
  • Spyridon Lazarakis
  • James Malley

Abstract

Incomplete markets models imply heterogeneous household savings behaviour which in turn generates pecuniary externalities via the interest rate. Conditional on differences in the processes determining household earnings for distinct groups in the population, these savings externalities may contribute to inequality. Working with an open economy heterogenous agent model, where the interest rate only partially responds to domestic asset supply, we find that differences in the earnings processes of British households with university and non-university educated heads entail savings externalities that increase wealth inequality between the groups and within the group of the non-university educated households. We further find that while the inefficiency effects of these externalities are quantitatively small, the distributional effects are sizeable.

Suggested Citation

  • Konstantinos Angelopoulos & Spyridon Lazarakis & James Malley, 2019. "Savings externalities and wealth inequality," Working Papers 2019_05, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
  • Handle: RePEc:gla:glaewp:2019_05
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    Cited by:

    1. Konstantinos Angelopoulos & Spyridon Lazarakis & James Malley, 2019. "The distributional effects of peer and aspirational pressure," Working Papers 2019_06, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    2. Angelos Angelopoulos & Konstantinos Angelopoulos & Spyridon Lazarakis & Apostolis Philippopoulos, 2019. "The Distributional Consequences of Rent Seeking," CESifo Working Paper Series 7835, CESifo.
    3. Heejeong Kim, 2022. "Education, Wage Dynamics, and Wealth Inequality," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 43, pages 217-240, January.
    4. Holzmann, Robert & Ayuso, Mercedes & Alaminos, Estefanía & Bravo, Jorge Miguel, 2019. "Life Cycle Saving and Dissaving Revisited across Three-Tiered Income Groups: Starting Hypotheses, Refinement through Literature Review, and Ideas for Empirical Testing," IZA Discussion Papers 12655, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Konstantinos Angelopoulos & Spyridon Lazarakis & James Malley, 2019. "The distributional effects of peer and aspirational pressure," Working Papers 2019-06, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    incomplete markets; productivity di§erences; savings externalities;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • E25 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Aggregate Factor Income Distribution
    • H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies

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