IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_3832.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Endogenous Growth, the Distribution of Wealth, and Optimal Policy under Incomplete Markets and Idiosyncratic Risk

Author

Listed:
  • Christiane Clemens
  • Maik Heinemann

Abstract

This paper combines the standard incomplete markets model of uninsurable idiosyncratic risks and borrowing constraints with the Arrow/Romer approach to endogenous growth to analyze the interaction of risk, growth, and inequality, the latter also endogenously determined in equilibrium. We derive conditions on existence and nonexistence of balanced growth paths. Major results include that growth, inequality, and risk are positively related in our model, but we also identify a hump–shaped relationship between welfare and risk, indicating a tradeoff relationship between risk–pooling and growth in the determination of welfare. We employ the prototypical policy implications of the underlying growth model (i.e. subsidizing capital returns) and find that the tax–transfer scheme positively affects growth while simultaneously reducing wealth inequality in the economy. The benefits and burdens of the underlying policy are unequally distributed, which raises the issue of politico–economic equilibria. We provide results on majority voting, finding that that the median voter prefers less than optimal subsidies on investment. Interestingly, the society might even vote against a policy providing full insurance against idiosyncratic risk, because welfare losses of lower growth more than offset welfare gains from lower risk.

Suggested Citation

  • Christiane Clemens & Maik Heinemann, 2012. "Endogenous Growth, the Distribution of Wealth, and Optimal Policy under Incomplete Markets and Idiosyncratic Risk," CESifo Working Paper Series 3832, CESifo.
  • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_3832
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp3832.pdf
    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. Bertola, Giuseppe, 1993. "Factor Shares and Savings in Endogenous Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(5), pages 1184-1198, December.
    3. Aiyagari, S. Rao & McGrattan, Ellen R., 1998. "The optimum quantity of debt," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(3), pages 447-469, October.
    4. Deininger, Klaus & Squire, Lyn, 1998. "New ways of looking at old issues: inequality and growth," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(2), pages 259-287.
    5. Banerjee, Abhijit V & Newman, Andrew F, 1993. "Occupational Choice and the Process of Development," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(2), pages 274-298, April.
    6. Chen, Chau-Nan & Tsaur, Tien-Wang & Rhai, Tong-Shieng, 1982. "The Gini Coefficient and Negative Income," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 34(3), pages 473-478, November.
    7. Karen Kopecky & Richard Suen, 2010. "Finite State Markov-chain Approximations to Highly Persistent Processes," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 13(3), pages 701-714, July.
    8. Oded Galor & Joseph Zeira, 1993. "Income Distribution and Macroeconomics," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 60(1), pages 35-52.
    9. S. Rao Aiyagari, 1994. "Uninsured Idiosyncratic Risk and Aggregate Saving," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 109(3), pages 659-684.
    10. Roland Bénabou, 1996. "Inequality and Growth," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1996, Volume 11, pages 11-92, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Tullio Jappelli & Marco Pagano, 1994. "Saving, Growth, and Liquidity Constraints," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 109(1), pages 83-109.
    12. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 1994. "Is Inequality Harmful for Growth?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(3), pages 600-621, June.
    13. Giuseppe Bertola & Reto Foellmi & Josef Zweimüller, 2005. "Income Distribution in Macroeconomic Models," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 8058.
    14. Kristin J. Forbes, 2000. "A Reassessment of the Relationship between Inequality and Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(4), pages 869-887, September.
    15. Huggett, Mark, 1993. "The risk-free rate in heterogeneous-agent incomplete-insurance economies," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 17(5-6), pages 953-969.
    16. Fatih Guvenen, 2009. "An Empirical Investigation of Labor Income Processes," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 12(1), pages 58-79, January.
    17. Christopher D. Carroll, 1997. "Buffer-Stock Saving and the Life Cycle/Permanent Income Hypothesis," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 112(1), pages 1-55.
    18. Perotti, Roberto, 1994. "Income distribution and investment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 38(3-4), pages 827-835, April.
    19. Kjetil Storesletten & Chris I. Telmer & Amir Yaron, 2004. "Cyclical Dynamics in Idiosyncratic Labor Market Risk," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(3), pages 695-717, June.
    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. Clemens, Christiane & Heinemann, Maik, 2015. "Endogenous growth and wealth inequality under incomplete markets and idiosyncratic risk," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 300-317.
    2. Thomas Leoni & Wolfgang Pollan, 2003. "The Impact of Inequality on Economic Growth," WIFO Working Papers 211, WIFO.
    3. Christophe Ehrhart, 2009. "The effects of inequality on growth: a survey of the theoretical and empirical literature," Working Papers 107, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    4. Amparo Castelló-Climent, 2004. "A Reassessment Of The Relationship Between Inequality And Growth: What Human Capital Inequality Data Say?," Working Papers. Serie EC 2004-15, Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas, S.A. (Ivie).
    5. Marta Simões & João Andrade & Adelaide Duarte, 2013. "A regional perspective on inequality and growth in Portugal using panel cointegration analysis," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 10(3), pages 427-451, September.
    6. Bertola, Giuseppe, 2000. "Macroeconomics of distribution and growth," Handbook of Income Distribution, in: A.B. Atkinson & F. Bourguignon (ed.), Handbook of Income Distribution, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 9, pages 477-540, Elsevier.
    7. Verónica Amarante & Gioia de Melo, 2004. "Crecimiento económico y desigualdad: una revisión bibliográfica," Documentos de Trabajo (working papers) 04-02, Instituto de Economía - IECON.
    8. Grossmann, Volker, 2008. "Risky human capital investment, income distribution, and macroeconomic dynamics," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 19-42, March.
    9. Bourguignon, Francois, 2005. "The Effect of Economic Growth on Social Structures," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 27, pages 1701-1747, Elsevier.
    10. Josef ZweimüLler, 2000. "Inequality, Redistribution, and Economic Growth," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 27(1), pages 1-20, March.
    11. Isaac Ehrlich & Jinyoung Kim, 2007. "The Evolution of Income and Fertility Inequalities over the Course of Economic Development: A Human Capital Perspective," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 1(1), pages 137-174.
    12. Krueger, D. & Mitman, K. & Perri, F., 2016. "Macroeconomics and Household Heterogeneity," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 843-921, Elsevier.
    13. Aysan, Ahmet Faruk, 2005. "The Role of Efficiency of Redistributive Institutions on Redistribution: An Empirical Assessment," MPRA Paper 17773, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Juan Carlos Cordoba & Genevieve Verdier, 2005. "Lucas vs. Lucas: On Inequality and Growth," Macroeconomics 0511021, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Manuel Oechslin, 2009. "Creditor protection and the dynamics of the distribution in oligarchic societies," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 14(4), pages 313-344, December.
    16. Clemens, Christiane & Heinemann, Maik, 2019. "The Effects Of International Financial Integration In A Model With Heterogeneous Firms And Credit Frictions," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 23(7), pages 2815-2844, October.
    17. Andrés Rodríguez-Pose & Vassilis Tselios, 2010. "Inequalities in income and education and regional economic growth in western Europe," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 44(2), pages 349-375, April.
    18. Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel & José-Carlos Tello, 2014. "The Political Economy of Growth, Inequality, the Size and Composition of Government Spending," Working Papers 19, Peruvian Economic Association.
    19. Joël Hellier & Stéphane Lambrecht, 2013. "Inequality, Growth and Welfare: The Main Links," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Joël Hellier & Nathalie Chusseau (ed.), Growing Income Inequalities, chapter 9, pages 274-311, Palgrave Macmillan.
    20. Nobuhiro Mizuno & Katsuyuki Naito & Ryosuke Okazawa, 2017. "Inequality, extractive institutions, and growth in nondemocratic regimes," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 170(1), pages 115-142, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    endogenous growth; wealth distribution; idiosyncratic risk; borrowing constraints; heterogeneous agents; optimal policy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O40 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - General
    • D30 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - General
    • D80 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - General
    • D90 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - General
    • C60 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - General

    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:ces:ceswps:_3832. 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: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.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.