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Income Distribution and Consumption Driven Growth: How Consumption Behaviors of the Top Two Income Quintiles Help to Explain the Economy

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  • Timothy Wunder

Abstract

Recent institutionalist and post-Keynesian work on business cycles continues with the traditional institutionalist supposition that financial bubbles drive cycles; however there has been a growing sense in the literature that household consumption, not business investment, has become the key variable. This paper will show how this is a change from historical institutional theory and it will then discuss how this change pushes income distribution toward a more central role in explaining current cycle dynamics. Specifically, this paper argues that much of the economic growth over the last two decades can be attributed to the top two quintiles borrowing more and the current slow growth can be attributed to high quintile households increasing their consumption while middle income households are continuing to deleverage.

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  • Timothy Wunder, 2012. "Income Distribution and Consumption Driven Growth: How Consumption Behaviors of the Top Two Income Quintiles Help to Explain the Economy," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(1), pages 173-192.
    • Handle: RePEc:mes:jeciss:v:46:y:2012:i:1:p:173-192
    DOI: 10.2753/JEI0021-3624460107
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    Cited by:

    1. Bernard Njindan Iyke & Sin‐Yu Ho, 2020. "Consumption and exchange rate uncertainty: Evidence from selected Asian countries," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(9), pages 2437-2462, September.
    2. Sebastien Charles & Thomas Dallery & Jonathan Marie, 2021. "Teaching the Economic Impact of COVID-19 with a Simple Short-run Macro-model: Simultaneous Supply and Demand Shocks," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(3), pages 462-479, July.
    3. Juhro, Solikin M. & Iyke, Bernard Njindan, 2020. "Consumer confidence and consumption expenditure in Indonesia," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 367-377.
    4. Aboohamidi, Abbas & Chidmi, Benaissa, 2015. "Changes in the Wealth of American Households during the 2007-2009 Financial Crisis in the U.S," 2015 AAEA & WAEA Joint Annual Meeting, July 26-28, San Francisco, California 205451, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    5. Sébastien Charles & Thomas Dallery & Jonathan Marie, 2015. "Why the Keynesian Multiplier Increases During Hard Times: A Theoretical Explanation Based on Rentiers' Saving Behaviour," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 66(3), pages 451-473, July.
    6. Timothy A. Wunder, 2016. "Setting a Principal to Interest Cap on the Issuance of Home Mortgages: a Proposed Change to Mortgage Underwriting Rules Designed to Control Housing Price Inflation," World Economic Review, World Economics Association, vol. 2016(6), pages 1-86, February.
    7. Charles, Sébastien, 2019. "Le multiplicateur budgétaire endogène au cycle dans un modèle macroéconomique post-keynésien [The state-dependent fiscal Multiplier in a Post-Keynesian Macroeconomic Model]," Revue de la Régulation - Capitalisme, institutions, pouvoirs, Association Recherche et Régulation, vol. 26.
    8. Charles J. Whalen, 2012. "Post-Keynesian Institutionalism after the Great Recession," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_724, Levy Economics Institute.
    9. David Cayla, 2013. "European Debt Crisis: How a Public Debt Restructuring Can Solve a Private Debt Issue," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(2), pages 427-436.
    10. Olga Zakrevskaya & Sharon Mastracci, 2013. "Differential Effects of the Great Recession by Household Type," Challenge, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 56(6), pages 87-114.
    11. Charles J. Whalen, 2020. "Post-Keynesian institutionalism: past, present, and future," Evolutionary and Institutional Economics Review, Springer, vol. 17(1), pages 71-92, January.

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