76-vol. 38, núm. 2, julio-diciembre, 2023
Artículos

¿La r-g causa la desigualdad de la riqueza? El caso de Estados Unidos

David Strauss
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas
Daniel Ventosa-Santaularia
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas

Publicado 2023-07-20

Palabras clave

  • desigualdad patrimonial,
  • r-g,
  • Piketty,
  • capital

Cómo citar

Strauss, D., & Ventosa-Santaularia, D. (2023). ¿La r-g causa la desigualdad de la riqueza? El caso de Estados Unidos. Estudios Económicos De El Colegio De México, 38(2), 183–224. https://doi.org/10.24201/ee.v38i2.441

Métrica

Resumen

Piketty afirma que la brecha entre el rendimiento del capital y la tasa de crecimiento (r−g) gobierna la evolución de la desigualdad de la riqueza. Este documento evalúa su validez empírica utilizando un enfoque IV y casi un siglo de datos de Estados Unidos. Nuestros resultados pueden resumirse en dos: en primer lugar, las proporciones de riqueza no son estacionarias, lo que requiere primeras diferencias para obtener inferencias válidas de cualquier ejercicio econométrico. Esto es consistente con la línea de argumentación de Piketty y pone en duda los estudios sobre desigualdad que utilizan niveles de desigualdad sin mostrar el comportamiento tendencial de los datos. En segundo lugar, r−g desempeñó un papel importante en la evolución de la desigualdad de la riqueza durante el último siglo, tanto estadística como económicamente. En particular, r−g puede explicar más del 50% del aumento en la desigualdad de la riqueza desde finales de la década de 1970.

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