IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/macdyn/v22y2018i04p864-895_00.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Infrastructure And Inequality: Insights From Incorporating Key Economic Facts About Household Heterogeneity

Author

Listed:
  • Klenert, David
  • Mattauch, Linus
  • Edenhofer, Ottmar
  • Lessmann, Kai

Abstract

We study the impacts of investment in public capital on equity and efficiency. Taking into account stylized facts on wealth accumulation, we model agent heterogeneity through differences in saving behavior, income source and time preference. We find that in the long run, public investment is Pareto-improving and that it reduces inequality in wealth, welfare, and income at the same time, if it is financed by a capital tax. Consumption tax financing is also Pareto-improving but distribution-neutral. Only for labor tax financing, a trade-off between equity and efficiency occurs. Additionally, we find that agents differ in their preferred tax rates.The results for capital and labor tax financing are valid for both, the case of decreasing and constant returns to accumulable factors.

Suggested Citation

  • Klenert, David & Mattauch, Linus & Edenhofer, Ottmar & Lessmann, Kai, 2018. "Infrastructure And Inequality: Insights From Incorporating Key Economic Facts About Household Heterogeneity," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 22(4), pages 864-895, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:macdyn:v:22:y:2018:i:04:p:864-895_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S1365100516000432/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Romer, Paul M, 1986. "Increasing Returns and Long-run Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(5), pages 1002-1037, October.
    2. César Calderón & Alberto Chong, 2004. "Volume and Quality of Infrastructure and the Distribution of Income: An Empirical Investigation," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 50(1), pages 87-106, March.
    3. Christopher D Carroll, 1997. "Why Do the Rich Save So Much?," Economics Working Paper Archive 388, The Johns Hopkins University,Department of Economics.
    4. Linus Mattauch & Ottmar Edenhofer & David Klenert & Sophie Bénard, 2014. "Public Investment when Capital is Back - Distributional Effects of Heterogeneous Saving Behavior," CESifo Working Paper Series 4714, CESifo.
    5. Edward N. Wolff, 2007. "Recent Trends in Household Wealth in the United States: Rising Debt and the Middle-Class Squeeze," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_502, Levy Economics Institute.
    6. Chiroleu-Assouline, Mireille & Fodha, Mouez, 2014. "From regressive pollution taxes to progressive environmental tax reforms," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 126-142.
    7. Alberto Alesina & Dani Rodrik, 1994. "Distributive Politics and Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(2), pages 465-490.
    8. William G. Gale & John Karl Scholz, 1994. "Intergenerational Transfers and the Accumulation of Wealth," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 8(4), pages 145-160, Fall.
    9. Orazio Attanasio, 1994. "Personal Saving in the United States," NBER Chapters, in: International Comparisons of Household Saving, pages 57-124, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Martin Browning & Annamaria Lusardi, 1996. "Household Saving: Micro Theories and Micro Facts," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 34(4), pages 1797-1855, December.
    11. De Nardi, Mariacristina & Yang, Fang, 2014. "Bequests and heterogeneity in retirement wealth," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 182-196.
    12. Mariacristina De Nardi, 2004. "Wealth Inequality and Intergenerational Links," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 71(3), pages 743-768.
    13. Christopher D. Carroll, 2000. "Requiem for the Representative Consumer? Aggregate Implications of Microeconomic Consumption Behavior," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(2), pages 110-115, May.
    14. Vincenzo Quadrini & José-Víctor Ríos-Rull, 1997. "Understanding the U.S. distribution of wealth," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, vol. 21(Spr), pages 22-36.
    15. Guvenen, Fatih, 2006. "Reconciling conflicting evidence on the elasticity of intertemporal substitution: A macroeconomic perspective," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(7), pages 1451-1472, October.
    16. Chatterjee, Santanu & Turnovsky, Stephen J., 2012. "Infrastructure and inequality," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(8), pages 1730-1745.
    17. 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.
    18. Edward N. Wolff, 2010. "Recent Trends in Household Wealth in the United States-- Rising Debt and the Middle-Class Squeeze--An Update to 2007," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_589, Levy Economics Institute.
    19. Barro, Robert J, 1990. "Government Spending in a Simple Model of Endogenous Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(5), pages 103-126, October.
    20. Robert A. Becker, 1980. "On the Long-Run Steady State in a Simple Dynamic Model of Equilibrium with Heterogeneous Households," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 95(2), pages 375-382.
    21. Santanu Chatterjee & Sugata Ghosh, 2011. "The dual nature of public goods and congestion: the role of fiscal policy revisited," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 44(4), pages 1471-1496, November.
    22. James M. Poterba, 1994. "International Comparisons of Household Saving," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number pote94-1, March.
    23. Javier Diaz-Gimenez & Andrew Glover & José-Víctor Ríos-Rull, 2011. "Facts on the distributions of earnings, income, and wealth in the United States: 2007 update," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    24. Edward N. Wolff, 1998. "Recent Trends in the Size Distribution of Household Wealth," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(3), pages 131-150, Summer.
    25. Per Krusell & Anthony A. Smith & Jr., 1998. "Income and Wealth Heterogeneity in the Macroeconomy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(5), pages 867-896, October.
    26. Lawrance, Emily C, 1991. "Poverty and the Rate of Time Preference: Evidence from Panel Data," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(1), pages 54-77, February.
    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. Jan Siegmeier & Linus Mattauch & Max Franks & David Klenert & Anselm Schultes & Ottmar Edenhofer, 2015. "A Public Finance Perspective on Climate Policy: Six Interactions That May Enhance Welfare," Working Papers 2015.31, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    2. Mattauch, Linus & Klenert, David & Stiglitz, Joseph E. & Edenhofer, Ottmar, 2022. "Overcoming wealth inequality by capital taxes that finance public investment," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 383-395.
    3. Osvaldo Nina, 2021. "Efecto del COVID-19 en el sistema de intermediación financiera: El caso boliviano," Development Research Working Paper Series 04/2021, Institute for Advanced Development Studies.
    4. Serban Raicu & Dorinela Costescu & Mihaela Popa & Vasile Dragu, 2021. "Dynamic Intercorrelations between Transport/Traffic Infrastructures and Territorial Systems: From Economic Growth to Sustainable Development," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(21), pages 1-16, October.

    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. Jan Siegmeier & Linus Mattauch & Max Franks & David Klenert & Anselm Schultes & Ottmar Edenhofer, 2015. "A Public Finance Perspective on Climate Policy: Six Interactions That May Enhance Welfare," Working Papers 2015.31, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    2. Mattauch, Linus & Klenert, David & Stiglitz, Joseph E. & Edenhofer, Ottmar, 2022. "Overcoming wealth inequality by capital taxes that finance public investment," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 383-395.
    3. Linus Mattauch & Ottmar Edenhofer & David Klenert & Sophie Bénard, 2014. "Public Investment when Capital is Back - Distributional Effects of Heterogeneous Saving Behavior," CESifo Working Paper Series 4714, CESifo.
    4. Linus Mattauch & Ottmar Edenhofer & David Klenert & Sophie Bénard, 2016. "Distributional Effects of Public Investment when Wealth and Classes are Back," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 67(3), pages 603-629, July.
    5. Cagetti, Marco & De Nardi, Mariacristina, 2008. "Wealth Inequality: Data And Models," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 12(S2), pages 285-313, September.
    6. Mariacristina De Nardi, 2015. "Quantitative Models of Wealth Inequality: A Survey," NBER Working Papers 21106, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Marco Cozzi, 2012. "Risk Aversion Heterogeneity, Risky Jobs And Wealth Inequality," Working Paper 1286, Economics Department, Queen's University.
    8. 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.
    9. Mattauch, Linus & Klenert, David & Stiglitz, Joseph E. & Edenhofer, Ottmar, 2017. "Piketty meets Pasinetti: On public investment and intelligent machinery," VfS Annual Conference 2017 (Vienna): Alternative Structures for Money and Banking 168156, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    10. Getachew, Yoseph Y. & Turnovsky, Stephen J., 2015. "Productive government spending and its consequences for the growth–inequality tradeoff," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(4), pages 621-640.
    11. Mauro Baranzini, 2005. "Modigliani's life-cycle theory of savings fifty years later," Banca Nazionale del Lavoro Quarterly Review, Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, vol. 58(233-234), pages 109-172.
    12. Stephen J. Turnovsky, 2013. "The relationship between economic growth and inequality," New Zealand Economic Papers, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(2), pages 113-139, August.
    13. Mauro Baranzini, 2005. "Modigliani's life-cycle theory of savings fifty years later," BNL Quarterly Review, Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, vol. 58(233-234), pages 109-172.
    14. Noritaka Maebayashi & Kunihiko Konishi, 2016. "Sustainability of the public debt and wealth inequality in a general equilibrium model," Discussion Papers in Economics and Business 16-33, Osaka University, Graduate School of Economics.
    15. Turnovsky, Stephen J., 2015. "Economic growth and inequality: The role of public investment," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 204-221.
    16. Grossmann, Volker, 2008. "Risky human capital investment, income distribution, and macroeconomic dynamics," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 19-42, March.
    17. Hero Ashman & Seth Neumuller, 2020. "Can Income Differences Explain the Racial Wealth Gap: A Quantitative Analysis," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 35, pages 220-239, January.
    18. Fang Yang, 2005. "Accounting for the heterogeneity in retirement wealth," Working Papers 638, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    19. Huggett, Mark & Ventura, Gustavo, 2000. "Understanding why high income households save more than low income households," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(2), pages 361-397, April.
    20. Getachew, Yoseph Y. & Turnovsky, Stephen J., 2020. "Redistribution, inequality, and efficiency with credit constraints: Implications for South Africa," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 259-277.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • E60 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - General
    • H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies
    • H31 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - Household
    • H54 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Infrastructures

    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:cup:macdyn:v:22:y:2018:i:04:p:864-895_00. 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: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/mdy .

    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.