A significant amount of the increase in the wealth income ratio in recent decades is due to an increase in the value of land. We present a series of models that explain why land prices may have increased. These models help us understand the increase in both the wealth income ratio and wealth...

A second extension analyzes the effects of land. We ask whether land holding displaces the holding of capital, resulting in workers being worse off. A tax on land, while reducing the value of land, leaves unchanged the capital-labor ratio, output per capita, and wages. But the tax reduces the...

Among the key results are: (i) The magnitude of wealth inequality does not, in general depend on the difference between the rate of interest (r) and the rate of growth (g); the former is itself an endogenous variable that needs to be explained. In the standard generalization of the Solow model,...

Explaining why the concepts of "capital" and "wealth" are distinct, we show that appropriately defined aggregates for wealth may be (and in the case of some countries appear to be) moving in opposite directions

Inequality is one of the main challenges posed by the proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI) and other forms of worker-replacing technological progress. This paper provides a taxonomy of the associated economic issues: First, we discuss the general conditions under which new technologies...