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Market institutions and income inequality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 July 2015

RANDALL G. HOLCOMBE  and
CHRISTOPHER J. BOUDREAUX
RANDALL G. HOLCOMBE
Affiliation:
Florida State University
CHRISTOPHER J. BOUDREAUX
Affiliation:
Texas A&M International University
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Abstract

Some economic analysis concludes that capitalist institutions tend to produce growing income inequality. Piketty (2014 Capital in the Twenty-First Century., Cambridge: Harvard University Press) is a recent example. This paper uses two different datasets on income shares of the top 10% to analyze the effect of market institutions on income inequality. The same empirical specifications give different results for the two datasets. This empirical investigation suggests that whether market institutions generate income inequality is an open question.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Institutional Economics , Volume 12 , Issue 2 , June 2016 , pp. 263 - 276
Copyright
Copyright © Millennium Economics Ltd 2015 

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