IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eej/eeconj/v29y2003i1p105-119.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Capital Wealth Inequality and Public Bads: A Mathematical Analysis

Author

Listed:
  • James A. Yunker

    (Western Illinois University)

Abstract

In A Future for Socialism (1994), John Roerrre'r argues that the highly unequal distribution of capital wealth under contemporary capitalism results in a level of public bads (e.g., environmental degradation) higher than that which would be preferred by the large majority of the population. This contention is examined using an alternative formal model, of arguably greater economic content and realism, from which the result is obtained that the household's share of capital property return has an uncertain effect on its preferred level of the public bad. In the CES special case, the effect of household capital wealth on its preferred level of public bad is determined by the elasticities of substitution in the production and utility functions.

Suggested Citation

  • James A. Yunker, 2003. "Capital Wealth Inequality and Public Bads: A Mathematical Analysis," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 29(1), pages 105-119, Winter.
    • Handle: RePEc:eej:eeconj:v:29:y:2003:i:1:p:105-119
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://web.holycross.edu/RePEc/eej/Archive/Volume29/V29N1P105_119.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. James A. Yunker, 1998. "Inheritance and Chance as Determinants of Capital Wealth Inequality," Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(2), pages 227-258, December.
    2. Brooks, Nancy & Sethi, Rajiv, 1997. "The Distribution of Pollution: Community Characteristics and Exposure to Air Toxics," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 233-250, February.
    3. Selden Thomas M. & Song Daqing, 1994. "Environmental Quality and Development: Is There a Kuznets Curve for Air Pollution Emissions?," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 147-162, September.
    4. Robert E. Kohn, 1998. "Pollution and the Firm," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 1313.
    5. Gene M. Grossman & Alan B. Krueger, 1995. "Economic Growth and the Environment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(2), pages 353-377.
    6. Wolfgang Keller & Arik Levinson, 2000. "Environmental Regulations and FDI Inflows to U.S. States," Working Papers gueconwpa~00-00-06, Georgetown University, Department of Economics.
    7. Kahn, Matthew E & Matsusaka, John G, 1997. "Demand for Environmental Goods: Evidence from Voting Patterns on California Initiatives," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 40(1), pages 137-173, April.
    8. William T. Harbaugh & Arik Levinson & David Molloy Wilson, 2002. "Reexamining The Empirical Evidence For An Environmental Kuznets Curve," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 84(3), pages 541-551, August.
    9. McAusland, Carol, 2003. "Voting for pollution policy: the importance of income inequality and openness to trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(2), pages 425-451, December.
    10. Wolfson, Michael & Murphy, Brian B, 1998. "New Views on Inequality Trends in Canada and the United States," Analytical Studies Branch Research Paper Series 1998124e, Statistics Canada, Analytical Studies Branch.
    11. Boyce, James K., 1994. "Inequality as a cause of environmental degradation," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(3), pages 169-178, December.
    12. Roemer, John E, 1993. " Would Economic Democracy Decrease the Amount of Public Bads?," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 95(2), pages 227-238.
    13. Harford, Jon D., 1987. "Self-reporting of pollution and the firm's behavior under imperfectly enforceable regulations," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 293-303, September.
    14. Wolff, Edward N, 1992. "Changing Inequality of Wealth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(2), pages 552-558, May.
    15. James Boyce, 1994. "Inequality as a Cause of Environmental Degradation," Published Studies ps1, Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
    16. Samuel Bowles & Herbert Gintis, 2002. "The Inheritance of Inequality," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 16(3), pages 3-30, Summer.
    17. Moomaw, William R. & Unruh, Gregory C., 1997. "Are environmental Kuznets curves misleading us? The case of CO2 emissions," Environment and Development Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 2(4), pages 451-463, November.
    18. Magnani, Elisabetta, 2000. "The Environmental Kuznets Curve, environmental protection policy and income distribution," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 431-443, March.
    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. James Boyce, 2003. "Inequality and Environmental Protection," Working Papers wp52, Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
    2. Fateh Belaïd, Sabri Boubaker, Rajwane Kafrouni, 2020. "Carbon emissions, income inequality and environmental degradation: the case of Mediterranean countries," European Journal of Comparative Economics, Cattaneo University (LIUC), vol. 17(1), pages 73-102, June.
    3. Andrea Mantovani & Ornella Tarola & Cecilia Vergari, 2014. "Hedonic quality, social norms, and environmental campaigns," Working Papers 2014/36, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    4. Theodore Panayotou, 2000. "Economic Growth and the Environment," CID Working Papers 56A, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    5. Vona, Francesco & Patriarca, Fabrizio, 2011. "Income inequality and the development of environmental technologies," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(11), pages 2201-2213, September.
    6. Unmesh Patnaik & Santosh K. Sahu, 2016. "The Tradeoffs between GHGs Emissions, Income Inequality and Productivity," Working Papers id:10882, eSocialSciences.
    7. Mariano Torras, 2006. "The Impact of Power Equality, Income, and the Environment on Human Health: Some Inter-Country Comparisons," International Review of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(1), pages 1-20.
    8. Martin Gassebner & Michael Lamla & Jan-Egbert Sturm, 2006. "Economic, demographic and political determinants of pollution reassessed," KOF Working papers 06-129, KOF Swiss Economic Institute, ETH Zurich.
    9. Nyakundi M. Michieka & John Deal & Kyle Lahman, 2022. "Air pollution and income inequality: a spatial econometric approach," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 69(1), pages 1-31, August.
    10. J. Aznar-Márquez & J. R. Ruiz-Tamarit, "undated". "Non-Catastrophic Endogenous Growth and the Environmental Kuznets Curve," Working Papers 2004-15, FEDEA.
    11. Angelo Antoci & Paolo Russu & Elisa Ticci, 2022. "Modeling maladaptation in the inequality–environment nexus," Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, Springer;Society for Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents, vol. 17(1), pages 115-140, January.
    12. Tom Verbeke & M. De Clercq, 2003. "The income-environment relationship: Does a logit model offer an alternative empirical strategy?," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 03/192, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
    13. Grunewald, Nicole & Klasen, Stephan & Martínez-Zarzoso, Inmaculada & Muris, Chris, 2017. "The Trade-off Between Income Inequality and Carbon Dioxide Emissions," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 249-256.
    14. Jie He, 2007. "Is the Environmental Kuznets Curve hypothesis valid for developing countries? A survey," Cahiers de recherche 07-03, Departement d'économique de l'École de gestion à l'Université de Sherbrooke.
    15. Wan, Guanghua & Wang, Chen & Wang, Jinxian & Zhang, Xun, 2022. "The income inequality-CO2 emissions nexus: Transmission mechanisms," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 195(C).
    16. Andrea Mantovani & Ornella Tarola & Cecilia Vergari, 2014. "Hedonic quality, social norms, and environmental campaigns," Working Papers 2014/36, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    17. Sencer Atasoy, Burak, 2017. "Testing the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis across the U.S.: Evidence from panel mean group estimators," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 731-747.
    18. Heerink, Nico & Mulatu, Abay & Bulte, Erwin, 2001. "Income inequality and the environment: aggregation bias in environmental Kuznets curves," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 359-367, September.
    19. Martin Gassebner & Michael Lamla & Jan-Egbert Sturm, 2006. "Economic, Demographic and Political Determinants of Pollution Reassessed: A Sensitivity Analysis," CESifo Working Paper Series 1699, CESifo.
    20. Bradford David F. & Fender Rebecca A & Shore Stephen H. & Wagner Martin, 2005. "The Environmental Kuznets Curve: Exploring a Fresh Specification," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 4(1), pages 1-30, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Distribution; Wealth; Inequality;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution

    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:eej:eeconj:v:29:y:2003:i:1:p:105-119. 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: Victor Matheson, College of the Holy Cross (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/eeaa1ea.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.