If redistribution is distortionary, and if the income of skilled workers is due to knowledgeintensive activities and depends positively on intellectual property, a social planner which cares about income distribution may in principle want to use a reduction in Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs)...

The paper studies the determinants of income distribution and growth in an overlapping generations economy withheterogenous households. Our framework has the following main features:heterogeneity of consumers with respect to wealth and parental human capital;intergenerational transfers,...

This paper analyzes the interaction between intergenerational wealth transmission, human capital investments under uninsurable labor income risk, and economic growth in a small open overlapping-generations economy with heterogeneous agents. It demonstrates how the role of the personal income...

I study a model where Information Technology, while typically increasing overall inequality, is likely to harm some people at intermediate and high levels of the distribution of income but to benefit people at the bottom. Within a given occupation it may harm some workers while benefitting...

Conventional wisdom about the relationship between income distribution and economic development has been subjected to dramatic transformations in the past century. While Classical economists advanced the hypothesis that inequality is beneficial for economic development, the Neoclassical...

This paper reviews Jacob Mincer?s contributions to the analyses of earnings and the distribution of earnings through his pioneering focus on labor market experience or on-the-job training. It begins with a brief discussion of the theoretical literature on the distribution of earnings in the...

This paper studies a model of the distribution of income under bounded needs. Utility derived from any given good reaches a bliss point at a finite consumption level of that good. On the other hand, introducing new varieties always increases utility. It is assumed that each variety is owned by a...

We examine the effect on inequality of increasing one income, and show that for two wide classes of indices a benchmark income level or position exists, dividing upper from lower incomes, such that if a lower income is raised, inequality falls, and if an upper income is raised, inequality rises....

A number of studies have examined the implications of preference interdependence. This paper models utility as depending on other people?s consumption levels and shows that welfare declines with inequality, equilibrium inequality is inefficient, and the optimal intervention leads to a more equal...