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    Political Economy of Wealth Inequality and Property Ownership

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    NtiAddae_ku_0099D_15319_DATA_1.pdf (1.147Mb)
    Issue Date
    2017-05-31
    Author
    Nti-Addae, Akwasi
    Publisher
    University of Kansas
    Format
    81 pages
    Type
    Dissertation
    Degree Level
    Ph.D.
    Discipline
    Economics
    Rights
    Copyright held by the author.
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    Abstract
    After the World War era, there has been a gradual rise in wealth Inequality in industrialized economies, with wealth in the United States becoming more concentrated than wealth in most European economies.[1] Current research on wealth inequality attributes the main reason for the long-run divergence in wealth inequality to the r −g gap, where r is the rate of return on capital and g is the economy’s growth rate. Nonetheless, speculations about capital and the rate of return on capital, it’s definition and measurement, have raised concerns about deriving the r−g gap. Using the United States, post World Wars, as a study case, my dissertation addresses the concentration of wealth by investigating income from property ownership. Specifically it focusses on 3 main issues: (i) I provide an alternative measure for the Piketty r − g gap by deriving the rate of reutrn on property ownership (rp), and show that the gap between the long-run rate of return on property ownership (rp) and the long-run growth in the economy (g) explains the fast rise in wealth inequality captured in the U.S. economy. (ii) I show that when traditional models, that focus on production only, are used to capture the natural behavior of wealth inequality, wealth inequality tends to be explosive over the long-run. (iii) Since property ownership is not confined to production alone, I implement the new measure of rp − g into a simple model of wealth accumulation, that takes into account both productive and non-productive property in generating wealth. I find that wealth inequality in the U.S. economy is more concentrated than suggested by Thomas Piketty.
    URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/1808/26344
    Collections
    • Economics Dissertations and Theses [169]
    • Dissertations [4472]

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    785-864-8983

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    Lawrence, KS 66045
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    Contact KU ScholarWorks
    785-864-8983
    KU Libraries
    1425 Jayhawk Blvd
    Lawrence, KS 66045
    785-864-8983

    KU Libraries
    1425 Jayhawk Blvd
    Lawrence, KS 66045
    Image Credits
     

     

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