This paper studies the relationship between investor protection, financial risk sharing and income inequality. In the presence of market frictions, better protection makes investors more willing to take on entrepreneurial risk while lending to firms. This implies lower cost of external finance and better risk sharing between financiers and entrepreneurs. Investor protection, by boosting the market for risk sharing plays the twofold role of encouraging agents to undertake risky enterprises and providing them with insurance. By increasing the number of risky projects, it raises income inequality. By extending insurance to more agents, it reduces it. As a result, the relationship between the size of the market for risk sharing and income inequality is hump-shaped. Empirical evidence from a cross-section of sixty-eight countries, and a panel of fifty countries over the period 1976-2000, supports the predictions of the model.
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Paper provided by Unitat de Fonaments de l'Anàlisi Econòmica (UAB) and Institut d'Anàlisi Econòmica (CSIC) in its series UFAE and IAE Working Papers with number
679.07.
Find related papers by JEL classification: D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy G30 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - General O15 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration O16 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Financial Markets; Saving and Capital Investment
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