IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/erp/euirsc/p0071.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Age Structure, Income Distribution And Economic Growth

Author

Listed:
  • Rafael Gomez
  • David K. Foot

Abstract

A recent body of empirical cross-country research has confirmed that income inequality is negatively related to economic growth. This paper provides an explanatory channel for this observed relationship. The novelty of our approach consists in the use of demographic channels to account for cross-country differentials in economic growth and income distribution. We present four models that have emerged as the most plausible transmission mechanisms linking inequality to slower growth. In each instance we demonstrate how a consideration of demographic age structure can complement the four mainstream accounts.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Rafael Gomez & David K. Foot, 2002. "Age Structure, Income Distribution And Economic Growth," EUI-RSCAS Working Papers 36, European University Institute (EUI), Robert Schuman Centre of Advanced Studies (RSCAS).
  • Handle: RePEc:erp:euirsc:p0071
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.eui.eu/ERPA/RSCAS/../../RSCAS/WP-Texts/02_36.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: http://www.eui.eu/ERPA/RSCAS/../../RSCAS/WP-Texts/02_36.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Benabou, Roland, 1994. "Human capital, inequality, and growth: A local perspective," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 38(3-4), pages 817-826, April.
    2. Lawrence F. Katz & Kevin M. Murphy, 1992. "Changes in Relative Wages, 1963–1987: Supply and Demand Factors," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 107(1), pages 35-78.
    3. Fair, Ray C & Dominguez, Kathryn M, 1991. "Effects of the Changing U.S. Age Distribution on Macroeconomic Equations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(5), pages 1276-1294, December.
    4. Alesina, Alberto & Perotti, Roberto, 1996. "Income distribution, political instability, and investment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(6), pages 1203-1228, June.
    5. Roland Benabou & Efe A. Ok, 2001. "Social Mobility and the Demand for Redistribution: The Poum Hypothesis," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(2), pages 447-487.
    6. Lars Osberg, 1998. "Economic Insecurity," Discussion Papers 0088, University of New South Wales, Social Policy Research Centre.
    7. 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.
    8. Deininger, Klaus & Squire, Lyn, 1996. "A New Data Set Measuring Income Inequality," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 10(3), pages 565-591, September.
    9. Francisco Rodríguez, 2004. "Inequality, Redistribution, And Rent-Seeking," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 16, pages 287-320, November.
    10. Rodrik, Dani, 1999. "Where Did All the Growth Go? External Shocks, Social Conflict, and Growth Collapses," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 4(4), pages 385-412, December.
    11. Robert J. Barro, 1999. "Inequality, Growth, and Investment," NBER Working Papers 7038, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Andrew Weiss, 1995. "Human Capital vs. Signalling Explanations of Wages," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 9(4), pages 133-154, Fall.
    13. Robert J. Barro, 1991. "Economic Growth in a Cross Section of Countries," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 106(2), pages 407-443.
    14. repec:cep:stitep:/1995/286 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Kawachi, I. & Kennedy, B.P. & Lochner, K. & Prothrow-Stith, D., 1997. "Social capital, income inequality, and mortality," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 87(9), pages 1491-1498.
    16. Durlauf, Steven N., 1994. "Spillovers, stratification, and inequality," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 38(3-4), pages 836-845, April.
    17. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 1992. "Growth, distribution and politics," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 36(2-3), pages 593-602, April.
    18. Bourguignon, F. & Morrisson, C., 1990. "Income distribution, development and foreign trade : A cross-sectional analysis," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 34(6), pages 1113-1132, September.
    19. Robert Gordon, 1995. "Problems in the Measurement and Performance of Service-Sector Productivity in the United States," RBA Annual Conference Volume (Discontinued), in: Palle Andersen & Jacqueline Dwyer & David Gruen (ed.),Productivity and Growth, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    20. Cecilia Garcia-Penalosa & Eve Caroli & Philippe Aghion, 1999. "Inequality and Economic Growth: The Perspective of the New Growth Theories," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 37(4), pages 1615-1660, December.
    21. 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.
    22. Benabou, R., 1996. "Unequal Societies," Working Papers 96-17, C.V. Starr Center for Applied Economics, New York University.
    23. Ferreira, Francisco H. G., 1995. "Roads to equality: wealth distribution dynamics with public-private capital complementarity," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 19368, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    24. Kennedy, Bruce P. & Kawachi, Ichiro & Prothrow-Stith, Deborah & Lochner, Kimberly & Gupta, Vanita, 1998. "Social capital, income inequality, and firearm violent crime," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 7-17, July.
    25. Perotti, Roberto, 1994. "Income distribution and investment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 38(3-4), pages 827-835, April.
    26. Greenwald, Bruce C. & Stiglitz, Joseph E., 1987. "Imperfect information, credit markets and unemployment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(1-2), pages 444-456.
    27. Rafael Gomez & Noah Meltz, 2002. "The Zero Sum Illusion: Industrial Relations and Modern Economic Approaches to Growth and Income Distribution," EUI-RSCAS Working Papers 37, European University Institute (EUI), Robert Schuman Centre of Advanced Studies (RSCAS).
    28. Macunovich, Diane J, 1998. "Relative Cohort Size and Inequality in the United States," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(2), pages 259-264, May.
    29. repec:dau:papers:123456789/10091 is not listed on IDEAS
    30. Bruno, Michael & Easterly, William, 1998. "Inflation crises and long-run growth," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 3-26, February.
    31. Gregory Mankiw, 1995. "The Growth of Nations," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 26(1, 25th A), pages 275-326.
    32. Idson, Todd L & Kahane, Leo H, 2000. "Team Effects on Compensation: An Application to Salary Determination in the National Hockey League," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 38(2), pages 345-357, April.
    33. Grogger, Jeff, 1998. "Market Wages and Youth Crime," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 16(4), pages 756-791, October.
    34. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 1994. "Is Inequality Harmful for Growth?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(3), pages 600-621, June.
    35. Pierre Fortin, 1999. "The great Canadian slump: a rejoinder to Freedman and Macklem," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 32(4), pages 1082-1092, August.
    36. DiPasquale, Denise & Glaeser, Edward L., 1999. "Incentives and Social Capital: Are Homeowners Better Citizens?," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(2), pages 354-384, March.
    37. Lawrence R. Klein, 1947. "Theories of Effective Demand and Employment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 55, pages 108-108.
    38. Huw Lloyd-Ellis, 2003. "On the Impact of Inequality on Productivity Growth in the Short and Long Term: A Synthesis," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 29(s1), pages 65-86, January.
    39. Alesina, Alberto & Özler, Sule & Roubini, Nouriel & Swagel, Phillip, 1996. "Political Instability and Economic Growth," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 1(2), pages 189-211, June.
    40. Jonathan Temple, 1999. "The New Growth Evidence," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 37(1), pages 112-156, March.
    41. Jason Furman & Joseph E. Stiglitz, 1998. "Economic Crises: Evidence and Insights from East Asia," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 29(2), pages 1-136.
    42. Bruce C. Greenwald & Joseph E. Stiglitz, 1986. "Externalities in Economies with Imperfect Information and Incomplete Markets," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 101(2), pages 229-264.
    43. Scott South & Kyle Crowder, 1997. "Residential mobility between cities and suburbs: race, suburbanization, and back-to-the-city moves," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 34(4), pages 525-538, November.
    44. Kristin J. Forbes, 2000. "A Reassessment of the Relationship between Inequality and Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(4), pages 869-887, September.
    45. Easterlin, Richard A., 1987. "Birth and Fortune," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, edition 2, number 9780226180328, September.
    46. Tullio Jappelli, 1990. "Who is Credit Constrained in the U. S. Economy?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 105(1), pages 219-234.
    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. Jean‐Yves Duclos & Bouba Housseini, 2015. "Quality, quantity and duration of lives," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 48(1), pages 1-27, February.
    2. Jean-Yves Duclos & Bouba Housseini, 2015. "Does Quality, Quantity and Duration of Lives," Cahiers de recherche 1501, Chaire de recherche Industrielle Alliance sur les enjeux économiques des changements démographiques.
    3. Hoover, Gary A. & Giedeman, Daniel C. & Dibooglu, Sel, 2009. "Income inequality and the business cycle: A threshold cointegration approach," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 278-292, September.
    4. Armbruster, Walter J. & Coyle, William T. & Gilmour, Brad, 2004. "Where Will Demographics Take the Asia-Pacific Food System?," 2004 Conference (48th), February 11-13, 2004, Melbourne, Australia 58368, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
    5. Jean-Yves DUCLOS & Bouba HOUSSEINI, 2015. "Quality, Quantity and Duration of Lives," Working Papers P118, FERDI.
    6. Jean-Yves Duclos & Bouba Housseini, 2015. "Quality, Quantity and Duration of Lives," CIRANO Working Papers 2015s-12, CIRANO.
    7. M. Mazharul Islam, 2016. "Demographic transition and the emerging windows of opportunities and challenges in Bangladesh," Journal of Population Research, Springer, vol. 33(3), pages 283-305, September.
    8. Robin Maialeh, 2016. "Fundamentální koncept nerovnosti v perspektivě paretovské ekonomie [A Fundamental Concept of Inequality in the Perspective of Paretian Economics]," Politická ekonomie, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2016(8), pages 973-987.

    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. Rafael Gomez & Noah Meltz, 2002. "The Zero Sum Illusion: Industrial Relations and Modern Economic Approaches to Growth and Income Distribution," EUI-RSCAS Working Papers 37, European University Institute (EUI), Robert Schuman Centre of Advanced Studies (RSCAS).
    2. Christophe Ehrhart, 2009. "The effects of inequality on growth: a survey of the theoretical and empirical literature," Working Papers 107, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    3. Aysan, Ahmet Faruk, 2005. "The Role of Efficiency of Redistributive Institutions on Redistribution: An Empirical Assessment," MPRA Paper 17773, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Claudia Biancotti, 2004. "A Polarization of Polarization? The Distribution of Inequality 1970-1996," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 487, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    5. Shinhye Chang & Rangan Gupta & Stephen M. Miller, 2018. "Causality Between Per Capita Real GDP and Income Inequality in the U.S.: Evidence from a Wavelet Analysis," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 135(1), pages 269-289, January.
    6. Joël Hellier & Stéphane Lambrecht, 2013. "Inequality, Growth and Welfare: The Main Links," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Joël Hellier & Nathalie Chusseau (ed.), Growing Income Inequalities, chapter 9, pages 274-311, Palgrave Macmillan.
    7. Gravier-Rymaszewska, Joanna & Tyrowicz, Joanna & Kochanowicz, Jacek, 2010. "Intra-provincial inequalities and economic growth in China," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 237-258, September.
    8. Muhammad Qasim & Zahid Pervaiz & Amatul Razzaq Chaudhary, 2020. "Do Poverty and Income Inequality Mediate the Association Between Agricultural Land Inequality and Human Development?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 151(1), pages 115-134, August.
    9. Aysan, Ahmet Faruk, 2005. "The Shadowing Role of Redistributive Institutions in the Relationship Between Income Inequality and Redistribution," MPRA Paper 17772, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Günther Rehme, 2002. "(Re-)Distribution of Personal Incomes, Education and Economic Performance Across Countries," CESifo Working Paper Series 711, CESifo.
    11. Thomas Leoni & Wolfgang Pollan, 2003. "The Impact of Inequality on Economic Growth," WIFO Working Papers 211, WIFO.
    12. Panizza, Ugo, 2002. "Income Inequality and Economic Growth: Evidence from American Data," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 7(1), pages 25-41, March.
    13. Ricardo Arguello, 2004. "Revisiting the Relationship between Income Distribution and Economic Growth," Borradores de Investigación 4336, Universidad del Rosario.
    14. Seher Gülşah Topuz, 2022. "The Relationship Between Income Inequality and Economic Growth: Are Transmission Channels Effective?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 162(3), pages 1177-1231, August.
    15. Ugo Panizza, 1999. "Desigualdad del ingreso y crecimiento económico: elementos de juicio de datos de USA," Research Department Publications 4179, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    16. Adalgiso Amendola & Roberto Dell�Anno, 2014. "Income inequality and economic growth: an empirical investigation in Mediterranean countries," RIEDS - Rivista Italiana di Economia, Demografia e Statistica - The Italian Journal of Economic, Demographic and Statistical Studies, SIEDS Societa' Italiana di Economia Demografia e Statistica, vol. 68(2), pages 35-58, April-Jun.
    17. Ross Stewart & Carlos Moslares, 2012. "Income inequality and economic growth: the case of Indian states 1980-2010," Revista Cuadernos de Economia, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, FCE, CID, August.
    18. Fabrizio Carmignani, 2001. "Theory and Evidence on the Political Economy of Growth," Working Papers 33, University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics, revised Jan 2001.
    19. Denis Cogneau & Charlotte Guénard, 2002. "Les inégalités et la croissance : une relation introuvable," Working Papers DT/2002/03, DIAL (Développement, Institutions et Mondialisation).
    20. Gründler, Klaus & Scheuermeyer, Philipp, 2015. "Income inequality, economic growth, and the effect of redistribution," W.E.P. - Würzburg Economic Papers 95, University of Würzburg, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    economic policy; fiscal policy;

    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:erp:euirsc:p0071. 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: Valerio PAPPALARDO (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/rsiueit.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.