Testing Piketty's Hypothesis on the Drivers of Income Inequality : Evidence from Panel VARs with Heterogeneous Dynamics /

Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century puts forth a logically consistent explanation for changes in income and wealth inequality patterns. However, while rich in data, the book provides no formal empirical testing for its theoretical causal chain. In this paper, I build a set of P...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Goes, Carlos
Format: Journal
Language:English
Published: Washington, D.C. : International Monetary Fund, 2016.
Series:IMF Working Papers; Working Paper ; No. 2016/160
Online Access:Full text available on IMF
Description
Summary:Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century puts forth a logically consistent explanation for changes in income and wealth inequality patterns. However, while rich in data, the book provides no formal empirical testing for its theoretical causal chain. In this paper, I build a set of Panel SVAR models to check if inequality and capital share in the national income move up as the r-g gap grows. Using a sample of 19 advanced economies spanning over 30 years, I find no empirical evidence that dynamics move in the way Piketty suggests. Results are robust to several alternative estimates of r-g.
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Physical Description:1 online resource (27 pages)
Format:Mode of access: Internet
ISSN:1018-5941
Access:Electronic access restricted to authorized BRAC University faculty, staff and students