Advanced Search

Inequality-Driven Growth: Unveiling Aggregation Effects in Growth Equations

Contents:

Author Info

  • Pedro H. Albuquerque

Abstract

This paper presents a simple Cass-Koopmans-Ramsey AK growth model with heterogeneity that explains how policies that increase income inequality may temporarily boost a country’s income growth rate. Briefly put, a change in policy that reduces redistributive transfers will free up resources to the households with the highest productivities, resulting in an aggregate growth rate increase that will endure until new limits to differentiated accumulation are found. The unambiguous effect takes place in poor and rich countries alike, arising from productivity heterogeneity and redistribution (although it could also arise from other sources of heterogeneity). The effect is explicitly captured in the aggregate growth equation by the changes of the mean logarithmic deviation (MLD or Theil’s second measure) of the income. The model supports the empirical results found in Forbes (AER, 2000). The accelerated growth episodes observed in Brazil from 1968 to 1973 and in China recently are shown to be empirically consistent with the model. If the model predictions are correct, Chinese growth rates may eventually fall, following a pattern that, even if not presenting the same magnitude, could resemble the one observed during the Brazilian slowdown

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
File URL: http://repec.org/esLATM04/up.5901.1078737351.pdf
Download Restriction: no

Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Econometric Society in its series Econometric Society 2004 Latin American Meetings with number 7.

Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML (with abstract), plain text (with abstract), BibTeX, RIS (EndNote, RefMan, ProCite), ReDIF
Length:
Date of creation: 11 Aug 2004
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:ecm:latm04:7

Contact details of provider:
Phone: 1 212 998 3820
Fax: 1 212 995 4487
Email:
Web page: http://www.econometricsociety.org/pastmeetings.asp
More information through EDIRC

For corrections or technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (Christopher F. Baum).

Related research

Keywords: Inequality; Growth; Income Distribution; Redistribution; Heterogeneity; AK Model; Brazil; China;

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Barro, Robert J, 2000. " Inequality and Growth in a Panel of Countries," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 5(1), pages 5-32, March.
  2. Deininger, K & Squire, L, 1996. "Measuring Income Inequality : A New Data-Base," Papers 537, Harvard - Institute for International Development.
  3. Bourguignon, Francois, 1979. "Decomposable Income Inequality Measures," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 47(4), pages 901-20, July.
  4. Larry E. Jones & Rodolfo E. Manuelli, 1994. "The Sources of Growth," GE, Growth, Math methods 9410002, EconWPA, revised 05 Mar 1999.
  5. Lewbel, Arthur, 1992. "Aggregation with Log-Linear Models," Review of Economic Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 59(3), pages 635-42, July.
  6. Lixin Colin Xu & Heng-fu Zou, 2000. "Explaining the Changes of Income Distribution in China," CEMA Working Papers 473, China Economics and Management Academy, Central University of Finance and Economics.
  7. Fields, Gary S, 1980. "Who Benefits from Economic Development? Reply," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 70(1), pages 257-62, March.
  8. Gibson, John & Huang, Jikun & Rozelle, Scott, 2001. "Why is income inequality so low in China compared to other countries?: The effect of household survey methods," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 71(3), pages 329-333, June.
  9. van Garderen, Kees Jan & Lee, Kevin & Pesaran, M. Hashem, 2000. "Cross-sectional aggregation of non-linear models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 95(2), pages 285-331, April.
  10. Fishlow, Albert, 1980. "Who Benefits from Economic Development? Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 70(1), pages 250-56, March.
  11. 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.
  12. Ravallion, Martin, 1998. "Does aggregation hide the harmful effects of inequality on growth?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 61(1), pages 73-77, October.
  13. Pedro H. Albuquerque, 2003. "A practical log-linear aggregation method with examples: heterogeneous income growth in the USA," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(6), pages 665-678.
  14. Xin Meng, 2004. "Economic Restructuring and Income Inequality in Urban China," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 50(3), pages 357-379, 09.
  15. Fishlow, Albert, 1972. "Brazilian Size Distribution of Income," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 62(2), pages 391-402, May.
  16. Hirschman, Albert O & Rothschild, Michael, 1973. "The Changing Tolerance for Income Inequality in the Course of Economic Development; with a Mathematical Appendix," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 87(4), pages 544-66, November.
  17. Stoker, Thomas M, 1986. "Simple Tests of Distributional Effects on Macroeconomic Equations," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(4), pages 763-95, August.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations

Lists

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Statistics

Access and download statistics

Corrections

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ecm:latm04:7

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Christopher F. Baum).

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 references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link 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 profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.