The rapid increase of wealth inequality in the past few decades is one of the most disturbing social and economic issues of our time. Studying its origin and underlying mechanisms is essential for policy aiming to control and even reverse this trend. In that context, controlling the distribution of income, using income tax or other macroeconomic policy instruments, is generally perceived as effective for regulating the wealth distribution. We provide a theoretical tool, based on the realistic modeling of wealth inequality dynamics, to describe the effects of personal savings and income distribution on wealth inequality. Our theoretical approach incorporates coupled equations, solved using iterated maps to model the dynamics of wealth and income inequality. Notably, using the appropriate historical parameter values we were able to capture the historical dynamics of wealth inequality in the United States during the course of the 20th century. It is found that the effect of personal savings on wealth inequality is substantial, and its major decrease in the past 30 years can be associated with the current wealth inequality surge. In addition, the effect of increasing income tax, though naturally contributing to lowering income inequality, might contribute to a mild increase in wealth inequality and vice versa. Plausible changes in income tax are found to have an insignificant effect on wealth inequality, in practice. In addition, controlling the income inequality, by progressive taxation, for example, is found to have a very small effect on wealth inequality in the short run. The results imply, therefore, that controlling income inequality is an impractical tool for regulating wealth inequality.

This paper combines cross-sectional and longitudinal income data to present the evolution of absolute intergenerational income mobility in ten developed economies in the 20th century. Absolute mobility decreased during the second half of the 20th century in all these countries. Increasing income inequality and decreasing growth rates have contributed to the decrease. Yet, growth is the dominant contributor in most countries. We show that detailed panel data are unnecessary for estimating absolute mobility over the long run. (Stone Center on Socio-Economic Inequality Working Paper)

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Modelling the behaviour of stock markets has been of major interest in the past century. The market can be treated as a network of many investors reacting in accordance to their group behaviour, as manifested by the index and effected by the flow of external information into the system. Here we devise a model that encapsulates the behaviour of stock markets. The model consists of two terms, demonstrating quantitatively the effect of the individual tendency to follow the group and the effect of the individual reaction to the available information. Using the above factors we were able to explain several key features of the stock market: the high correlations between the individual stocks and the index; the Epps effect; the high fluctuating nature of the market, which is similar to real market behaviour. Furthermore, intricate long term phenomena are also described by this model, such as bursts of synchronized average correlation and the dominance of the index as demonstrated through partial correlation.

The rapid increase of wealth inequality in the past few decades is a most disturbing social and economic issue of our time. In order to control, and even reverse that surge, its origin and underlying mechanisms should be revealed. One of the challenges in studying these mechanisms is to incorporate realistic individual dynamics in the population level in a self-consistent manner. Our theoretical approach meets the challenge by using interacting multi-agent master-equations to model the dynamics of wealth inequality. The model is solved using stochastic multi-agent iterated maps. Taking into account growth rate, return on capital, private savings and economic mobility, we were able to capture the historical dynamics of wealth inequality in the United States during the course of the 20th century. We show that the fraction of capital income in the national income and the fraction of private savings are the critical factors that govern the wealth inequality dynamics. In addition, we found that economic mobility plays a crucial role in wealth accumulation. Notably, we found that the major decrease in private savings since the 1980s could be associated primarily with the recent surge in wealth inequality and if nothing changes in this respect we predict further increase in wealth inequality in the future. However, the 2007–08 financial crisis brought an opportunity to restrain the wealth inequality surge by increasing private savings. If this trend continues, it may lead to prevention, and even reversing, of the ongoing inequality surge.