In the first chapter we explore the relationship between income inequality and the Utilitarian ethic in a dynamic environment with endogenous preferences. Classical Utilitarians, like Bentham, believed that utilitarian principles are compatible with egalitarian ones. Although this claim is not uncontroversial, this relation holds for a utilitarian distribution of a given good among people, with identical concave utilities and exogenously set preferences. This idea breaks down if the preferences are different. In this paper we allow for endogenous preferences influenced by the existence of habits. We show how the inclusion of habit formation, studied in a dynamic environment, has egalitarian implications for a classical utilitarian distribution. Based on this result we are able to argue that Bentham’s positive views of decreasing inequality due to different consumption habits are consistent with his normative views regarding distribution. The second chapter explores the question of whether long-term income inequality consistent with equality of opportunity (EOp) ethic. In order to provide an answer we study the effectiveness of intergenerational EOp policies in an environment with two social groups and infinite generations of individuals, where the outcomes of one generation define the circumstances of the next. Circumstances in this paper have to do either with different preferences among individuals from different social groups or with both resources and preferences due to these resources. We show that in the former case EOp policies reduce inequality and also the EOp policy is the same as the Utilitarian one. In the latter case, inequality is not reduced and its level depends on the relative population of the two social groups. The third chapter studies an economy where privately informed hedge funds trade a risky asset in order to exploit potential mispricings. Hedge funds are allowed to have access to credit, by using their risky assets as collateral. We analyse the role of the degree of heterogeneity among hedge funds’s demand for the risky asset in the emergence of clustering of defaults. We find that fire-sales caused by margin calls is a necessary, yet not a sufficient condition for defaults to be clustered. We show that when the degree of heterogeneity is sufficiently high, poorly performing hedge funds are able to obtain a higher than usual market share at the end of the leverage cycle, which leads to an improvement of their performance. Consequently, their survival time is prolonged, increasing the probability of them remaining in operation until the downturn of the next leverage cycle. This leads to the increase of the probability of poorly and high-performing hedge funds to default in sync at a later time, and thus the probability of collective defaults.

This thesis consists of three papers that examine sorting and inequality. In the first paper I present a model in which people sort into groups according to income and as a result become biased about the shape of the income distribution. Their biased beliefs in turn affect who they choose to interact with, and hence there is a two-way interaction between segregation and misperceptions about society. I show one possible application of this novel framework to the question of income inequality and the demand for redistribution. I demonstrate that under segregation an increase in income inequality can lead to a decline in perceived inequality and therefore to a fall in people's support for redistribution. I motivate my main assumptions with empirical evidence from a small survey that I conducted via Amazon Mechanical Turk. In the second paper I develop a general model of how social segregation and beliefs interact. Sorting decisions will be affected by beliefs about society, but these beliefs about society are in turn influenced by social interactions. In my model, people sort into social groups according to income, but become biased about the income distribution once they interact only with their own social circle. I define "biased sorting equilibria", which are stable partitions in which people want to stay in their chosen group, despite their acquired misperceptions about the other groups. I introduce a refinement criterion - the consistency requirement - and find necessary and sufficient conditions for existence and uniqueness of biased sorting equilibria. In the third paper I present a model in which a monopolist offers citizens the opportunity to segregate into groups according to income. I focus initially on the case of two groups and show that a monopolist with fixed costs of offering the sorting technology will see profits increase as income inequality increases. I then analyze how the monopolist's optimal group partition varies with inequality and show that for a broad field of income distributions, monopolist profits increase with inequality, while at the same time total welfare of sorting given the monopolist's optimal schedule decreases. In the last section I examine how these findings generalize if the monopolist doesn't face costs of offering the sorting technology and can therefore offer as many groups as she wants.

At the core of the theoretical part of this thesis is a review of recent attempts at incorporating income distribution in economy-wide models. Most existing models are very detailed and complex but the mechanisms which dominate the results are simple and determined by conveniently extreme assumptions about prices and wages. Typically, prices are either all rigid or all flexible; the treatment of agriculture is unsatisfactory; and dualism in the labour market is ignored. A convincing case for the alleged insensitivity of the distribution of income to policy interventions can not be based on these models. The major part of the thesis describes two models, for Tanzania and Kenya, and their results. In the first model the emphasis is on the effects of migration and economic growth on the urban income distribution. It describes an economy in which neither prices nor wages respond to changes in market conditions. Distinctive features of the Kenya model include its submodel for smallholder agriculture, educational 'bumping' in the labour market and its emphasis on trade and pricing policies. The models are used to estimate the effects of policies (wages, trade, pricing, investment allocation, land redistribution) on growth and income distribution. The results contradict some of the conventional wisdom about the two countries. The models explicitly recognise a number of market imperfections, especially in the labour market, which are crucial in determining distributional changes but which are usually ignored in modelling. The results reveal a greater sensitivity of the distribution of income to changes in policies than has been found with some other models.

This thesis examines the reaction of monetary policy to income inequality and the effect of asset price changes and financial sector development on income inequality. The actions of monetary authorities in the U.S and elsewhere during the financial crisis period have had a major impact on financial markets. Given that financial asset prices respond quickly to new information about monetary policy shifts, the Fed’s low interest rate policy stance that started in August 2007 led to a significant increase in asset prices, particularly stock prices. Stock prices appreciation transfers wealth to those households who already own stocks; generally speaking, the wealthier American households. Consequently, it is important to examine empirically the dynamics of monetary policy, asset prices and financial development on income inequality. First, we examined the response of monetary policy to income inequality. We tried to provide empirical answers to the following questions; is there any evidence that monetary policy responds to income inequality? If there is evidence of such a response, what is the nature symmetric or asymmetric? Secondly, is there any significant relationship between changes in stock prices and income inequality? Thirdly, what are the implications of financial sector development on income inequality? This area of literature draws from monetary economics, financial economics and welfare economics disciplines, and has become increasingly important given the massive levels of income inequality that is witnessed around the world. Chapter 2 of this thesis looks at the reaction of monetary policy to income inequality using data from the U.S. We provided evidence of a positive and significant reaction of monetary policy to income inequality measured using the income share accruing to the top 1 percent income earners. We also found evidence of asymmetric reaction of monetary policy to the income of the top 1 percent between 1960 and 2009. In chapter 3 we focused on the role of asset prices on income inequality using data from the U.S. We found that stock market developments and income of the top 1 percent wage earners are well integrated with the direction of causality running from stock returns to top 1 percent income share. One of the practical policy implications of this finding is that monetary policy stance that is directed towards the propping up of asset prices will have a concomitant effect on the income of the top 1 percent income earners. Also in chapter 3 we used the Generalized Methods of Moment GMM to examine the reaction of inequality measured using the income share of the top 1 percent, the bottom 90 percent and the lowest fifth percent households to changes in asset prices. Our task here is to examine whether changes in both financial and nonfinancial assets affects everyone in the top and bottom of the income distribution the same way, or if there are remarkable differences on how these variables affect individuals within the top and bottom income percentiles. Our results detected widespread and subtle effects of asset prices on income at the selected percentiles of the income distribution. These findings hold practical implications for policy makers because the distribution of stocks and homes has important consequences on who benefits from asset prices appreciation and who is hurt by its depreciation. Finally in chapter 4 we analysed the distributional consequences of financial sector development on income inequality using a large unbalanced dataset of 91 countries, classified according to World Bank’s income categories. The results in almost all the models suggested that increasing access to credit for households will reduce income inequality. This finding is important in the light of the potential for using financial development as a policy tool to reduce the widening income inequality around the world.

Rising inequalities between and within income categories (especially labour and capital) haveemerged as an increasing concern particularly in the last two decades. One of the main reasons for this has been a sharp decline in the wage share in many countries. A declining wage share refers to a decrease in the size of the total wage bill relative to either national income or net value addition (NVA). India is an important example of this situation. Trends at the level of aggregate statistics show that the wage bill has not kept up with productivity increases. This has led to a sharp decline in the wage share, leaving researchers the task of explaining the causes (and consequences) of this decline. The research contributes towards this task by critically examining one of the main avenues ofresearch that has been used in order to explain the causes of a declining wage share in India. This refers to the hypothesis according to which this trend is the outcome of increased capital intensity of employment, or more generally labour-saving investments. The study examines the relevance of this hypothesis for dynamics taking place at a disaggregated level of analysis in Indian industrial manufacturing. In order to do this, three main questions are addressed. The first is whether a declining wage share is a necessary outcome of labour-saving investments in production, or whether other factors are also important in mediating this relationship. The second is the conditions affecting the degree to which a declining wage share also involves increased income inequalities within the labour income category, and in some cases, declining real incomes for workers. The third is the relevance of drawing upon a demand and supply framework for the treatment of the question of causality in the analysis. The study answers the questions by drawing on two very different case studies. The first is thePimpri Chinchwad Industrial Township (PCIT), located in the outskirts of Pune (State ofMaharashtra, western India). The production processes characterising many of the factoriesoperating in this area are capital intensive. The second is the art metalware industry in Moradabad (State of Uttar Pradesh, northern India). The production processes taking place in the majority of units in this area are labour-intensive. The findings suggest that the factors contributing to a declining wage share cannot be analysed without at the same time examining the distributional set-ups within which technological changes take place, and how these arrangements are changing. Firstly, many of the factors contributing towards a declining wage share are not directly caused by changes in technology, and hence skill requirements, in production. This includes the weakness (and further weakening) of the mechanisms linking wages to productivity at the firm and sectoral level. Secondly, a declining wage share also involves changing income inequalities within the labour income category. The sources of these inequalities are not only linked to differentials in skills. Thirdly, this is happening in the context of speedy changes in the economy, including changing needs. This makes the links between wages and productivity an important requirement for the labour income category to be able to benefit from increased productivity, not only as workers through the wage system, but also as consumers. Lastly, many of the variables that emerge as important in the analysis cannot be subsumed under a demand and supply framework. One of the implications for the treatment of the issue of causality is the need to move away from seeking causal links in the traditional ‘cause and effect’ framework, to questions about how certain trends come about. This also has consequences for the normative side of the debate.

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This thesis is concerned with two main questions. Do systemic banking crises substantially affect the income distribution in a country? Is income inequality a destabilising factor for the macro-economy? In order to answer the first question, this thesis examines a panel of 26 countries since 1900 and assembles a new database of crises, finding that the impact of major banking crises on the national income shares detained by the income groups within the richest decile is mostly small in magnitude. Indeed, the estimated impact is never bigger than a standard deviation of the specific top shares under investigation. Results are also confirmed in a separate analysis for the United States and are robust to a series of checks. These findings lend indirect support to the structuralist hypothesis that only substantial changes in government policies and institutional frameworks can bring about radical changes in income distribution. The analysis also highlights interesting heterogeneity across different income groups, country groups and time periods. The second question is addressed by making use of a newly assembled database on different dimensions of economic inequality. The new data helps to reject the statistical validity of the hypotheses that either growing inequality or a high level of inequality may systematically precede the onset of major banking crises. In addition, simulations based on the UK Family Expenditure Survey data find that even a full equalisation of income would increase the aggregate consumption by 3 percentage points at most. These findings, taken together, point out that an increase in income inequality may not concur to reduce the pressure on aggregate demand or be adduced as a structural factor of financial instability. Nonetheless, the evidence is not yet clear cut as the work further documents that periods of increasing income inequality in the UK were also associated with a reduction of the saving rates across the whole income distribution since 1968. The analysis contends that such evidence of under-saving behaviour may be consistent with the relative income hypothesis and some of its recent formulations such as the ’expenditure cascades’ theory.

The thesis comprehends four chapters: the first chapter concerns with the positive correlation between cross-country price level and per-capita income, which is generally regarded as a stylized fact renowned as the Penn-Balassa-Samuelson effect. The chapter provides evidence that the price-income relationship is actually non-linear and that it turns negative in low income countries. The result is robust along both cross-section and panel dimensions. The main contribution of this chapter is to uncover a new empirical regularity such that the price level firstly decreases and then increases along the development process. The second chapter argues that, in order to capture the non-monotonicity of the price-income relationship, we need a modified Balassa-Samuelson framework that accounts for the fact that low-income and high-income countries have very different economic structures and are at different stages of development. Particular emphasis needs to be put on the relevance of the agricultural sector in poor countries and for . The contribution of this chapter is to show that a model linking the price level to the process of structural transformation captures the non-monotonic pattern of the data. The third chapter departs from the Balassa-Samuleson framework and analyses the price-income relationship in a multisector Eaton-Kortum model of trade. The chapter shows that also within this framework a negative-price income relationship emerges. This provides further support to the empirical result shown in the first chapter and additional insights on the determinants of such relationship. The fourth chapter focuses on the relationship between foreign capital flows and income inequality in emerging countries. Developing countries experience a prolonged period of real exchange rate overvaluation after they have opened their capital and current account. This real exchange rate overvaluation is associated with rising income inequality within a country. The chapter provides evidence of a significant positive correlation between net capital flows and the Gini coefficient. The chapter presents also a model connecting the dynamics of the balance of payments with a search and matching model of the labor market. This provides a useful analytical framework to disentangle the mechanisms that can link foreign capital flows to income inequality through the impact of real exchange rate adjustment on the price of labor and quantity of employment.

The Scandinavian welfare regime is expected to have better aggregate health than other welfare regimes due mainly to its narrow income inequality. This theoretical expectation is in part related to the Wilkinson Hypothesis that, in industrialised nations, a society’s narrow income inequality enhances its aggregate health. This thesis tests both of the above propositions. This is achieved by means of four methods not previously applied to this field, namely a ‘review of reviews’, a decomposition systematic review, a new case selection method, and a use of the OECD regional dataset for the cross-national comparative health study. These new methodological approaches lead to four main findings. First, the Scandinavian welfare regime shows worse-than-expected aggregate health outcomes. This thesis terms this counterintuitive finding as ‘the second Scandinavian puzzle’. Second, the East Asian welfare regime shows unexpectedly good aggregate health, which is proposed as ‘the East Asian puzzle’. Third, regarding the Wilkinson Hypothesis, it is income, rather than income inequality, which is a statistically significant determinant of aggregate health. Fourth, the effects on health of income inequality or welfare regimes reverse over a certain threshold of age, which is termed here ‘the age threshold effect’.

Cette thèse regroupe trois articles sur les déséquilibres macroéconomiques en Europe, que ces déséquilibres se manifestent par une divergence entre pays membres de la zone euro, ou par une déformation du partage de la richesse entre travail et capital. Depuis l’introduction de l’Euro jusqu'à la crise financière globale de 2008, les déséquilibres macroéconomiques se sont creusés parmi les États membres : les prix et les salaires entre pays ont augmenté beaucoup plus rapidement dans les pays les plus pauvres initialement que dans le reste de la zone. Ces déséquilibres étaient tout d’abord perçus comme reflétant un processus de rattrapage. Cette interprétation a été remise en cause à partir de la crise financière globale de 2008. Ils ont été pointés du doigt comme reflétant de «mauvais» déséquilibres, signes d’une perte de compétitivité dans la « périphérie » de la zone euro. Les deux premiers chapitres identifient les facteurs à l’origine de ces déséquilibres. Ils montrent qu’ils sont en grande partie la conséquence de l’intégration économique elle-même. Le troisième chapitre s’intéresse au partage de la richesse entre travail et capital. Depuis le début des années 1980, la part de la richesse distribuée au travail a diminué dans les pays européens. En parallèle, la part des profits distribués aux actionnaires sous forme de dividendes et de rachats d’actions a augmenté. Ce chapitre suggère que sont en cause des changements dans la gouvernance des entreprises. Ces changements se manifestent par un rôle accru des investisseurs institutionnels dans le capital des sociétés non-financières, qui sont alors amenées à faire prédominer la rémunération des actionnaires au détriment du travail. / This doctoral thesis gathers three articles on macroeconomic imbalances in Europe. It deals with two types of imbalances: imbalances among European countries, and within these countries, in the distribution of income between labour and capital. From the Euro inception up to the 2008 global financial crisis, macroeconomic imbalances widened among Member States. This divergence took the form of strong differences in the dynamics of prices and wages: they increased much faster in "peripheral" economies than in "core" countries. These imbalances were first interpreted as reflecting a catch-up and convergence process of the poorest countries of the area. Both economists and policymakers challenged this view in the aftermath of the 2008 recession. Imbalances were then pointed out as reflecting a broader competitiveness problem in the "sinful periphery" compared to the "virtuous core". The first two chapters ask what are the main contributors to these imbalances. They argue that, in peripheral economies, they mostly reflect the process of economic integration. The third chapter focuses on the distribution of income between labour and capital. Since the early 1980s, there has been a decline in the share of income accruing to labour in European countries. This decline was parallel to an increase in the profit share, that reflects mostly the dynamics of payouts (dividends and buybacks) to shareholders. This chapter argues that these trends could be linked to recent trends in firm ownership. Non-financial corporations are increasingly owned by institutional investors, whom exert pressures for tighter governance in favor of shareholders and to the expense of labour.