Is lifetime inequality mainly due to differences across people established early in life or to differences in luck experienced over the working lifetime? We answer this question within a model that features idiosyncratic shocks to human capital, estimated directly from data, as well as heterogeneity in ability to learn, initial human capital, and initial wealth -- features which are chosen to match observed properties of earnings dynamics by cohorts. We find that as of age 20, differences in initial conditions account for more of the variation in lifetime utility, lifetime earnings and lifetime wealth than do differences in shocks received over the lifetime. Among initial conditions, variation in initial human capital is substantially more important than variation in learning ability or initial wealth for determining how an agent fares in life. An increase in an agent's human capital affects expected lifetime utility by raising an agent's expected earnings profile, whereas an increase in learning ability affects expected utility by producing a steeper expected earnings profile.
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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number
13224.
Length: Date of creation: Jul 2007 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13224
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Paper
Mark Huggett & Gustavo Ventura & Amir Yaron, 2007.
"Sources of Lifetime Inequality,"
Working Papers
gueconwpa~07-07-04, Georgetown University, Department of Economics.
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Find related papers by JEL classification: D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution D91 - Microeconomics - - Intertemporal Choice and Growth - - - Intertemporal Consumer Choice; Life Cycle Models and Saving E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomics: Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
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Browning, Martin & Hansen, Lars Peter & Heckman, James J., 1999.
"Micro data and general equilibrium models,"
Handbook of Macroeconomics,
in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 8, pages 543-633
Elsevier.
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