IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/thk/wpaper/69.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Inequality in the 21st Century:A Critical Analysis of Piketty`s Work

Author

Listed:
  • Nadia Garbellini

    (Universita di Bergamo)

Abstract

Thomas Piketty`s (2014) Capital in the XXI Century aims to analyze distributions of income and wealth in a set of developed countries and their determinants, from the nineteenth century to the present. The objective is a bold one, made even more so by the fact that Piketty pursues it not only from a theoretical, but also, from an empirical point of view. The task is particularly impressive not only because of the enormous effort required in collecting and organizing data, but also because the work entails attaching a deterministic interpretation to facts and figures from radically different countries over a time span that covers almost two centuries, thereby forcing comparison between numbers coming from clearly incommensurable contexts. These difficulties are not lost to Piketty, who states that ``[w]ithout precisely defined sources, methods, and concepts, it is possible to see everything and its opposite.`` (Piketty, 2014, pp.2-3) This study argues that the empirical `methods and concepts` adopted by Piketty are not always consistent with those coming from his reference theoretical framework, nor from National Accounts (United Nations, 2009).

Suggested Citation

  • Nadia Garbellini, 2018. "Inequality in the 21st Century:A Critical Analysis of Piketty`s Work," Working Papers Series 69, Institute for New Economic Thinking.
    • Handle: RePEc:thk:wpaper:69
    DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.3125221
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.ineteconomics.org/uploads/papers/WP_69_Garbellini-Final-Jan-22.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2018
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.2139/ssrn.3125221?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Avi J. Cohen, 2003. "Retrospectives: Whatever Happened to the Cambridge Capital Theory Controversies?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 17(1), pages 199-214, Winter.
    2. Bliss, C. J., 1975. "Capital Theory and the Distribution of Income," Elsevier Monographs, Elsevier, edition 1, number 9780720436044 edited by Bliss, C. J..
    3. David Levhari, 1965. "A Nonsubstitution Theorem and Switching of Techniques," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 79(1), pages 98-105.
    4. Pasinetti, Luigi L, 1969. "Switches of Technique and the "Rate of Return" in Capital Theory," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 79(315), pages 508-531, September.
    5. Robert M. Solow, 1956. "A Contribution to the Theory of Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 70(1), pages 65-94.
    6. Harcourt,G. C., 1972. "Some Cambridge Controversies in the Theory of Capital," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521096720.
    7. Thomas Piketty & Gabriel Zucman, 2014. "Capital is Back: Wealth-Income Ratios in Rich Countries 1700–2010," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 129(3), pages 1255-1310.
    8. A. Cohen & G. Harcourt., 2009. "Whatever Happened to the Cambridge Capital Theory Controversies?," VOPROSY ECONOMIKI, N.P. Redaktsiya zhurnala "Voprosy Economiki", vol. 8.
    9. Nadia Garbellini & Ariel Luis Wirkierman, 2014. "Piketty Versus Pasinetti: A Comment on Taylor," International Journal of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(3), pages 35-43, July.
    10. Paul A. Samuelson, 1966. "A Summing Up," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 80(4), pages 568-583.
    11. Joan Robinson, 1953. "The Production Function and the Theory of Capital," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 21(2), pages 81-106.
    12. David Levhari & Paul A. Samuelson, 1966. "The Nonswitching Theorem is False," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 80(4), pages 518-519.
    13. Paul A. Samuelson, 1962. "Parable and Realism in Capital Theory: The Surrogate Production Function," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 29(3), pages 193-206.
    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. Joseph Halevi, 2021. "Book review: Mauro L Baranzini and Amalia Mirante, Luigi Pasinetti: An Intellectual Biography," The Economic and Labour Relations Review, , vol. 32(1), pages 134-138, March.

    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. Garbellini, Nadia, 2020. "Measurement without theory, and theory without measurement: What's wrong with Piketty's capital in the XXI century?," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 50-62.
    2. J. Barkley Rosser, 2020. "Austrian themes and the Cambridge capital theory controversies," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 33(4), pages 415-431, December.
    3. Luigi L. Pasinetti, 2000. "Critique of the neoclassical theory of growth and distribution," Banca Nazionale del Lavoro Quarterly Review, Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, vol. 53(215), pages 383-431.
    4. Luigi L. Pasinetti, 2000. "Critique of the neoclassical theory of growth and distribution," BNL Quarterly Review, Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, vol. 53(215), pages 383-431.
    5. Carlo Milana, 2019. "Solving the Reswitching Paradox in the Sraffian Theory of Capital," Applied Economics and Finance, Redfame publishing, vol. 6(6), pages 97-125, November.
    6. Avi J. Cohen, 2003. "Retrospectives: Whatever Happened to the Cambridge Capital Theory Controversies?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 17(1), pages 199-214, Winter.
    7. Kazuhiro Kurose & Naoki Yoshihara, 2018. "The Heckscher—Ohlin—Samuelson Trade Theory and the Cambridge Capital Controversies: On the Validity of Factor Price Equalisation Theorem," Working Papers SDES-2018-17, Kochi University of Technology, School of Economics and Management, revised Nov 2018.
    8. Kurose, Kazuhiro & Yoshihara, Naoki, 2016. "The Heckscher-Ohlin-Samuelson Model and the Cambridge Capital Controversies," UMASS Amherst Economics Working Papers 2016-05, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Department of Economics.
    9. S K Mishra, 2010. "A Brief History of Production Functions," The IUP Journal of Managerial Economics, IUP Publications, vol. 0(4), pages 6-34, November.
    10. George Bitros, 2010. "The theorem of proportionality in contemporary capital theory: An assessment of its conceptual foundations," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 23(4), pages 367-401, December.
    11. Kurose, Kazuhiro & Yoshihara, Naoki, 2018. "The Heckscher—Ohlin—Samuelson Trade Theory and the Cambridge Capital Controversies: On the Validity of Factor Price Equalisation Theorem," Discussion Paper Series 686, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
    12. Harvey Gram & Geoffrey Harcourt, 2015. "Joan Robinson and MIT," Working Papers 9, City University of New York Graduate Center, Ph.D. Program in Economics.
    13. Avi J. Cohen & Geoffrey C. Harcourt, 2010. "Reswitching and Reversing in Capital Theory," Chapters, in: Mark Blaug & Peter Lloyd (ed.), Famous Figures and Diagrams in Economics, chapter 24, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    14. Gregor Semieniuk, 2017. "Piketty’s Elasticity of Substitution: A Critique," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(1), pages 64-79, January.
    15. Jesus Felipe & John S.L. McCombie, 2013. "The Aggregate Production Function and the Measurement of Technical Change," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 1975.
    16. Michael Osborne & Ian Davidson, 2016. "The Cambridge capital controversies: contributions from the complex plane," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(2), pages 251-269, April.
    17. G. C. Harcourt, 2015. "On the Cambridge, England, Critique of the Marginal Productivity Theory of Distribution," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 47(2), pages 243-255, June.
    18. Gilbert Faccarello, 1976. "Bibliographie," Cahiers d'Économie Politique, Programme National Persée, vol. 3(1), pages 243-260.
    19. Lance Taylor, 2015. "Veiled Repression: Mainstream Economics, Capital Theory,and the Distributions of Income and Wealth," Working Papers Series 32, Institute for New Economic Thinking.
    20. Yara Zeineddine, 2021. "Institutional Aspects of Capital in Joan Robinson's 'Rules of the Game': Rentier versus Entrepreneurs in Managerial Capitalism," Working Papers hal-03230146, HAL.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Capital; Capital output ratio; Income distribution; Inequality; Growth theory; National accounts.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E01 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General - - - Measurement and Data on National Income and Product Accounts and Wealth; Environmental Accounts
    • E20 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)
    • D30 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - General
    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • D33 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Factor Income Distribution

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:thk:wpaper:69. 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: Pia Malaney (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inetnus.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.