Death, Taxes, and Inequality. Can a Minimal Model Explain Real Economic Inequality?

2024/06/19 by John C. Stevenson, Stevenson, John C. · 1 voice
Social Sciences · #Computational Finance (q-fin.CP) #FOS: Economics and business #FOS: Physical sciences #Income, Poverty, and Inequality #Physics and Society (physics.soc-ph)

paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2406.13789

openalex publication_date 2024/06/19 · openalex created_date 2024/06/22 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

Income inequality and redistribution policies are modeled with a minimal, endogenous model of a simple foraging economy. Significant income inequalities emerge from the model for populations of equally capable individuals presented with equal opportunities. Stochastic income distributions from the model are compared to empirical data from actual economies. The impacts of redistribution policies on total wealth, income distributions, and inequality are shown to be similar for the empirical data and the model. These comparisons enable detailed determinations of population welfare beyond what is possible with total wealth and inequality metrics. I

Discussions

• For a simple foraging society, equally able agents on an equal opportunity landscape still generate significant inequality. arxiv.org/abs/2406.13789 🧪 [bsky, 3 points, 0 comments]

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