IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/vfsc16/145700.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Factor Income Distribution and Endogenous Economic Growth - When Piketty meets Romer -

Author

Listed:
  • Irmen, Andreas
  • Tabakovic, Amer

Abstract

We scrutinize Thomas Piketty's (2014) theory concerning the relationship between an economy's long-run growth rate, its capital-income ratio, and its factor income distribution put forth in his recent book Capital in the Twenty-First Century. We find that a smaller long-run growth rate may be associated with a smaller capital-income ratio. Hence, Piketty's Second Fundamental Law of Capitalism does not hold. However, in line with Piketty's theory a smaller long-run growth rate goes together with a greater capital share. These findings obtain in variants of Romer's (1990) seminal model of endogenous technological change. Here, both the economy's savings rate and its growth rate are endogenous variables whereas in Piketty's theory they are both exogenous parameters.

Suggested Citation

  • Irmen, Andreas & Tabakovic, Amer, 2016. "Factor Income Distribution and Endogenous Economic Growth - When Piketty meets Romer -," VfS Annual Conference 2016 (Augsburg): Demographic Change 145700, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
  • Handle: RePEc:zbw:vfsc16:145700
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/145700/1/VfS_2016_pid_6684.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Romer, Paul M, 1986. "Increasing Returns and Long-run Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(5), pages 1002-1037, October.
    2. Bertola, Giuseppe, 1993. "Factor Shares and Savings in Endogenous Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(5), pages 1184-1198, December.
    3. Growiec, Jakub & McAdam, Peter & Mućk, Jakub, 2018. "Endogenous labor share cycles: Theory and evidence," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 74-93.
    4. Robert M. Solow, 1956. "A Contribution to the Theory of Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 70(1), pages 65-94.
    5. Rebelo, Sergio, 1991. "Long-Run Policy Analysis and Long-Run Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(3), pages 500-521, June.
    6. Oded Galor & Ömer Özak, 2016. "The Agricultural Origins of Time Preference," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(10), pages 3064-3103, October.
    7. Odran Bonnet & Pierre-Henri Bono & Guillaume Chapelle & Etienne Wasmer, 2014. "Does housing capital contribute to inequality? A comment on Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century," Sciences Po Economics Discussion Papers 2014-07, Sciences Po Departement of Economics.
    8. Lawrence E. Blume & Steven N. Durlauf, 2015. "Capital in the Twenty-First Century: A Review Essay," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 123(4), pages 749-777.
    9. Irmen, Andreas, 2018. "A Generalized Steady-State Growth Theorem," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 22(4), pages 779-804, June.
    10. Michael Elsby & Bart Hobijn & Ayseful Sahin, 2013. "The Decline of the U.S. Labor Share," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 44(2 (Fall)), pages 1-63.
    11. Daron Acemoglu & James A. Robinson, 2015. "The Rise and Decline of General Laws of Capitalism," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 29(1), pages 3-28, Winter.
    12. H. Uzawa, 1961. "Neutral Inventions and the Stability of Growth Equilibrium," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 28(2), pages 117-124.
    13. Thomas Piketty & Emmanuel Saez, 2014. "Inequality in the long run," PSE - Labex "OSE-Ouvrir la Science Economique" halshs-01053609, HAL.
    14. Per Krusell & Anthony A. Smith Jr., 2015. "Is Piketty's "Second Law of Capitalism" Fundamental?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 123(4), pages 725-748.
    15. Stefan Homburg, 2015. "Critical remarks on Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-first Century," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(14), pages 1401-1406, March.
    16. Steger, Thomas Michael & Grossmann, Volker, 2016. "Das House-Kapital: A Theory of Wealth-to-Income Ratios," VfS Annual Conference 2016 (Augsburg): Demographic Change 145936, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    17. Bridgman, Benjamin, 2018. "Is Labor'S Loss Capital'S Gain? Gross Versus Net Labor Shares," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 22(8), pages 2070-2087, December.
    18. repec:wly:soecon:v:81:3:y:2015:p:697-723 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Das, Mausumi, 2003. "Optimal growth with decreasing marginal impatience," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 27(10), pages 1881-1898, August.
    20. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/30nstiku669glbr66l6n7mc2oq is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Dean Scrimgeour, 2015. "Dynamic Scoring in a Romer‐Style Economy," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 81(3), pages 697-723, January.
    22. Debraj Ray, 2015. "Nit-Piketty: A Comment on Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty First Century," CESifo Forum, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 16(01), pages 19-25, May.
    23. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/30nstiku669glbr66l6n7mc2oq is not listed on IDEAS
    24. Matthew Rognlie, 2015. "Deciphering the Fall and Rise in the Net Capital Share," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 50(1 (Spring), pages 1-69.
    25. Fogel,Robert William, 2004. "The Escape from Hunger and Premature Death, 1700–2100," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521004886, October.
    26. Matthew Rognlie, 2015. "Deciphering the Fall and Rise in the Net Capital Share: Accumulation or Scarcity?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 46(1 (Spring), pages 1-69.
    27. Jones, Charles I, 1995. "R&D-Based Models of Economic Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(4), pages 759-784, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Andreas Irmen & Amer Tabakovic, 2020. "Factor Income Distribution And Endogenous Economic Growth: Piketty Meets Romer," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 58(3), pages 1342-1361, July.
    2. Jones, C.I., 2016. "The Facts of Economic Growth," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 3-69, Elsevier.
    3. Robert Z. Lawrence, 2015. "Recent Declines in Labor's Share in US Income: A Preliminary Neoclassical Account," Working Paper Series WP15-10, Peterson Institute for International Economics.
    4. Jose Barrales‐Ruiz & Ivan Mendieta‐Muñoz & Codrina Rada & Daniele Tavani & Rudiger von Arnim, 2022. "The distributive cycle: Evidence and current debates," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(2), pages 468-503, April.
    5. Growiec, Jakub & McAdam, Peter & Mućk, Jakub, 2018. "Endogenous labor share cycles: Theory and evidence," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 74-93.
    6. Jose Barrales-Ruiz, Ivan Mendieta-Muñoz, Codrina Rada, Daniele Tavani, Rudiger von Arnim, 2020. "The distributive cycle: Evidence and current debates," Working Paper Series, Department of Economics, University of Utah 2020_07, University of Utah, Department of Economics.
    7. William D. Nordhaus, 2021. "Are We Approaching an Economic Singularity? Information Technology and the Future of Economic Growth," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 13(1), pages 299-332, January.
    8. Bonnet, Odran & Chapelle, Guillaume & Trannoy, Alain & Wasmer, Etienne, 2021. "Land is back, it should be taxed, it can be taxed," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    9. Lee Ohanian & Musa Orak & Shihan Shen, 2023. "Revisiting Capital-Skill Complementarity, Inequality, and Labor Share," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 51, pages 479-505, December.
    10. Takahashi, Harutaka & Le Riche, Antoine, 2021. "A dynamic theory of the declining aggregated labor income share: Intangible capital vs. tangible capital," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(1), pages 104-118.
    11. Andrew Glover & Jacob Short, 2020. "Can Capital Deepening Explain the Global Decline in Labor's Share?," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 35, pages 35-53, January.
    12. ADACHI Daisuke & SAITO Yukiko, 2020. "Multinational Production and Labor Share," Discussion papers 20012, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    13. Francesca Crucitti & Lorenza Rossi, 2022. "Labor Share Decline and Productivity Slowdown: A Micro-Macro Analysis," Working Papers 350577481, Lancaster University Management School, Economics Department.
    14. Emilien Gouin-Bonenfant, 2018. "Productivity Dispersion, Between-firm Competition and the Labor Share," 2018 Meeting Papers 1171, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    15. Clemens Struck & Adnan Velic, 2017. "Automation, New Technology, and Non-Homothetic Preferences," Trinity Economics Papers tep1217, Trinity College Dublin, Department of Economics.
    16. Bom, Pedro R.D. & Erauskin, Iñaki, 2022. "Productive government investment and the labor share," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 347-363.
    17. Marisa Civardi & Renata Targetti Lenti, 2018. "Can the link between functional and personal income distribution enhance the analysis of inequality?," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 65(2), pages 137-156, June.
    18. Jakub Growiec & Peter McAdam & Jakub Mućk, 2021. "On the Optimal Labor Income Share," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 17(70), pages 1-52, October.
    19. Carroll, Daniel R. & Young, Eric R., 2018. "Neoclassical inequality," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 83-109.
    20. Song, Eunbi, 2021. "What drives labor share change? Evidence from Korean industries," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 370-385.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E10 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General Aggregative Models - - - General
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes
    • E25 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Aggregate 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:zbw:vfsc16:145700. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfsocea.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.