讲座主题： What is important in determining long-run income distribution, thriftiness, patience, or adaptableness?

演讲人：Tamotsu Nakamura教授   日本神户大学

主持人：叶建亮   浙江大学经济学院 

时间：2014年5月29日（周四）下午 3：00：00-4：30

地点：浙江大学玉泉校区经济学院418室

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 Abstract

This research analyzes the dynamics of income distribution by incorporating two key features into a standard neoclassical growth model. One is that individuals have Stone-Geary preference, which is characterized by the existence of minimum consumption, with different intertemporal elasticity of substitution parameters. The other is a Jones-Mauelli production function that allows us to investigate both perpetual growth and no perpetual growth cases in a single framework.

Without long-run growth, Ramsey’s conjecture always holds, that is, the most patient individual owns the entire capital in an economy in the long run. If the preferences are the same among individuals, then, as the previous studies show, distribution of income and consumption becomes more uneven throughout the transition, that is, initially rich individuals become even richer than initially poor individuals in the long run. In contrast, our analysis shows that if the preferences other than patience are different, the long-run income distribution depends crucially on the length of transition. While the effect of minimum consumption is large at the early stage of the transition, the effect of intertemporal elasticity of substitution is large at the later stage. Hence, while minimum consumption plays an important role when the transition is short, intertemporal elasticity of substitution plays an important role when it is long. As a result, the various transition paths of income distribution become possible. For instance, the individuals’ positions in the wealth distribution can be changed when the transition is long, that is, initially rich individuals become poorer than initially poor individuals in the long run.

The long-run growth appears in the model as the limit in which the transition becomes infinitely long. Hence, intertemporal elasticity of substitution comes to play a crucial role. As a result, contrary to the case without long-run growth, Ramsey’s conjecture does not always hold in an economy with long-run growth, that is, the most patient household does not always own the entire capital. Our analysis shows that, if the most impatient household has high intertemporal substitutability, it can own the almost all (but not entire) capital of the economy in the long-run.

                                                             CRPE秘书处
                                                             2014-5-26