IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/cudawp/127296.html

How Workers Get Poor Because Capitalists Get Rich: A General Equilibrium Model of Labor Supply, Community, and the Class Distribution of Income

Author

Listed:
  • Dasgupta, Indraneel
  • Kanbur, Ravi

Abstract

We develop an integrated, general equilibrium, model of how the presence of vertical ties of ‘community’ between sections of workers and sections of capitalists can critically affect the distribution of income between capitalists as a class and workers as a class, as well as between workers belonging to different communities. We show that an exogenous increase in the incomes of capitalists sets in motion community and market processes that subsequently (a) further increase capitalists’ incomes, (b) can reduce workers’ earnings as well as welfare, and (c) systematically influence earnings differentials between workers belonging to different communities.

Suggested Citation

  • Dasgupta, Indraneel & Kanbur, Ravi, 2002. "How Workers Get Poor Because Capitalists Get Rich: A General Equilibrium Model of Labor Supply, Community, and the Class Distribution of Income," Working Papers 127296, Cornell University, Department of Applied Economics and Management.
  • Handle: RePEc:ags:cudawp:127296
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.127296
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/127296/files/Cornell_Dyson_wp0216.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.127296?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. Michael Sattinger (ed.), 2001. "Income Distribution," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, volume 0, number 2018, August.
    2. Kanbur, Ravi, 2000. "Income distribution and development," Handbook of Income Distribution, in: A.B. Atkinson & F. Bourguignon (ed.), Handbook of Income Distribution, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 13, pages 791-841, Elsevier.
    3. Richard Cornes, 1993. "Dyke Maintenance and Other Stories: Some Neglected Types of Public Goods," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 108(1), pages 259-271.
    4. Przeworski, Adam & Wallerstein, Michael, 1982. "The Structure of Class Conflict in Democratic Capitalist Societies," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 76(2), pages 215-238, June.
    5. Alberto Alesina & Dani Rodrik, 1994. "Distributive Politics and Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(2), pages 465-490.
    6. George A. Akerlof & Rachel E. Kranton, 2000. "Economics and Identity," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(3), pages 715-753.
    7. Dasgupta, Indraneel & Kanbur, Ravi, 2001. "Class, Community, Inequality," Working Papers 127671, Cornell University, Department of Applied Economics and Management.
    8. Roemer, John E., 1998. "Why the poor do not expropriate the rich: an old argument in new garb," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(3), pages 399-424, December.
    9. Bergstrom, Theodore & Blume, Lawrence & Varian, Hal, 1986. "On the private provision of public goods," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 25-49, February.
    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. Dasgupta, Indraneel & Kanbur, Ravi, "undated". "Bridging Communal Divides: Separation, Patronage, Integration," Working Papers 127235, Cornell University, Department of Applied Economics and Management.
    2. Indraneel Dasgupta & Ravi Kanbur, 2005. "Community and anti-poverty targeting," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 3(3), pages 281-302, December.
    3. Ranjan Aneja & Barkha & Umer Jeelanie Banday, 2021. "Regional Economic Growth and Inequality in India: A Sector-wise Decomposition Analysis," Arthaniti: Journal of Economic Theory and Practice, , vol. 20(1), pages 95-110, June.

    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. Dasgupta, Indraneel & Kanbur, Ravi, 2001. "Class, Community, Inequality," Working Papers 127671, Cornell University, Department of Applied Economics and Management.
    2. Dasgupta, Indraneel & Kanbur, Ravi, 2007. "Community and class antagonism," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(9), pages 1816-1842, September.
    3. Dasgupta, Indraneel & Kanbur, Ravi, "undated". "Bridging Communal Divides: Separation, Patronage, Integration," Working Papers 127235, Cornell University, Department of Applied Economics and Management.
    4. Bardhan, Pranab & Ghatak, Maitreesh & Karaivanov, Alexander, 2007. "Wealth inequality and collective action," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(9), pages 1843-1874, September.
    5. Subhasish M. Chowdhury & Iryna Topolyan, 2013. "The Attack-and-Defence Group Contests," University of East Anglia Applied and Financial Economics Working Paper Series 049, School of Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    6. Alejandro Caparrós & Michael Finus, 2020. "Public good agreements under the weakest‐link technology," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 22(3), pages 555-582, June.
    7. Agostini, Claudio A. & Brown, Philip H. & Roman, Andrei C., 2010. "Poverty and Inequality Among Ethnic Groups in Chile," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 38(7), pages 1036-1046, July.
    8. Kanbur, Ravi & Zhang, Xiaobo, 2001. "Fifty Years Of Regional Inequality In China: A Journey Through Revolution, Reform And Openness," Working Papers 7236, Cornell University, Department of Applied Economics and Management.
    9. repec:pru:wpaper:21 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Afridi, Farzana & Li, Sherry Xin & Ren, Yufei, 2015. "Social identity and inequality: The impact of China's hukou system," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 17-29.
    11. Markus Kitzmueller & Jay Shimshack, 2012. "Economic Perspectives on Corporate Social Responsibility," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 50(1), pages 51-84, March.
    12. Erik Lindqvist & Robert Östling, 2013. "Identity and redistribution," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 155(3), pages 469-491, June.
    13. Bernasconi, Michele & Neunhoeffer, Frieder, 2023. "The income inequality trap: When redistributive preferences do not correct greater inequality," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    14. Stefano Barbieri & David Malueg, 2014. "Group efforts when performance is determined by the “best shot”," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 56(2), pages 333-373, June.
    15. Aulong, Stéphanie & Figuières, Charles & Thoyer, Sophie, 2011. "Agriculture production versus biodiversity protection: The impact of North-South unconditional transfers," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(8), pages 1499-1507, June.
    16. Cornes, Richard & Hartley, Roger, 2007. "Weak links, good shots and other public good games: Building on BBV," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(9), pages 1684-1707, September.
    17. Julio Huato, 2023. "Inequality and Growth: A Two-Player Dynamic Game with Production and Appropriation," Papers 2304.01855, arXiv.org.
    18. Markus Brückner & Kerstin Gerling & Hans Grüner, 2010. "Wealth inequality and credit markets: evidence from three industrialized countries," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 15(2), pages 155-176, June.
    19. Rainald Borck, 2007. "Voting, Inequality And Redistribution," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(1), pages 90-109, February.
    20. Indraneel Dasgupta & Ravi Kanbur, 2005. "Community and anti-poverty targeting," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 3(3), pages 281-302, December.
    21. Burnett, Kimberly M., 2006. "Introductions of Invasive Species: Failure of the Weaker Link," Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 35(1), pages 21-28, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;

    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:ags:cudawp:127296. 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: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dacorus.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.