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Income Distribution, Consumer Debt and Keeping up with the Joneses

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  • Soon Ryoo
  • Yun K. Kim

Abstract

We extend Kaldor's theory of income distribution to include workers' debt accumulation and their motive to emulate rentiers' consumption. Our results show that (i) the interaction between income distribution and emulation can produce instability; (ii) instability is more likely when the workers' emulation motive is strong and bankers' lending decisions are highly accommodating; and (iii) a plausible assumption on the non-linearity of emulation behavior can generate a limit cycle. Our analysis provides an alternative perspective on the increase in household indebtedness for the decades before the recent crisis and the subsequent deleveraging process.

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  • Soon Ryoo & Yun K. Kim, 2014. "Income Distribution, Consumer Debt and Keeping up with the Joneses," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 65(4), pages 585-618, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:metroe:v:65:y:2014:i:4:p:585-618
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    3. Ying’ai Piao & Meiru Li & Hongyuan Sun & Ying Yang, 2023. "Income Inequality, Household Debt, and Consumption Growth in the United States," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(5), pages 1-13, February.
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    9. Brochier, Lidia & Freitas, Fábio, 2019. "Stock-flow ratios and the paradox of debt in canonical neo-kaleckian and supermultiplier models," MPRA Paper 96252, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Fernando Rugitsky, 2016. "Growth, distribution, and sectoral heterogeneity: Reading the Kaleckians in Latin America," Economia, ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pós-Graduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics], vol. 17(3), pages 265-278.
    11. Fierro, Luca Eduardo & Giri, Federico & Russo, Alberto, 2023. "Inequality-constrained monetary policy in a financialized economy," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 216(C), pages 366-385.
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    14. Giraud, Gaël & Grasselli, Matheus, 2021. "Household debt: The missing link between inequality and secular stagnation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 183(C), pages 901-927.
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    16. Stockhammer, Engelbert & Wildauer, Rafael, 2018. "Expenditure Cascades, Low Interest Rates or Property Booms? Determinants of Household Debt in OECD Countries," Review of Behavioral Economics, now publishers, vol. 5(2), pages 85-121, September.
    17. Yun K. Kim, 2017. "Rise of Household Debt and the Great Recession in the US: Comparative Perspectives," Working Papers 2017_03, University of Massachusetts Boston, Economics Department.
    18. Laura Carvalho & Fernando Rugitsky, 2015. "Growth and distribution in Brazil the 21st century: revisiting the wage-led versus profit-led debate," Working Papers, Department of Economics 2015_25, University of São Paulo (FEA-USP).
    19. Yun K. Kim, 2020. "Household Debt Accumulation and the Great Recession of the United States: A Comparative Perspective," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 52(1), pages 26-49, March.
    20. Michel Eduardo Betancourt Gómez, 2023. "Income distribution, banks and managers: A linear joint‐production model with financial assets," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 74(1), pages 74-93, February.
    21. Hulya Dagdeviren & Jiayi Balasuriya & Christopher Nicholas, 2022. "Spatial dynamics of post-crisis deleveraging [Financial geography II: financial geographies of housing and real estate]," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 22(6), pages 1225-1246.
    22. Engelbert Stockhammer & Giorgos Gouzoulis, 2023. "Debt-GDP cycles in historical perspective: the case of the USA (1889–2014)," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 32(2), pages 317-335.

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