Search formAdvanced search

The paper studies endogenous employment and distribution dynamics in a Post-Keynesian growth model of the Kalecki–Steindl tradition. Productivity adjustments stabilise employment and the labour share in the long run: technological change allows firms to replenish the reserve army of workers in a struggle over income shares and thereby keeps wage demands in check. Labour market dynamics follow from separate wage and price curves. The authors discuss stability conditions and the equilibrium dynamics and investigate how legal working time and its reduction affect this equilibrium.

Die Konjunktur in Deutschland wird in diesem Jahr von zwei sehr unterschiedlichen konjunkturellen Triebkräften geprägt. Auf der einen Seite dürften die vollen Auftragsbücher der Industrieunternehmen und die allmähliche Normalisierung der Corona-Situation der Konjunktur einen kräftigen Schub geben. Auf der anderen Seite dämpfen die Folgen des russisch-ukrainischen Krieges die Konjunktur über deutlich gestiegene Rohstoffpreise, die wirtschaftlichen Sanktionen gegen Russland, zunehmende Lieferengpässe bei Rohmaterialien und Vorprodukten sowie erhöhte wirtschaftliche Unsicherheit. Um den Unwägbarkeiten im Hinblick auf den weiteren Verlauf des Krieges Rechnung zu tragen, wurden für die Prognose zwei Szenarien in Betracht gezogen. Das Basisszenario geht nur von einer vorübergehenden Zunahme der Rohstoffpreise, Lieferengpässe und Unsicherheit aus. Im Alternativszenario verschärft sich die Situation zunächst noch, bevor ab der Jahresmitte eine allmähliche Entspannung einsetzt. Unter diesen Annahmen dürfte das Bruttoinlandsprodukt in diesem Jahr nur noch um 3,1% (Basisszenario) bzw. 2,2% (Alternativszenario) zulegen und damit spürbar weniger als bislang erwartet (3,7%). Im kommenden Jahr dürfte das Wachstum dann mit 3,3% (Basisszenario) bzw. 3,9% (Alternativszenario) höher liegen als in diesem Jahr. Die Verbraucherpreise werden in diesem Jahr mit 5,1% (Basisszenario) bzw. 6,1% (Alternativszenario) deutlich schneller steigen als bislang erwartet (3,3%). Im kommenden Jahr wird sich die Inflationsrate zwar wieder verlangsamen, aber mit etwa 2% immer noch deutlich höher sein als in den Jahren vor der Corona-Krise.

This paper builds Distributional National Accounts (DINA) using household survey data. We develop a transparent and reproducible methodology that uses only publicly available sources, provides highly comparable results well suited for policy analyses, and can be applied when administrative tax data are not available for research. We apply this methodology to build synthetic micro-datafiles for European countries that cover the entire distribution, include all income components separately, are consistent with national accounts, and preserve the detailed socioeconomic information available in the surveys. We discuss the methodological steps and their impact on the income distribution. In particular, we highlight the effects of imputations and the adjustment of variables to national accounts' totals. Furthermore, we compare the different income concepts of the DINA and the EG-DNA approach in a consistent way. Overall, aligning household incomes with national accounts' totals and imputing incomes from other sectors increases inequality in most countries, which underlines the importance of reconciling income distributions with macroeconomic aggregates.

This paper estimates rates of return across the gross wealth distribution in eight European countries. Like differential saving rates, differential rates of return matter for post Keynesian theory, because they impact the income and wealth distribution and add an explosive element to growth models. We show that differential rates of return matter empirically by merging data on household balance sheets with long-run returns for individual asset categories. We find that first, the composition of wealth differentiates three socioeconomic groups: 30 percent are asset-poor, 65 percent are middle-class home-owners, and the top 5 percent are business-owning capitalists. Second, rates of return rise across all groups, and third, rates of return broadly follow a log-shaped function across the distribution, where inequality in the lower half of the distribution is higher than in the upper half. If socioeconomic groups are collapsed into the bottom 95 percent workers and top 5 percent capitalists, then rates of return are 5.6 percent for the former and 7.2 percent for the latter.

If Piketty's main theoretical prediction (r > g leads to rising wealth inequality) is taken to its radical conclusion, then a small elite will own all wealth if capitalism is left to its own devices. We formulate and calibrate a Post-Keynesian model with an endogenous distribution of wealth between workers and capitalists which permits such a corner solution of all wealth held by capitalists. However, it also shows interior solutions with a stable, non-zero wealth share of workers, a stable wealth-to-income ratio, and a stable and positive gap between the profit and the growth rate determined by the Cambridge equation. More importantly, simulations show that the model conforms to Piketty's empirical findings during a transitional phase of increasing wealth inequality, which characterizes the current state of high-income countries: the wealth share of capitalists rises to over 60 percent, the wealth-to-income ratio increases, and income inequality rises. Finally, we show that the introduction of a wealth tax as suggested by Piketty could neutralize this rise in wealth concentration predicted by our model.

We develop and calibrate an analytical growth model in the Post-Keynesian tradition with an endogenous wealth distribution and differential returns to wealth between workers and capitalists. We show that a long-run equilibrium allows for non-zero wealth owned by workers, even as the model contains the "triumph of the rentier" predicted by Piketty as a special case. The model's calibration to ten European countries shows that the distribution of wealth is likely to become more unequal in all cases, barring political countermeasures.

The paper investigates how including the distribution of wealth changes the demand effects of redistributing functional income. It develops a model with an endogenous wealth distribution and shows that the endogenous rise in wealth inequality resulting from a redistribution towards profits weakens the growth effects of this redistribution. Consequently, a wage-led regime becomes more strongly wage-led. A profit-led regime on the other hand becomes less profit-led and there may even be a regime switch – in this case the short-run profit-led economy becomes wage-led in the long run due to the endogenous effects of wealth inequality. The paper thereby provides a possible explanation for the instability of demand regimes over time.