We posit that the relationship between income inequality and economic growth ismediated by the level of equality of opportunity, which we identify with intergenerationalmobility. In economies characterized by intergenerational rigidities, an increase in incomeinequality has persistent...

We explore the role of social mobility as a driver of economic development. First, we map the geography of intergenerational mobility of education for 52 Latin American regions, as well as its evolution over time. Then, through a new weighting procedure that considers the participation of...

Just as equality of opportunity becomes an increasingly prominent concept in normative economics, the authors argue that it is also a relevant concept for positive models of the links between distribution and aggregate efficiency. Persuasive microeconomic evidence suggests that inequalities in...

This paper is a review of the post-war literature on income distribution and development. It argues that the literature has cycled from one consensus to another, responding to emerging policy issues and new analysis. On the basis of the review, the paper identifies five areas that will command...

In this paper, we abandon the stylized median voter and study (i) how distributional tensions can act in many different ways depending on social affinity and on the prospect of upward or downwardmobility of the different income classes, (ii) income distribution dynamics, intergenerational...

In this paper, we abandon the stylized median voter and study (i) how distributional tensions can act in many different ways depending on social affinity and on the prospect of upward or downward mobility of the different income classes, (ii) income distribution dynamics, intergenerational...

This paper argues that an increase in the inequality of wealth prompts a stronger quest for status that in turn fosters the accumulation of wealth. It proposes a measure for an individual’s want of social status. For a given level of a population’s wealth, the corresponding aggregate measure...

Income differences arise from many sources. While some kinds of inequality, caused by effort differences, might be associated with faster economic growth, other kinds, arising from unequal opportunities for investment, might be detrimental to economic progress. We construct two new metadata...

We review the literature on the links between inequality, growth and welfare. Three questions are addressed: 1) What is the impact of growth and development on inequality? 2) What is the impact of inequality on growth, development and welfare? 3) What is the impact of proequality public policies...

This paper provides a normative framework for the assessment of the distributional incidence of growth. By removing the anonymity axiom, such framework is able to evaluate the individual income changes over time and the reshu­ ing of individuals along the income distribution that are determined...