Pareto and Piketty: The Macroeconomics of Top Income and Wealth Inequality / Charles I. Jones.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Jones, Charles I.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w20742.

NBER working paper series no. w20742

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Other Title:

Pareto and Piketty

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2014.

Summary:

Since the early 2000s, research by Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez, and their coathors has revolutionized our understanding of income and wealth inequality. In this paper, I highlight some of the key empirical facts from this research and comment on how they relate to macroeconomics and to economic theory more generally. One of the key links between data and theory is the Pareto distribution. The paper describes simple mechanisms that give rise to Pareto distributions for income and wealth and considers the economic forces that influence top inequality over time and across countries. For example, it is in this context that the role of the famous r-g expression is best understood.

Notes:

Print version record

December 2014.