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The Wealth Distribution in Bewley Models with Investment Risk

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  • Jess Benhabib
  • Alberto Bisin
  • Shenghao Zhu

Abstract

We study the wealth distribution in Bewley economies with idiosyncratic capital income risk. We show analytically that under rather general conditions on the stochastic structure of the economy, a unique ergodic distribution of wealth displays a fat tail; more precisely, a Pareto distribution in the right tail.

Suggested Citation

  • 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.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:20157
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    3. Namkhaijantsan, Ninjin, 2018. "Consumption and Savings Behaviour under Household Heterogeneity and Mortgage Debt," MPRA Paper 107033, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. 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.
    5. Yannick Malevergne & Didier Sornette, 2016. "Wealth and Income Inequalities ← → r > g," Swiss Finance Institute Research Paper Series 16-69, Swiss Finance Institute.
    6. Anindya S. Chakrabarti & Arnab Chatterjee & Tushar Nandi & Asim Ghosh & Anirban Chakraborti, 2018. "Quantifying invariant features of within-group inequality in consumption across groups," Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, Springer;Society for Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents, vol. 13(3), pages 469-490, October.
    7. Bar Light, 2018. "Precautionary Saving in a Markovian Earnings Environment," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 29, pages 138-147, July.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E13 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General Aggregative Models - - - Neoclassical
    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth

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