IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ddj/fserec/y2018p208-214.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Drivers and consequences of income inequality

Author

Listed:
  • Arabela ICHIM

    (Dunarea de Jos University of Galati, Romania)

  • Mihaela NECULITA

    (Dunarea de Jos University of Galati, Romania)

  • Daniela Ancuta SARPE

    (Dunarea de Jos University of Galati, Romania)

Abstract

There is little consensus amongst economists when it comes to income inequality. This study consists of examining the existing literature and empirical studies and answer the following question: “What are the most important drivers of income inequality and its consequences?†The most prominent literature in the field is analyzed, conclusions are made, and this paper can be a starting point of an empirical study. The findings of this paper suggest that the main drivers of inequality are differences in wages, technological development, wealth concentration, redistribution policies and deregulation of the financial sector.

Suggested Citation

  • Arabela ICHIM & Mihaela NECULITA & Daniela Ancuta SARPE, 2018. "Drivers and consequences of income inequality," Risk in Contemporary Economy, "Dunarea de Jos" University of Galati, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, pages 208-214.
    • Handle: RePEc:ddj:fserec:y:2018:p:208-214
    DOI: 10.26397/RCE2067053222
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.rce.feaa.ugal.ro/images/stories/RCE2018/Ichim_Neculita_Sarpe1.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.26397/RCE2067053222?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Miles Corak, 2013. "Income Inequality, Equality of Opportunity, and Intergenerational Mobility," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 27(3), pages 79-102, Summer.
    2. 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.
    3. Brian Bell & John Reenen, 2014. "Bankers and Their Bonuses," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 124(574), pages 1-21, February.
    4. Carl-Johan Dalgaard & Henrik Hansen & Theo Larsen, 2003. "Income Skewness, Redistribution and Growth: A Reconciliation," EPRU Working Paper Series 03-14, Economic Policy Research Unit (EPRU), University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
    5. Branko Milanovic, 2013. "Global Income Inequality in Numbers: in History and Now," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 4(2), pages 198-208, May.
    6. Steven N. Kaplan & Joshua Rauh, 2010. "Wall Street and Main Street: What Contributes to the Rise in the Highest Incomes?," NBER Chapters, in: Corporate Governance, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. N. Gregory Mankiw, 2013. "Defending the One Percent," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 27(3), pages 21-34, Summer.
    8. Hamid Boustanifar & Everett Grant & Ariell Reshef, 2018. "Wages and Human Capital in Finance: International Evidence, 1970–2011 [Financial reform: what shakes it? What shapes it?]," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 22(2), pages 699-745.
    9. Roberts, Kevin W. S., 1977. "Voting over income tax schedules," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 329-340, December.
    10. Loukas Karabarbounis, 2011. "One Dollar, One Vote," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 121(553), pages 621-651, June.
    11. Milanovic, Branko, 2000. "The median-voter hypothesis, income inequality, and income redistribution: an empirical test with the required data," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 367-410, September.
    12. Thomas Philippon & Ariell Reshef, 2013. "An International Look at the Growth of Modern Finance," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 27(2), pages 73-96, Spring.
    13. Charles Murray, 2002. "IQ and Income Inequality in a Sample of Sibling Pairs from Advantaged Family Backgrounds," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(2), pages 339-343, May.
    14. Romer, Thomas, 1975. "Individual welfare, majority voting, and the properties of a linear income tax," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 4(2), pages 163-185, February.
    15. Daron Acemoglu, 2002. "Technical Change, Inequality, and the Labor Market," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 40(1), pages 7-72, March.
    16. Hamid Boustanifar & Everett Grant & Ariell Reshef, 2016. "Wages and human capital in finance: international evidence, 1970-2005," Globalization Institute Working Papers 266, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
    17. Fields, Gary S., 1987. "Measuring inequality change in an economy with income growth," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 357-374, August.
    18. Daron Acemoglu & Suresh Naidu & Pascual Restrepo & James A. Robinson, 2013. "Democracy, Redistribution and Inequality," NBER Working Papers 19746, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Holger Strulik, 2007. "A distributional theory of government growth," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 132(3), pages 305-318, September.
    2. Marin, Giovanni & Vona, Francesco, 2023. "Finance and the reallocation of scientific, engineering and mathematical talent," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(5).
    3. Corneo, Giacomo & Neher, Frank, 2015. "Democratic redistribution and rule of the majority," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 40(PA), pages 96-109.
    4. Jo Thori Lind, 2005. "Why is there so little redistribution?," Nordic Journal of Political Economy, Nordic Journal of Political Economy, vol. 31, pages 111-125.
    5. Laura Mayoral & Joan Esteban, 2019. "A politico-economic model of public expenditure and income taxation," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 10(3), pages 479-507, November.
    6. Campante, Filipe R., 2011. "Redistribution in a model of voting and campaign contributions," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(7-8), pages 646-656, August.
    7. Christian Pfarr & Andreas Schmid & Morten Raun Mørkbak, 2018. "Modelling Heterogeneous Preferences for Income Redistribution–An Application of Continuous and Discrete Distributions," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 64(2), pages 270-294, June.
    8. Julia Tanndal & Daniel Waldenström, 2018. "Does Financial Deregulation Boost Top Incomes? Evidence from the Big Bang," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 85(338), pages 232-265, April.
    9. Neustadt, Ilja & Zweifel, Peter, 2010. "Is the Welfare State Sustainable? Experimental Evidence on Citizens' Preferences for Redistribution," MPRA Paper 22233, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Robert A.J. Dur & Coen N. Teulings, 2001. "Education and Efficient Redistribution," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 01-090/3, Tinbergen Institute, revised 12 Jun 2003.
    11. Pfarr, Christian, 2012. "Meltzer-Richard and social mobility hypothesis: revisiting the income-redistribution nexus using German choice data," MPRA Paper 43325, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Nolan, Brian & Richiardi, Matteo & Valenzuela, Luis, 2018. "The Drivers of Inequality in Rich Countries," INET Oxford Working Papers 2018-15, Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford.
    13. Peter Lambert & Thor Thoresen & Runa Nesbakken, 2010. "On the Meaning and Measurement of Redistribution in Cross-Country Comparisons," LIS Working papers 532, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    14. Pfarr, Christian & Schmid, Andreas & Mørkbak, Morten Raun, 2015. "Latent characteristics and preferences for income redistribution," VfS Annual Conference 2015 (Muenster): Economic Development - Theory and Policy 113001, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    15. Christian Bredemeier, 2014. "Imperfect information and the Meltzer-Richard hypothesis," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 159(3), pages 561-576, June.
    16. Meltzer, Allan H. & Richard, Scott F., 2015. "A positive theory of economic growth and the distribution of income," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(3), pages 265-290.
    17. Francesco D'Acunto & Laurent Frésard, 2018. "Finance, Talent Allocation, and Growth," CESifo Working Paper Series 6883, CESifo.
    18. Sudip Ranjan Basu, 2017. "Do data show divergence? Revisiting global income inequality trends," Asia-Pacific Development Journal, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), vol. 24(1), pages 23-53, June.
    19. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/510i09nqpa8gfpt7na72sknq4q is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Weijie Luo, 2021. "Inequality and the size of US state government," Working Papers 594, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    21. Christos Bilanakos, 2012. "Consumers’ Heterogeneity, Publicness of Goods and the Size of Public Sector," University of Cyprus Working Papers in Economics 18-2012, University of Cyprus Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    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:ddj:fserec:y:2018:p:208-214. 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: Gianina Mihai (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/fegalro.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.