In this article, I present some of the findings of my book Capital in the 21st Century. In particular, I clarify the role played by r > g in my analysis of wealth inequality. I also discuss some of ...the implications for optimal taxation, and the relation between capital-income ratios and capital shares.
In this article, I present some of the findings of my book Capital in the 21st Century. In particular, I clarify the role played by r > g in my analysis of wealth inequality. I also discuss some of ...the implications for optimal taxation, and the relation between capital-income ratios and capital shares.
Capital, inequality, and power Piketty, Thomas
HAU : Journal of Ethnographic Theory,
03/2015, Letnik:
5, Številka:
1
Journal Article, Book Review
Recenzirano
Response to Hau Book Symposium on Piketty, Thomas. 2014. Capital in the twenty-first century. Translated by Arthur Goldhammer. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University.
Based on a pioneering research programme on the evolution of top incomes, this volume brings together studies from 10 OECD countries. This rapidly growing field of economic research investigates the ...top segment of the income distribution by using data from income tax records over the past century. As well as describing the source data and methods employed, the authors also discuss the dramatic changes that have occurred at the top of the income scale throughout the 20th century. This fascinating study is the first of its kind to provide a comprehensive historic overview of top income distribution over the last century. It looks at why top incomes shares fell markedly in the first half of the 20th century and why, more recently, there has been a striking difference in the top income distribution between continental Europe and English-speaking OECD countries, like the UK, USA, and Australia. Written by the top names in the field, this seminal work provides rich pickings for those with an interest in inequality, development, the economic impact of war, taxation, economic history, and executive compensation.
Measuring and understanding the evolution of wealth inequality is a key challenge for researchers, policy makers, and the general public. This paper breaks new ground on this topic by presenting a ...new method to estimate and study wealth inequality. This method combines fiscal data with household surveys and national accounts in order to provide annual wealth distribution series, with detailed breakdowns by percentiles, age, and assets. Using the case of France as an illustration, we show that the resulting series can be used to better analyze the evolution and the determinants of wealthinequality dynamics over the 1970-2014 period. We show that the decline in wealth inequality ends in the early 1980s, marking the beginning of a rise in the top 1% wealth share, though with significant fluctuations due largely to asset price movements. Rising inequality in savings rates coupled with highly stratified rates of returns has led to rising wealth concentration in spite of the opposing effect of house price increases. We develop a simple simulation model highlighting how changes in the combination of unequal savings rates, rates of return, and labor earnings that occurred in the early 1980s generated large multiplicative effects that led to radically different steady-state levels of wealth inequality. Taking advantage of the joint distribution of income and wealth, we show that top wealth holders are almost exclusively top capital earners, and increasingly fewer are made up of top labor.
This book is an in-depth discussion of rising inequalities in the western world. It explores the extent to which rising inequalities are the mechanical consequence of changes in economic fundamentals ...(such as changes in technological or demographic parameters), and to what extent they are the contingent consequences of country-specific and time-specific changes in institutions. Both the 'fundamentalist' view and the 'institutionalist' view have some relevance. For instance, the decline of traditional manufacturing employment since the 1970s has been associated in every developed country with a rise of labor-market inequality (the inequality of labor earnings within the working-age population has gone up in all countries), which lends support to the fundamentalist view. But, on the other hand, everybody agrees that institutional differences (minimum wage, collective bargaining, tax and transfer policy, etc.) between Continental European countries and Anglo-Saxon countries explain why disposable income inequality trajectories have been so different in those two groups of countries during the 1980s-90s, which lends support to the institutionalist view. The chapters in this volume show the strength of both views. Through empirical evidence and new theoretical insights the contributors argue that institutions always play a crucial role in shaping inequalities, and sometimes preventing them, but that inequalities across age, sex, and skills often recur. From Sweden to Spain and Portugal, from Italy to Japan and the USA, the volume explores the diversity of the interplay between market forces and institutions. Contributors to this volume - Daron Acemoglu (MIT) Manuel Arellano (CEMFI) Roland Benabou (New York University) Samuel Bentolila (CEMFI) Anders Bjorkland (Stockholm University) Richard Blundell (University College London) Olympia Bover (Banco de Espana) Andrea Brandolini (Bank of Italy) Giorgio Brunello (Padua University, Italy) Olga Canto (Universidad de Vigo) Ana R. Cardoso (Universidade do Minho) Piero Cippollone (Bank of Italy) Peter Gottschalk (Boston College) John Hassler (Stockholm University) Tsuneo Ishikawa (University of Tokyo) Juan F. Jimeno (Universidad de Alcala FEDEA; CEPR) Susan E. Mayer (University of Chicago) Javier Ortega (Universite des Sciences Sociales de Toulouse) Marten Palme (Stockholm School of Economics) Ian Preston (University College London) Jose V. Rodriguez Mora (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona) Paolo Sestito (Bank of Italy) Kjetil Storesletten (Stockholm University) Etienne Wasmer (ECARE; CEPR) Fabrizio Zilibotti (Stockholm University)
This article attempts to clarify certain points raised in my book Capital in the Twenty-First Century. In particular, I try in this work to develop a multidimensional history of capital and power ...relations between social classes. I study the way different forms of ownership lead to specific structures of inequality and social and institutional compromises. Adapted from the source document.
This paper evaluates income tax reforms in China and India. The combination of fast income growth and under-indexed tax schedule in China implies the fraction of the Chinese population subject to ...income tax has increased from less than 0.1 percent in 1986 to about 20 percent in 2008, while it has stagnated around 2–3 percent in India. Chinese income tax revenues, as a share of GDP, increased from less than 0.1 percent in 1986 to about 1.5 percent in 2005 and 2.5 percent in 2008, while the constant adaptation of exemption levels and income brackets in India have caused them to stagnate around 0.5 percent of GDP.
Le système de retraite français est morcelé, complexe, incompréhensible pour la majorité des citoyens et sa stabilité financière à long terme est mise en cause. Il est source d'angoisse et ...d'ïncertitudes alors que sa raison d'être est d'offrir des garanties que les marchés financiers ne peuvent pas proposer. Cet opuscule part du constat que seule une remise à plat générale permettra de rétablir la confiance dans l'avenir du système public d'assurance vieillesse par répartition. Antoine Bozio et Thomas Piketty proposent une refonte complète des régimes actuels et la création d'un système unifié de comptes individuels de cotisations offrant les mêmes droits et les mêmes règles à tous les travailleurs (public, privé, non salariés). Ce nouveau système facilite la mobilité professionnelle et garantit l'équilibre financier, grâce à une prise en compte progressive de l'augmentation de l'espérance de vie. Il avantage les plus modestes et permet de mieux cibler la solidarité vers ceux dont la carrière a subi des aléas. Les difficultés liées à la transition entre l'ancien et le nouveau système sont réelles, mais surmontables, pourvu qu'existe la volonté politique de préserver l'avenir à long terme du système public par répartition.
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