The dynamics of exploitation and inequality in economies with heterogeneous agents

Giorgos Galanis, Roberto Veneziani and Naoki Yoshihara ()

No SDES-2018-10, Working Papers from Kochi University of Technology, School of Economics and Management

Abstract: This paper analyses the relation between growth, inequalities, and exploitation as the unequal exchange of labour (UE exploitation). An economy with heterogeneous, intertemporally optimising agents is considered which generalises John Roemer's [52, 53] seminal models. First, a correspondence between pro ts and the existence (and intensity) of UE exploitation is proved in the dynamic context. This result is important, positively, because the pro t rate is one of the key determinants of investment decisions, and, normatively, because it provides a link between UE exploitation and the functional distribution of income. Second, it is shown that asset inequalities are fundamental for the emergence of UE exploitation, but they are not sufficient for its persistence, both in equilibria with accumulation and growth, and, perhaps more surprisingly, in stationary intertemporal equilibrium paths. Labour-saving technical progress, however, may yield sustained growth with persistent UE exploitation by keeping labour abundant relative to capital. Persistent inequalities in income and labour exchanged arise from the interaction between labour market conditions and differential ownership of productive assets.

Keywords: Dynamics; accumulation; exploitation; inequalities (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C61 D51 D63 E11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 28 pages
Date: 2018-10, Revised 2018-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hme, nep-hpe and nep-mac
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Published in SDE Series, October 2018, pages 1-28

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.souken.kochi-tech.ac.jp/seido/wp/SDES-2018-10.pdf First version, 2018 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: The Dynamics of Exploitation and Inequality in Economies with Heterogeneous Agents (2018)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kch:wpaper:sdes-2018-10

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Kochi University of Technology, School of Economics and Management Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sachiko Minami ().