This paper presents an overlapping generations model with technology choice and imperfect financial markets, and examines the evolution of income distribution in economic development. The model shows that improvements in financial infrastructure facilitate economic development both by raising the aggregate capital-labor ratio and by causing a technological shift to more capital-intensive technologies. While a higher capital-labor ratio under a given technology reduces inequality, a technological shift can lead to a concentration of the economic rents among a smaller number of agents. We derive the condition under which an improvement in financial infrastructure actually decreases the average utility of agents.
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Paper provided by University Library of Munich, Germany in its series MPRA Paper with number
7919.
Find related papers by JEL classification: O16 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Financial Markets; Saving and Capital Investment O14 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Industrialization; Manufacturing and Service Industries; Choice of Technology
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Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes & Andrei Shleifer & Robert W. Vishny, 1998.
"Law and Finance,"
Journal of Political Economy,
University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(6), pages 1113-1155, December.
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Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez-de-Silane & Andrei Shleifer & Robert W. Vishny, 1996.
"Law and Finance,"
NBER Working Papers
5661, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)