IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/sef/csefwp/691.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Left and Right: A Tale of Two Tails of the Wealth Distribution

Author

Abstract

We study a model of wealth accumulation in altruistic lineages, in which households face uninsurable risk, investment indivisibilities and credit market imperfections. A thick upper tail of the stationary distribution of wealth is shown to emerge as a robust prediction, irrespective of (i) the presence of multidimensional (wealth and ability) heterogeneity and non-convexities in human capital formation, and (ii) the nature of parental bequest motives (joy-of-giving vs. paternalism). Additionally, (iii) we identify conditions under which the unique, ergodic wealth distribution exhibits a mass point at the bottom of its support, where bequest incentives are inactive and social mobility can only occur via occupational upgrading within lineages. Our interest in the features of the left tail motivates the exploration of the effects of various frictions and fiscal measures on intergenerational wealth transmission and the persistence of inequality. We show that tax policies (e.g. capital income taxation) targeting top wealth inequality can dilate expected residence time of lineages in the lower states of the wealth space, providing a strong case for redistributive policies that favour access to education for the less wealthy.

Suggested Citation

  • Marcello D'Amato & Christian Di Pietro & Marco M. Sorge, 2023. "Left and Right: A Tale of Two Tails of the Wealth Distribution," CSEF Working Papers 691, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.
    • Handle: RePEc:sef:csefwp:691
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.csef.it/WP/wp691.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Dilip Mookherjee & Debraj Ray, 2010. "Inequality and Markets: Some Implications of Occupational Diversity," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(4), pages 38-76, November.
    3. Christopher B. Barrett & Teevrat Garg & Linden McBride, 2016. "Well-Being Dynamics and Poverty Traps," Annual Review of Resource Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 8(1), pages 303-327, October.
    4. Jess Benhabib & Alberto Bisin, 2018. "Skewed Wealth Distributions: Theory and Empirics," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 56(4), pages 1261-1291, December.
    5. 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.
    6. Abhijit V. Banerjee & Andrew F. Newman, 1991. "Risk-Bearing and the Theory of Income Distribution," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 58(2), pages 211-235.
    7. Hopenhayn, Hugo A & Prescott, Edward C, 1992. "Stochastic Monotonicity and Stationary Distributions for Dynamic Economies," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 60(6), pages 1387-1406, November.
    8. Vincenzo Quadrini, 2000. "Entrepreneurship, Saving and Social Mobility," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 3(1), pages 1-40, January.
    9. Yves Achdou & Jiequn Han & Jean-Michel Lasry & Pierre-Louis Lionse & Benjamin Moll, 2022. "Income and Wealth Distribution in Macroeconomics: A Continuous-Time Approach [On the Existence and Uniqueness of Stationary Equilibrium in Bewley Economies with Production]," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 89(1), pages 45-86.
    10. Hanushek, Eric A. & Schwerdt, Guido & Wiederhold, Simon & Woessmann, Ludger, 2015. "Returns to skills around the world: Evidence from PIAAC," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 103-130.
    11. Barro, Robert J, 1974. "Are Government Bonds Net Wealth?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 82(6), pages 1095-1117, Nov.-Dec..
    12. 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.
    13. Ma, Qingyin & Toda, Alexis Akira, 2021. "A theory of the saving rate of the rich," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 192(C).
    14. Mariacristina De Nardi, 2004. "Wealth Inequality and Intergenerational Links," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 71(3), pages 743-768.
    15. Shuhei Aoki & Makoto Nirei, 2016. "Pareto Distribution of Income in Neoclassical Growth Models," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 20, pages 25-42, April.
    16. Gary S. Becker & Nigel Tomes, 1994. "Human Capital and the Rise and Fall of Families," NBER Chapters, in: Human Capital: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis with Special Reference to Education, Third Edition, pages 257-298, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Toda, Alexis Akira, 2019. "Wealth distribution with random discount factors," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 101-113.
    18. Banerjee, Abhijit V & Newman, Andrew F, 1993. "Occupational Choice and the Process of Development," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(2), pages 274-298, April.
    19. Shenghao Zhu, 2020. "Existence Of Stationary Equilibrium In An Incomplete‐Market Model With Endogenous Labor Supply," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 61(3), pages 1115-1138, August.
    20. Wojciech Kopczuk, 2013. "Incentive Effects of Inheritances and Optimal Estate Taxation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(3), pages 472-477, May.
    21. Blinder, Alan S, 1976. "Intergenerational Transfers and Life Cycle Consumption," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 66(2), pages 87-93, May.
    22. Ishikawa, Tsuneo, 1975. "Family Structures and Family Values in the Theory of Income Distribution," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 83(5), pages 987-1008, October.
    23. Philip Vermeulen, 2018. "How Fat is the Top Tail of the Wealth Distribution?," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 64(2), pages 357-387, June.
    24. Mookherjee, Dilip & Napel, Stefan, 2007. "Intergenerational mobility and macroeconomic history dependence," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 137(1), pages 49-78, November.
    25. Moritz Kuhn, 2013. "Recursive Equilibria In An Aiyagari‐Style Economy With Permanent Income Shocks," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 54(3), pages 807-835, August.
    26. Loury, Glenn C, 1981. "Intergenerational Transfers and the Distribution of Earnings," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(4), pages 843-867, June.
    27. S. Rao Aiyagari, 1994. "Uninsured Idiosyncratic Risk and Aggregate Saving," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(3), pages 659-684.
    28. O. S. Klass & O. Biham & M. Levy & O. Malcai & S. Solomon, 2007. "The Forbes 400, the Pareto power-law and efficient markets," The European Physical Journal B: Condensed Matter and Complex Systems, Springer;EDP Sciences, vol. 55(2), pages 143-147, January.
    29. Becker, Gary S & Tomes, Nigel, 1979. "An Equilibrium Theory of the Distribution of Income and Intergenerational Mobility," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(6), pages 1153-1189, December.
    30. Volker Grossmann & Panu Poutvaara, 2009. "Pareto-improving bequest taxation," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 16(5), pages 647-669, October.
    31. Dilip Mookherjee & Debraj Ray, 2003. "Persistent Inequality," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 70(2), pages 369-393.
    32. Edward N. Wolff, 1987. "Estimates Of Household Wealth Inequality In The U.S., 1962–1983," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 33(3), pages 231-256, September.
    33. Per Krusell & Anthony A. Smith & Jr., 1998. "Income and Wealth Heterogeneity in the Macroeconomy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(5), pages 867-896, October.
    34. Marjorie Flavin & Takashi Yamashita, 2002. "Owner-Occupied Housing and the Composition of the Household Portfolio," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(1), pages 345-362, March.
    35. Shenghao Zhu, 2019. "A Becker–Tomes model with investment risk," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 67(4), pages 951-981, June.
    36. Andreoni, James, 1990. "Impure Altruism and Donations to Public Goods: A Theory of Warm-Glow Giving?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 100(401), pages 464-477, June.
    37. Xavier Gabaix, 2009. "Power Laws in Economics and Finance," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 1(1), pages 255-294, May.
    38. Rafael Lazimy, 2007. "Portfolio selection with divisible and indivisible assets: Mathematical algorithm and economic analysis," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 152(1), pages 273-295, July.
    39. Bar Light, 2020. "Uniqueness of equilibrium in a Bewley–Aiyagari model," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 69(2), pages 435-450, March.
    40. Jessica A. Wachter & Motohiro Yogo, 2010. "Why Do Household Portfolio Shares Rise in Wealth?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 23(11), pages 3929-3965, November.
    41. 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.
    42. Vincenzo Quadrini, 1999. "The Importance Of Entrepreneurship For Wealth Concentration And Mobility," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 45(1), pages 1-19, March.
    43. Spencer Bastani & Daniel Waldenström, 2020. "How Should Capital Be Taxed?," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(4), pages 812-846, September.
    44. Claudia D’Ambrosio & Andrea Lodi, 2013. "Mixed integer nonlinear programming tools: an updated practical overview," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 204(1), pages 301-320, April.
    45. Marcello D’Amato & Christian Pietro, 2014. "Occupational mobility and wealth evolution in a model of educational investment with credit market imperfections," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 12(1), pages 73-98, March.
    46. Moritz Kuhn, 2013. "Recursive Equilibria In An Aiyagari‐Style Economy With Permanent Income Shocks," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 54, pages 807-835, 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. Stachurski, John & Toda, Alexis Akira, 2019. "An impossibility theorem for wealth in heterogeneous-agent models with limited heterogeneity," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 182(C), pages 1-24.
    2. Toda, Alexis Akira, 2019. "Wealth distribution with random discount factors," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 101-113.
    3. Khieu, Hoang & Wälde, Klaus, 2023. "Capital income risk and the dynamics of the wealth distribution," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    4. Yang, Xiaoliang & Zhou, Peng, 2022. "Wealth inequality and social mobility: A simulation-based modelling approach," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 196(C), pages 307-329.
    5. Mookherjee, Dilip & Napel, Stefan, 2021. "Welfare rationales for conditionality of cash transfers," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    6. 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.
    7. 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.
    8. Kaymak, Barıș & Leung, David & Poschke, Markus, 2020. "Accounting for Wealth Concentration in the US," IZA Discussion Papers 13082, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Cagetti, Marco & De Nardi, Mariacristina, 2008. "Wealth Inequality: Data And Models," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 12(S2), pages 285-313, September.
    10. Ma, Qingyin & Stachurski, John & Toda, Alexis Akira, 2020. "The income fluctuation problem and the evolution of wealth," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 187(C).
    11. Thomas J. Sargent & John Stachurski, 2024. "Dynamic Programming: Finite States," Papers 2401.10473, arXiv.org.
    12. Hidalgo Cabrillana, Ana, 2009. "Endogenous capital market imperfections, human capital, and intergenerational mobility," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(2), pages 285-298, November.
    13. Andreas Fagereng & Luigi Guiso & Davide Malacrino & Luigi Pistaferri, 2020. "Heterogeneity and Persistence in Returns to Wealth," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 88(1), pages 115-170, January.
    14. 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.
    15. Jess Benhabib & Alberto Bisin, 2018. "Skewed Wealth Distributions: Theory and Empirics," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 56(4), pages 1261-1291, December.
    16. Joachim Hubmer & Per Krusell & Anthony A. Smith Jr., 2020. "Sources of US Wealth Inequality: Past, Present, and Future," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2020, volume 35, pages 391-455, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. 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.
    18. Raphaele Chappe & Willi Semmler, 2019. "Financial Market as Driver for Disparity in Wealth Accumulation—A Receding Horizon Approach," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 54(3), pages 1231-1261, October.
    19. Albert Marcet & Francesc Obiols-Homs, 2006. "Polarization under incomplete markets and endogenous labor productivity," 2006 Meeting Papers 274, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    20. Christian Pietro & Marco M. Sorge, 2018. "Stochastic dominance and thick-tailed wealth distributions," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 123(2), pages 141-159, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Wealth distribution; Wealth inequality; Capital income risk; Credit market imperfections; Educational investment.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • H20 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - General
    • I24 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Inequality

    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:sef:csefwp:691. 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: Dr. Maria Carannante (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cssalit.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.