2016 Chapters (Layout Features)

New Theoretical Perspectives on the Distribution of Income and Wealth Among Individuals

Stiglitz, Joseph E.

A central question of economics has been: how do we explain the distribution of income among factors of production, and the distribution of income and wealth among individuals. Some fifty years ago, theorists tried to develop explanations for what were then viewed to be the stylized facts of growth and distribution, articulated, for instance, by Nicholas Kaldor. Among the central facts was the constancy of the capital-output ratio and the relative shares. Today, there seems to be a new set of stylized facts that have to be explained, many of them markedly different from those that were the center of attention a half-century ago.