Income Distribution in Macroeconomic Models

Giuseppe Bertola, Reto Foellmi, Josef Zweimüller

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9780691164595, 9780691121710
• eBook ISBN: 9781400865093
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Macroeconomics
• Index: Economics

This book looks at the distribution of income and wealth and the effects that this has on the macroeconomy, and vice versa. Is a more equal distribution of income beneficial or harmful for macroeconomic growth, and how does the distribution of wealth evolve in a market economy? Taking stock of results and methods developed in the context of the 1990s revival of growth theory, the authors focus on capital accumulation and long-run growth. They show how rigorous, optimization-based technical tools can be applied, beyond the representative-agent framework of analysis, to account for realistic market imperfections and for political-economic interactions.


The treatment is thorough, yet accessible to students and nonspecialist economists, and it offers specialist readers a wide-ranging and innovative treatment of an increasingly important research field. The book follows a single analytical thread through a series of different growth models, allowing readers to appreciate their structure and crucial assumptions. This is particularly useful at a time when the literature on income distribution and growth has developed quickly and in several different directions, becoming difficult to overview.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• Part One: Aggregate Growth and Individual Savings
• Part Two: Financial Market Imperfections
• Part Three: Many Goods
• Solutions to Exercises
• References
• Index