Growth and income distribution with the dynamics of power in labour and goods markets (original) (raw)
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2011
The interaction between economic growth and income distribution is examined using Kaleckian/post-Keynesian models in which there are lags in investment and in which the dynamics of income distribution between wages and profits depends on both labor market and industrial concentration effects. By examining these two influences on distributional dynamics simultaneously, the relative strength of which can change over the growth process, it is shown that the growth-distributional dynamics can involve non-linearities, multiple equilibria and instability. The implications of policy-induced changes – including those in macroeconomic policy and labor market and antitrust policies – on aggregate demand and distribution are examined for both wage-led and profit-led growth regimes.
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This paper is a literature review on the recent Post-Keynesian empirical findings about the effect of income distribution on investment and growth in a variety of different countries and aims at discussing the policy implications of this literature. The core question is the following: Are actual economies wageled or profit-led? Current orthodoxy implicitly assumes that they are profit-led, and thus supports the neoliberal policy agenda. The merit of the Post-Keynesian/Kaleckian models is that they highlight the dual function of wages as a component of aggregate demand as well as a cost item. If an economy is not profit-led, then there is room for policies targeting growth and income distribution simultaneously. However, the economies are indeed dynamic in the sense that beyond a point an economy can shift from a wage-led to a profit-led regime, with an intensified distributional conflict.
Research Papers in Economics, 2018
A feature of Kaleckian models of distribution and growth that is often overlooked is that they describe a nonlinear relation between functional income distribution and demand and growth, because the size of the multiplier is affected by redistribution from wages to profits and vice versa. This paper addresses the nonlinearity of the standard post-Kaleckian model by examining its so-called IS-curves. It is found that changes in functional income distribution affect the "distribution-ledness" of an economy: redistribution towards wages reinforces the wage-led or profit-led character of an economy, while redistribution towards profits does the opposite. In addition, redistribution towards wages can turn an intermediate regime wage-led. A standard post-Kaleckian model with nonlinear investment behaviour is then presented. This model yields substantially different IS curves, such that an optimal functional income distribution can be derived. However, it is found that unlike in ...
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We develop an endogenous growth model with elastic labor supply, in which agents differ in their initial endowments of physical capital. In this framework, the growth rate and the distribution of income are jointly determined. The key equilibrating variable is the equilibrium labor supply. It determines the rate of return to capital, which in turn affects both the rate of capital accumulation and the distribution of income across agents. We then examine the impact of various structural shocks on growth and distribution. We find that faster growth is associated with a more unequal, contemporaneous distribution of income, consistent with recent empirical findings.
An assessment of the debates over income distribution and growth in the Neo-Kaleckian literature
Brazilian Journal of Political Economy, 2021
Kaleckian literature is considered an important theme in the post-Keynesian school of economic thought. In the aftermath of the financial crisis, the endeavors of forming a new consensus regarding essential economic issues, in particular achieving economic growth became a need. Thus, the Kaleckian models returned to be in the spot since these models tackle the impact of changes in the distribution of income and address the question whether a redistribution of income away from wages and towards profits is capable of boosting growth. In this sense, this paper return to Kaleckian insights and offers a theoretical discussion of the distributional effects on aggregate demand and economic growth. Moreover, through the lens of neo-Kaleckian tradition, the evolution of the debate on wage-led and profit-led regimes in recent decades can be traced.
Demand, Production, and the Determinants of Distribution: A Caveat on "Wage-Led Growth
The incomes of workers and capitalists pertain to different moments of accumulation. Wages are shares of capital outlays sustaining production; profits are shares of commodity sales. If aggregate demand and the scale of productive undertakings are shaped with a measure of mutual autonomy, the class distribution of income and the measure of economic activity are jointly determined by the same processes. In those settings “wage-led growth” has neither analytical nor policy purchase as associations between wage shares and levels of output (or growth) are confounded consequences of distinct effects on each measure of broader developments in the economy. A more appropriate dichotomy is that between “investment-led” and “consumption-led” growth, with the former resulting in comparatively higher wage shares. After advancing and illustrating these points, this paper motivates its approach to class income flows and the role of demand--which draw on the Circuit of Capital--in relation to the ...
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This paper presents the following question: what is the long-run effect of the minimum wage on economic growth? In order to deal with this question, a model that creates a synthesis between labor search theory and endogenous growth theory is constructed. In the model, the wage distribution, investment in human capital, active production technologies and long-run growth are all determined endogenously. The analysis implies that policies that affect directly the wage distribution such as minimum wage laws, have a nonmonotonic effect on economic growth. The positive effect is due to the change in production technologies that creates an incentive to increase investment in human capital. The negative effect is the result of a disproportional reduction of monopsonistic power of firms. This affects negatively the skill premium, causing a reduction in investment in human capital. This negative effect of the minimum wage is the novel result of integrating labor market frictions in an endogen...
2018
This paper incorporates human capital accumulation through provision of universal public education by a balanced-budget government to a Neo-Kaleckian analytical framework of distribution and growth. Human capital accumulation positively impacts on workers’ productivity in output production and their bargaining power in wage negotiations. Differences in tax rates on wage and profit income have distributive implications for consumption and investment and so shape how effective demand varies with income distribution. In the long-run equilibrium, a rise in workers’ (capitalists’) bargaining power raises (lowers) the pre- and after-tax wage share, which raises (reduces) the rates of physical capital utilization, employment (which also measures the rate of human capital utilization) and output growth. Meanwhile, a rise in a uniform tax rate (which also denotes the share of tax spending in public education in output) lowers the long-run equilibrium values of the pre- and after-tax wa...
Income distribution, inflation and economic growth: A post-Keynesian approach
Panoeconomicus
The dispute between social classes for fractions of income was a central theme for economic analysis at least since David Ricardo and Karl Marx. Its importance as an interpretative key declined with the marginalist revolution of the late nineteenth century and did not regain its central role in the conventional economic approach ever since. However, its relevance was maintained among heterodox economists such as Michal Kalecki and reinvigorated by post-Keynesian thinking. This paper seeks to offer three analytical contributions to the post- Keynesian literature: (1) it presents an integrated framework on the relationship between distributive conflict, inflation and economic growth in an open economy with government; (2) it proposes the use of a general framework, based on liquid preference, assets own interest rates, currency hierarchy and productivity differentials to understand the determinants of the spot exchange rate; and (3) it suggests a distinct monetary rule to take into ac...