Contractual structure and wealth accumulation

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Mookherjee, D; Ray, D
• 署名单位: Boston University; New York University
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/00028280260344489
• 发表日期: 2002
• 页码: 818-849
• 关键词: private information; ECONOMIC-GROWTH; ORGANIZATION; INEQUALITY; insurance; MARKET; MODEL

摘要

Can historical wealth distributions affect long-run output and inequality despite rational saving, convex technology and no externalities? We consider a model of equilibrium short-period financial contracts, where poor agents face credit constraints owing to moral hazard and limited liability. If agents have no bargaining power, poor agents have no incentive to save: poverty traps emerge and agents are polarized into two classes, with no interclass mobility. If instead agents have all the bargaining power, strong saving incentives are generated: the wealth of poor and rich agents alike drift upward indefinitely and history does not matter eventually.