IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/emetrp/v84y2016ip2071-2111.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Dynamics of Inequality

Author

Listed:
  • Xavier Gabaix
  • Jean‐Michel Lasry
  • Pierre‐Louis Lions
  • Benjamin Moll

Abstract

The past forty years have seen a rapid rise in top income inequality in the United States. While there is a large number of existing theories of the Pareto tail of the long‐run income distributions, almost none of these address the fast rise in top inequality observed in the data. We show that standard theories, which build on a random growth mechanism, generate transition dynamics that are too slow relative to those observed in the data. We then suggest two parsimonious deviations from the canonical model that can explain such changes: “scale dependence” that may arise from changes in skill prices, and “type dependence,” that is, the presence of some “high‐growth types.” These deviations are consistent with theories in which the increase in top income inequality is driven by the rise of “superstar” entrepreneurs or managers.

Suggested Citation

  • Xavier Gabaix & Jean‐Michel Lasry & Pierre‐Louis Lions & Benjamin Moll, 2016. "The Dynamics of Inequality," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 84, pages 2071-2111, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:emetrp:v:84:y:2016:i::p:2071-2111
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/
    Download Restriction: no

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Malevergne, Y. & Saichev, A. & Sornette, D., 2013. "Zipf's law and maximum sustainable growth," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 37(6), pages 1195-1212.
    2. 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.
    3. Shuhei Aoki & Makoto Nirei, 2014. "Zipf’s Law, Pareto’s Law, and the Evolution of Top Incomes in the U.S," UTokyo Price Project Working Paper Series 023, University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Economics.
    4. Jason DeBacker & Bradley Heim & Vasia Panousi & Shanthi Ramnath & Ivan Vidangos, 2013. "Rising Inequality: Transitory or Persistent? New Evidence from a Panel of U.S. Tax Returns," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 46(1 (Spring), pages 67-142.
    5. Xavier Gabaix & Augustin Landier, 2008. "Why has CEO Pay Increased So Much?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 123(1), pages 49-100.
    6. Anthony B. Atkinson & Thomas Piketty & Emmanuel Saez, 2011. "Top Incomes in the Long Run of History," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 49(1), pages 3-71, March.
    7. Benhabib, Jess & Bisin, Alberto & Zhu, Shenghao, 2016. "The Distribution Of Wealth In The Blanchard–Yaari Model," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(02), pages 466-481, March.
    8. Jess Benhabib & Alberto Bisin & Shenghao Zhu, 2011. "The Distribution of Wealth and Fiscal Policy in Economies With Finitely Lived Agents," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 79(1), pages 123-157, January.
    9. Guvenen, Fatih & Kaplan, Greg & Song, Jae, 2014. "The Glass Ceiling and the Paper Floor: Gender Differences among Top Earners, 1981–2012," Working Papers 716, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    10. Marko Tervio, 2008. "The Difference That CEOs Make: An Assignment Model Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(3), pages 642-668, June.
    11. Wojciech Kopczuk, 2014. "What Do We Know About Evolution of Top Wealth Shares in the United States?," NBER Working Papers 20734, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Piketty, Thomas & Zucman, Gabriel, 2014. "Wealth and Inheritance in the Long Run," CEPR Discussion Papers 10072, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    13. Francois Geerolf, 2015. "A Static and Microfounded Theory of Zipf's Law for Firms and of the Top Labor Income Distribution," 2015 Meeting Papers 516, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    14. Meghir, Costas & Pistaferri, Luigi, 2011. "Earnings, Consumption and Life Cycle Choices," Handbook of Labor Economics, Elsevier.
    15. Saez, Emmanuel & Zucman, Gabriel, 2014. "Wealth Inequality in the United States since 1913: Evidence from Capitalized Income Tax Data," CEPR Discussion Papers 10227, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    16. Xavier Gabaix, 2009. "Power Laws in Economics and Finance," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 1(1), pages 255-294, May.
    17. Jesse Bricker & Alice Henriques & Jacob Krimmel & John Sabelhaus, 2016. "Measuring Income and Wealth at the Top Using Administrative and Survey Data," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 47(1 (Spring), pages 261-331.
    18. Fatih Guvenen, 2007. "Learning Your Earning: Are Labor Income Shocks Really Very Persistent?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(3), pages 687-712, June.
    19. Xavier Gabaix, 1999. "Zipf's Law for Cities: An Explanation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 114(3), pages 739-767.
    20. Thomas Piketty & Gabriel Zucman, 2014. "Capital is Back: Wealth-Income Ratios in Rich Countries 1700–2010," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 129(3), pages 1255-1310.
    21. Jess Benhabib & Alberto Bisin & Shenghao Zhu, 2014. "The Wealth Distribution in Bewley Models with Investment Risk," NBER Working Papers 20157, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    22. Nirei, Makoto, 2009. "Pareto Distributions in Economic Growth Models," IIR Working Paper 09-05, Institute of Innovation Research, Hitotsubashi University.
    23. Alexis Akira Toda & Kieran Walsh, 2015. "The Double Power Law in Consumption and Implications for Testing Euler Equations," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 123(5), pages 1177-1200.
    24. Erzo G. J. Luttmer, 2012. "Slow convergence in economies with firm heterogeneity," Working Papers 696, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    25. Wojciech Kopczuk, 2015. "What Do We Know about the Evolution of Top Wealth Shares in the United States?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 29(1), pages 47-66, Winter.
    26. Toda, Alexis Akira, 2012. "The double power law in income distribution: Explanations and evidence," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 84(1), pages 364-381.
    27. Charles I. Jones & Jihee Kim, 2014. "A Schumpeterian Model of Top Income Inequality," NBER Working Papers 20637, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    28. Wojciech Kopczuk & Emmanuel Saez & Jae Song, 2010. "Earnings Inequality and Mobility in the United States: Evidence from Social Security Data Since 1937," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 125(1), pages 91-128.
    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. De Nardi, Mariacristina & Giulio , Fella & Yang, Fang, 2016. "Piketty’s Book and Macro Models of Wealth Inequality," Chicago Fed Letter, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    2. Fagereng, Andreas & Guiso, Luigi & Malacrino, Davide & Pistaferri, Luigi, 2016. "Heterogeneity and Persistence in Returns to Wealth," CEPR Discussion Papers 11635, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Gruber, Jon & Saez, Emmanuel, 2002. "The elasticity of taxable income: evidence and implications," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(1), pages 1-32, April.
    4. Miyoshi, Yoshiyuki & Toda, Alexis Akira, 2017. "Growth effects of annuities and government transfers in perpetual youth models," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 1-6.
    5. repec:red:issued:16-223 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Morten Olsen & Joshua Gottlieb & David Hemous & Jeffrey Clemens, 2017. "The Spill-over Effects of Top Income Inequality," 2017 Meeting Papers 332, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    7. Das, Sreyoshi & Kuhnen, Camelia & Nagel, Stefan, 2017. "Socioeconomic Status and Macroeconomic Expectations," CEPR Discussion Papers 12464, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    8. Kaymak, Barış & Poschke, Markus, 2016. "The evolution of wealth inequality over half a century: The role of taxes, transfers and technology," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 1-25.
    9. Jess Benhabib & Alberto Bisin & Mi Luo, 2015. "Wealth Distribution and Social Mobility in the US: A Quantitative Approach," NBER Working Papers 21721, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. repec:red:issued:16-340 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Mariacristina De Nardi & Giulio Fella, 2017. "Saving and Wealth Inequality," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 26, pages 280-300, October.
    12. repec:red:issued:15-330 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Galo Nuño & Benjamin Moll, 2015. "Controlling a distribution of heterogeneous agents," Working Papers 1533, Banco de España;Working Papers Homepage.
    14. Matthias Krapf, 2018. "The Joint Distribution of Wealth and Income Risk: Evidence from Bern," CESifo Working Paper Series 7130, CESifo Group Munich.
    15. Kasa, Kenneth & Lei, Xiaowen, 2018. "Risk, uncertainty, and the dynamics of inequality," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 60-78.
    16. Böhl, Gregor & Fischer, Thomas, 2017. "Can taxation predict US top-wealth share dynamics?," IMFS Working Paper Series 118, Goethe University Frankfurt, Institute for Monetary and Financial Stability (IMFS).
    17. Dan Cao & Wenlan Luo, 2017. "Persistent Heterogeneous Returns and Top End Wealth Inequality," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 26, pages 301-326, October.
    18. Anna M. Stansbury & Lawrence H. Summers, 2017. "Productivity and Pay: Is the link broken?," NBER Working Papers 24165, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Martimort, David & Verdier, Thierry, 2009. "International Trade with Domestic Regulation under Asymmetric Information: A Simple General Equilibrium Approach," IDEI Working Papers 223, Institut d'Économie Industrielle (IDEI), Toulouse, revised Jan 2010.
    20. Ricardo T. Fernholz & Robert Fernholz, 2016. "A Rank-Based Approach to Zipf's Law," Papers 1602.08533, arXiv.org.
    21. Benhabib, Jess & Bisin, Alberto & Zhu, Shenghao, 2015. "The wealth distribution in Bewley economies with capital income risk," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 159(PA), pages 489-515.
    22. Shuhei Aoki & Makoto Nirei, 2014. "Zipf’s Law, Pareto’s Law, and the Evolution of Top Incomes in the U.S," UTokyo Price Project Working Paper Series 023, University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Economics.
    23. Kuhn, Moritz & Schularick, Moritz & Steins, Ulrike I., 2018. "Income and Wealth Inequality in America, 1949-2016," Working Papers 9, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, Opportunity and Inclusive Growth Institute.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity

    Lists

    This item is featured on the following reading lists or Wikipedia pages:
    1. The Dynamics of Inequality (ECTA 2016) in ReplicationWiki

    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:wly:emetrp:v:84:y:2016:i::p:2071-2111. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Wiley-Blackwell Digital Licensing) or (Christopher F. Baum). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/essssea.html .

    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 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.

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.