Author: Lance Taylor / Topic: Wealth

Author:: Lance Taylor and Özlem Ömer
Publication Date:: 04-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)
Abstract:: “Meso” level analysis of 16 producing sectors sheds light on broad forces shaping growth of employment and profits. In a growth decomposition from 1990 through 2016, employment responds positively to output increases and negatively to rising productivity. The macro profit share responds positively to sectoral productivity and demand shifts, and negatively to real wage increases. The decomposition weights suggest that wage repression raises profits in business services, education and health, wholesale and retail trade, and parts of manufacturing. Observed profit growth was robust in manufacturing, trade, finance and insurance, and information. The latter two (and wholesale trade) benefitted from favorable demand shifts. However, they generate less than a quarter of total profits. Owners of real estate receive more than a quarter but their share is not increasing. Growth of the remaining one-half of profits has been due to demand shifts and productivity growth which exceeded real wage increases. Market power matters in all sectors. The strongest effects may act against employment and real wages in labor markets.
Topic:: Inequality, Income Inequality, Economy, Monopoly, Rent, Minimum Wage, and Wealth
Political Geography:: North America and United States of America

Author:: Lance Taylor
Publication Date:: 12-2015
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)
Abstract:: The Cambridge UK vs USA capital theory debates of the 1960s showed that the workhorse mainstream growth model relies on unsustainable assumptions. Its standard interpretation is not consistent with the last four decades of data. Part of an estimated increase in the ratio of personal wealth to income in recent years is due to higher asset prices. The other side of the accounts reveals that financialization and growing business debt partially offset the greater net worth of households. Attempts to interpret growth in wealth principally as a consequence of capitalization of rents are misleading. An alternative growth model based on Cambridge ideas can help correct these misinterpretations.
Topic:: Economics, Income Inequality, Economic Theory, Repression, Capital, Redistribution, and Wealth
Political Geography:: North America and United States of America

Author:: Lance Taylor, Özlem Ömer, and Armon Rezai
Publication Date:: 09-2015
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)
Abstract:: US household wealth concentration is not likely to decline in response to fiscal interventions alone. Creation of an independent public wealth fund could lead to greater equality. Similarly, once-off tax/transfer packages or wage increases will not reduce income inequality significantly; on-going wage increases in excess of productivity growth would be needed. These results come from the accounting in a simulation model based on national income and financial data. The theory behind the model borrows from ideas that originated in Cambridge UK (especially from Luigi Pasinetti and Richard Goodwin).
Topic:: Inequality, Income Inequality, Tax Systems, Redistribution, and Wealth
Political Geography:: North America and United States of America

Author:: Lance Taylor, Özlem Ömer, and Armon Rezai
Publication Date:: 09-2015
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)
Abstract:: US household wealth concentration is not likely to decline in response to fiscal interventions alone. Creation of an independent public wealth fund could lead to greater equality. Similarly, once-off tax/transfer packages or wage increases will not reduce income inequality significantly; on-going wage increases in excess of productivity growth would be needed. These results come from the accounting in a simulation model based on national income and financial data. The theory behind the model borrows from ideas that originated in Cambridge UK (especially from Luigi Pasinetti and Richard Goodwin).
Topic:: Inequality, Income Inequality, Tax Systems, Redistribution, and Wealth
Political Geography:: North America and United States of America

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