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The Income Fluctuation Problem and the Evolution of Wealth

Qingyin Ma, John Stachurski, Alexis Akira Toda

arXiv 29 May 2019 · Theoretical Economics · publishedJournal of Economic Theory (2020) · 35 citations (OpenAlex)

arXiv:1905.13045 · PDF · DOI · OpenAlex · Extracted main text

Abstract

We analyze the household savings problem in a general setting where returns on assets, non-financial income and impatience are all state dependent and fluctuate over time. All three processes can be serially correlated and mutually dependent. Rewards can be bounded or unbounded and wealth can be arbitrarily large. Extending classic results from an earlier literature, we determine conditions under which (a) solutions exist, are unique and are globally computable, (b) the resulting wealth dynamics are stationary, ergodic and geometrically mixing, and (c) the wealth distribution has a Pareto tail. We show how these results can be used to extend recent studies of the wealth distribution. Our conditions have natural economic interpretations in terms of asymptotic growth rates for discounting and return on savings.

Citation extraction

61
references
118
in-text mentions
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distinct cited
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Most heavily cited references

The works this paper leans on most, across its whole bibliography — not restricted to papers in our corpus. Ranked by composite intensity, which combines how often a work is mentioned, how many sections mention it, and how much of that falls in the main text rather than the appendix.

ReferenceIntensityMentionsSectionsMain text
1Benhabib, J., A. Bisin, and S. Zhu (2015) The Wealth Distribution in Bewley Economies with Capital Income Risk0.97715593%
2Hubmer, J., P. Krusell, and A. A. Smith, Jr (2018) A Comprehensive Quantitative Theory of the US Wealth Distribution, Tech0.87452100%
3Krusell, P. and A. A. Smith, Jr (1998) Income and Wealth Heterogeneity in the Macroeconomy0.84333100%
4Li, H. and J. Stachurski (2014) Solving the Income Fluctuation Problem with Unbounded Rewards0.8115280%
5Cao, D (2020) Recursive Equilibrium in Krusell and Smith (1998)0.73732100%
6Huggett, M (1993) The Risk-free Rate in Heterogeneous-agent Incomplete-insurance Economies0.73732100%
7Aiyagari, S. R (1994) Uninsured Idiosyncratic Risk and Aggregate Saving0.64422100%
8Fagereng, A., L. Guiso, D. Malacrino, and L. Pistaferri (2016) b): Heterogeneity in Returns to Wealth and the Measurement of Wealth Inequality0.64422100%
9Fagereng, A., L. Guiso, D. Malacrino, and L. Pistaferri (2016) a): Heterogeneity and Persistence in Returns to Wealth, Tech0.64422100%
10Hills, T. S. and T. Nakata (2018) Fiscal Multipliers at the Zero Lower Bound: The Role of Policy Inertia0.64422100%

Showing the top 10 of 61 scored citations.

Cited by, within the corpus

arXiv econ.EM papers that cite this one, ranked by how heavily they lean on it.

Citing paperIntensityMentionsSections
1Capital and Labor Income Pareto Exponents across Time and Space0.79483
2Determination of Pareto exponents in economic models driven by Markov multiplicative processes0.40511