We study the dynamics of the distribution of wealth in an Overlapping Generation economy with bequest and various forms of redistributive taxation. We characterize the transitional dynamics of the wealth distribution and as well as the stationary distribution. We show that the stationary wealth distribution is a Pareto distribution. Wealth is less concentrated (the Gini coefficient is lower) fo...

In our simplified description ‘wealth’ is money (m). A kinetic theory of gas like model of money is investigated where two agents interact (trade) selectively and exchange some amount of money between them so that sum of their money is unchanged and thus total money of all the agents remains conserved. The probability distributions of individual money (P (m) vs. m) is seen to be influenced by c...

I present an explicitly solved equilibrium model for the distribution of wealth and income in an incomplete-markets economy. I first propose a self-insurance model with an inter-temporally dependent preference [Uzawa, H. 1968. Time preference, the consumption function, and optimal asset holdings. In: Wolfe, J.N. (Ed.), Value, Capital, and Growth: Papers in Honour of Sir John Hicks. Edinburgh Un...

The scientific study of economic inequality has drawn a major interest due to the ever growing uneven distribution of wealth within the whole society. According to Oxfam International, in 2010, 388 individuals holds as much wealth as half of the world population. And this number has, in 2016, decreased to 62 individuals (Hardoon and Ayele, 2016). It is a very important but extremely hard proble...

In this paper we study the role of habit formation in shaping the wealth distribution in an otherwise standard heterogeneous agents model economy with idiosyncratic uncertainty. We compare the inplications for precautionary savings and for wealth concentration between economies that only differ in the role played by habit formation. Once preferences are properly adjusted so that the Intertempor...

This paper reviews the principal source of India’s wealth distribution statistics, which is constituted by the five decennial Reserve Bank of India National Sample Survey Organization Surveys on Debt and Investment of 1961-62, 1971-72, 1981-82, 1991-92, and 2002-03. The data available are described, critically appraised, and analyzed to present some salient findings in terms of the levels of de...

This paper analyzes the equilibrium distribution ofwealth in an economywhere firms’ productivities are subject to idiosyncratic shocks, returns on factors are determined in competitivemarkets, dynasties have linear consumption functions and government imposes taxes on capital and labour incomes and equally redistributes the collected resources to dynasties. The equilibrium distribution of wealt...

We quantitatively identify the factors that drive wealth dynamics in the U.S. and are consistent with its skewed cross-sectional distribution and with social mobility. We concentrate on three critical factors: i) skewed earnings, ii) differential saving across wealth levels, and iii) stochastic idiosyncratic returns to wealth. All of these are fundamental for matching both distribution and mobi...

The higher-end tail of the wealth distribution in India is studied using recently published lists of the wealth of richest Indians between the years 2002-4. The resulting rank distribution seems to imply a power-law tail for the wealth distribution, with a Pareto exponent between 0.81 and 0.92 (depending on the year under analysis). This provides a comparison with previous studies of wealth dis...

A model for the evolution of the wealth distribution in an economically interacting population is introduced, in which a specified amount of assets are exchanged between two individuals when they interact. The resulting wealth distributions are determined for a variety of exchange rules. For “random” exchange, either individual is equally likely to gain in a trade, while “greedy” exchange, the ...