Unequal societies: Income distribution and the social contract

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Bénabou, R
• 署名单位: Princeton University; National Bureau of Economic Research; Princeton University
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/aer.90.1.96
• 发表日期: 2000
• 页码: 96-129
• 关键词: endogenous growth; ECONOMIC-GROWTH; UNITED-STATES; education; macroeconomics; equilibrium; INVESTMENT; INEQUALITY; POLITICS; mobility

摘要

This paper develops a theory of inequality and the social contract aiming to explain how countries with similar economic and political fundamentals can sustain such different systems of social insurance, fiscal redistribution, mid education finance as those. of the United States and Western Europe. With imperfect credit and insurance markets some redistributive policies can improve ex ante welfare, and this implies that their political support tends to decrease with inequality. Conversely, with credit constraints, lower redistribution translates into more persistent inequality; hence the potential for multiple study states, with mutually reinforcing high inequality and low redistribution, or vice versa, (JEL D31, E62, P16, O41, I22).