Inequality and government debt: Evidence from OECD panel data

Weijie Luo

Economics Letters, 2020, vol. 186, issue C

Abstract: This paper analyzes how government debt can be caused by changes in the income distribution. Unlike Azzimonti et al. (2014), I distinguish between income inequality induced by differences in labor productivity and income inequality induced by differences in capital income, utilizing the Luxembourg Income Study. Using data for OECD countries, an increase in labor income inequality leads to higher debt level whilst capital income inequality is negatively associated with debt.

Keywords: Capital income; Inequality; Government debt (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D31 H63 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176519304380
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
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:eee:ecolet:v:186:y:2020:i:c:s0165176519304380

DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2019.108869

Access Statistics for this article

Economics Letters is currently edited by Economics Letters Editorial Office

More articles in Economics Letters from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().