Exploring the Existence of a Short-Run Kuznets Curve: Does the Fourth Industrial Revolution Affect Income distribution?

Castaldo Angelo () and Valeria De Bonis
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Castaldo Angelo: Department of Juridical and Economic Studies, Institute of Economics and Finance, Sapienza University of Rome, P.le Aldo Moro, 5, Roma, 00185, Italy

The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, 2023, vol. 23, issue 2, 515-524

Abstract: The link between technological change and income inequality is central to the Kuznets hypothesis. In a time of technological transition towards the digitization and intelligentization of manufacturing processes (the fourth industrial revolution), this paper investigates the relationship between economic development and income distribution through the implementation of both a system generalized method of moments (system-GMM) and a semiparametric fixed effects model approach. Based on a panel of 31 European-area countries over a period of 12 years (2007–2018), accounting for the endogeneity bias arising from the transitional dynamics of income inequality and per capita income, our main results confirm the existence of an inverted U-shaped relationship between income inequality and economic development. Moreover, our analysis shows that the change in the share of labour employed in high-tech sectors is the main driver of this evolutionary pattern.

Keywords: income distribution; technological shocks; Kuznets curve; GMM (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O15 O33 O52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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DOI: 10.1515/bejeap-2020-0231

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