期刊名称：Departmental Discussion Papers / University of Glasgow, Department of Economics
出版年度：2009
卷号：1
出版社：University of Glasgow, Department of Economics
摘要：In this paper we investigate wealth inequality/polarization properties related to the support of
the limit distribution of wealth in innovative economies characterized by uninsurable individual
risk. We work out two simple successive generation examples, one with stochastic human capital
accumulation and one with R&D, and prove that intense technological progress makes the support
of the wealth distribution converge to a fractal Cantor-like set. Such limit distribution implies the
disappearance of the middle class, with a “gap” between two wealth clusters that widens as the
growth rate becomes higher. Hence, we claim that in a highly meritocratic world in which the
payoff of the successful individuals is high enough, and in which social mobility is strong, societies
tend to become unequal and polarized. We also show that a redistribution scheme financed
by proportional taxation does not help cure society’s inequality/polarization – on the contrary, it
might increase it – whereas random taxation may well succeed in filling the gap by giving rise to
an artificial middle class, but it hardly makes such class sizeable enough. Finally, we investigate
how disconnection, a typical feature of Cantor-like sets, is related to inequality in the long run.
