IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pri/econom/2018-15.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Intangibles, Inequality and Stagnation

Author

Listed:
  • Nobuhiro Kiyotaki

    (Princeton University)

  • Shengxing Zhang

    (London School of Economics)

Abstract

We examine how aggregate output and income distribution interact with accumulation of intangible capital over time and across individuals. We consider an overlapping generations economy in which managerial skill (intangible capital) is essential for production, and it is acquired by young workers through on-the-job training by old managers. We show that, when young trainees are not committed to staying in the same firms and repaying their debt, a small difference in initial endowment and ability of young workers leads to a large inequality in accumulation of intangibles and lifetime income. A negative shock to endowment or the degree of commitment generates a persistent stagnation and a rise in inequality.

Suggested Citation

  • Nobuhiro Kiyotaki & Shengxing Zhang, 2018. "Intangibles, Inequality and Stagnation," Working Papers 2018-15, Princeton University. Economics Department..
    • Handle: RePEc:pri:econom:2018-15
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://economicdynamics.org/meetpapers/2018/paper_110.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fatih Guvenen & Fatih Karahan & Serdar Ozkan & Jae Song, 2015. "What Do Data on Millions of U.S. Workers Reveal about Life-Cycle Earnings Risk?," NBER Working Papers 20913, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Francisco J. Buera & Yongseok Shin, 2013. "Financial Frictions and the Persistence of History: A Quantitative Exploration," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 121(2), pages 221-272.
    3. Carol Corrado & Charles Hulten & Daniel Sichel, 2009. "Intangible Capital And U.S. Economic Growth," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 55(3), pages 661-685, September.
    4. Benjamin Moll, 2014. "Productivity Losses from Financial Frictions: Can Self-Financing Undo Capital Misallocation?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(10), pages 3186-3221, October.
    5. Luigi Guiso & Luigi Pistaferri & Fabiano Schivardi, 2013. "Credit within the Firm," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 80(1), pages 211-247.
    6. Andrew Atkeson & Robert E. Lucas, 1992. "On Efficient Distribution With Private Information," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 59(3), pages 427-453.
    7. Rothschild, Michael & White, Lawrence J, 1995. "The Analytics of the Pricing of Higher Education and Other Services in Which the Customers Are Inputs," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(3), pages 573-586, June.
    8. Lucas, Robert E, Jr, 1992. "On Efficiency and Distribution," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 102(411), pages 233-247, March.
    9. 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.
    10. Kiminori Matsuyama, 2008. "Aggregate Implications of Credit Market Imperfections," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2007, Volume 22, pages 1-60, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Fatih Guvenen & Fatih Karahan & Serdar Ozkan & Jae Song, 2021. "What Do Data on Millions of U.S. Workers Reveal About Lifecycle Earnings Dynamics?," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 89(5), pages 2303-2339, September.
    12. Roland Benabou, 2002. "Tax and Education Policy in a Heterogeneous-Agent Economy: What Levels of Redistribution Maximize Growth and Efficiency?," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(2), pages 481-517, March.
    13. Oded Galor & Joseph Zeira, 1993. "Income Distribution and Macroeconomics," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 60(1), pages 35-52.
    14. Nobuhiro Kiyotaki, 1998. "Credit and Business Cycles," The Japanese Economic Review, Japanese Economic Association, vol. 49(1), pages 18-35, March.
    15. Francisco Buera, 2009. "A dynamic model of entrepreneurship with borrowing constraints: theory and evidence," Annals of Finance, Springer, vol. 5(3), pages 443-464, June.
    16. Prescott, Edward C & Boyd, John H, 1987. "Dynamic Coalitions: Engines of Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(2), pages 63-67, May.
    17. Ljungqvist, Lars & Sargent, Thomas J., 2012. "Recursive Macroeconomic Theory, Third Edition," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 3, volume 1, number 0262018748, December.
    18. Ander Perez-Orive & Andrea Caggese, 2017. "Capital Misallocation and Secular Stagnation," 2017 Meeting Papers 382, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    19. James Heckman & Lance Lochner & Christopher Taber, 1998. "Explaining Rising Wage Inequality: Explanations With A Dynamic General Equilibrium Model of Labor Earnings With Heterogeneous Agents," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 1(1), pages 1-58, January.
    20. Andrea L. Eisfeldt & Dimitris Papanikolaou, 2013. "Organization Capital and the Cross-Section of Expected Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 68(4), pages 1365-1406, August.
    21. Axel Anderson & Lones Smith, 2010. "Dynamic Matching and Evolving Reputations," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 77(1), pages 3-29.
    22. Banerjee, Abhijit V. & Duflo, Esther, 2005. "Growth Theory through the Lens of Development Economics," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 7, pages 473-552, Elsevier.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Zhang, Haiping, 2022. "Upstream financial flows, intangible investment, and allocative efficiency," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).

    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. Shengxing Zhang & Nobuhiro Kiyotaki, 2017. "Intangibles, Inequality and Stagnation," 2017 Meeting Papers 1414, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    2. Marti Mestieri & Johanna Schauer & Robert Townsend, 2017. "Human Capital Acquisition and Occupational Choice: Implications for Economic Development," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 25, pages 151-186, April.
    3. Oleg Itskhoki & Benjamin Moll, 2019. "Optimal Development Policies With Financial Frictions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 87(1), pages 139-173, January.
    4. Shirai, Daichi, 2016. "Persistence and Amplification of Financial Frictions," MPRA Paper 72187, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Markus Brueckner & Tomoo Kikuchi & George Vachadze, 2016. "Effects of Income Growth on Domestic Saving Rates: The Role of Poverty and Borrowing Constraints," ANU Working Papers in Economics and Econometrics 2016-636, Australian National University, College of Business and Economics, School of Economics.
    6. Allub, Lian & Erosa, Andrés, 2019. "Financial frictions, occupational choice and economic inequality," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 63-76.
    7. D’Onofrio, Alexandra & Minetti, Raoul & Murro, Pierluigi, 2019. "Banking development, socioeconomic structure and income inequality," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 428-451.
    8. Reto Foellmi & Manuel Oechslin, 2020. "Harmful Procompetitive Effects of Trade in Presence of Credit Market Frictions," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 52(6), pages 1493-1525, September.
    9. Chanont Banternghansa, 2017. "Multi-Firm Entrepreneurship and Financial Frictions," PIER Discussion Papers 56, Puey Ungphakorn Institute for Economic Research.
    10. Golosov, M. & Tsyvinski, A. & Werquin, N., 2016. "Recursive Contracts and Endogenously Incomplete Markets," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 725-841, Elsevier.
    11. Markus Brueckner & Tomoo Kikuchi & George Vachadze, 2020. "Transitional Dynamics of the Saving Rate and Economic Growth," Papers 2012.15435, arXiv.org, revised Jun 2021.
    12. Miguel Casares & Luca G. Deidda & Jose E. Galdon‐Sanchez, 2023. "On financial frictions and firm's market power," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 61(4), pages 982-1005, October.
    13. Kaymak, Barıș & Leung, David & Poschke, Markus, 2020. "Accounting for Wealth Concentration in the US," IZA Discussion Papers 13082, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. Etro, Federico, 2017. "Research in economics and macroeconomics," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(3), pages 373-383.
    15. Rafael P. Ribas, 2020. "Liquidity constraints, spillovers, and entrepreneurship: evidence from a cash transfer program," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 55(4), pages 1131-1158, December.
    16. Yanos Zylberberg, 2011. "Capital misallocation and credit constraints: Theory and evidence from natural," Working Papers halshs-00607212, HAL.
    17. Pedro S. Amaral & Erwan Quintin, 2021. "Security creation costs and economic development," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 71(1), pages 283-304, February.
    18. Kiminori Matsuyama, 2008. "Aggregate Implications of Credit Market Imperfections," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2007, Volume 22, pages 1-60, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Yanos Zylberberg, 2011. "Capital misallocation and credit constraints: Theory and evidence from natural," PSE Working Papers halshs-00607212, HAL.
    20. Ngoc‐Sang Pham & Hien Pham, 2021. "Effects of credit limit on efficiency and welfare in a simple general equilibrium model," International Journal of Economic Theory, The International Society for Economic Theory, vol. 17(4), pages 446-470, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Inequality; Income distribution; Economic models;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration

    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:pri:econom:2018-15. 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: Bobray Bordelon (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://economics.princeton.edu/working-papers/ .

    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.