Financial Technology and the Inequality Gap

Roxana Mihet

No 20736, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: New financial information technologies were expected to democratize finance and narrow wealth gaps. I show they can do the opposite. In a noisy-rational expectations general equilibrium model of the stock market, technology works through two distinct frictions: participation and information. Lowering participation frictions broadens entry, improves risk sharing, and reduces wealth and return inequality. Lowering information costs reallocates surplus to informed traders and increases cross-sectional inequality. Broadly shared gains thus require targeting participation frictions; subsidizing information acquisition alone can exacerbate dispersion. The model's distributional predictions are consistent with recent data.

Keywords: Financial technology; stock market; Gini coefficient (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E21 G11 G14 L1 L15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-10
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