Economic and Social Sustainability: The Influence of Oligopolies on Inequality and Growth

Ronald Kumar and Peter Stauvermann

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 22, 1-23

Abstract: To realize economic and social sustainability, it is necessary to avoid economic injustice and therefore too unequal a distribution of income and wealth. In this paper we investigate the extent to which oligopolies contribute to an unequal income distribution, and the consequences of enforcing more market competition. For this purpose, an overlapping generation growth model is developed with imperfect competition to derive the influence of market concentration on economic growth and the distribution of income. We investigate the influence of market concentration on the inter- and intra-generational distribution of income and economic growth. We show that political lobbying and corruption are important reasons for missing competition in markets. While an increasing market concentration leads to a more unequal intra-generational distribution and to a redistribution of income from the old to the young generation, the impact on economic growth is in general ambiguous, and specifically depends on the cost of lobbying.

Keywords: economic and social sustainability; oligopoly; economic growth; inequality; lobbying; bribing; political economy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:22:p:9378-:d:443339

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