5. 5
Piketty Corrects the Inequality Crowd
ByRobert Rosenkranz
The Initiative on Global Markets at the University
of Chicago asked economists in October whether
they agreed or disagreed with the following
statement: “The most powerful force pushing
towards greater wealth inequality in the U.S. since
the 1970s is the gap between the after-tax return
on capital and the economic growth rate.” Of 36
economists who responded, only one agreed.
資料來源:2015/3/10 The Wall Street Journal
6. 6
資料來源:2015/3/10 The Wall Street Journal
Piketty Corrects the Inequality Crowd
ByRobert Rosenkranz
Though his formula helps explain extreme and persistent
wealth inequality before World War I, Mr. Piketty maintains,
it doesn’t say much about the past 100 years. “I do not view
r>g as the only or even the primary tool for considering
changes in income and wealth in the 20th century,” he writes,
“or for forecasting the path of inequality in the 21st century.”
Instead, Mr. Piketty argues in his new paper that political
shocks, institutional changes and economic development
played a major role in inequality in the past and will likely do
so in the future.
When he narrows his focus to what he calls “labor income
inequality”—the difference in compensation between front-
line workers and CEOs—Mr. Piketty consigns his famous
formula to irrelevance. “In addition, I certainly do not believe
that r>g is a useful tool for the discussion of rising inequality
of labor income: other mechanisms and policies are much
more relevant here, e.g. supply and demand of skills and
education.” He correctly distinguishes between income and
wealth, and he takes a long historic perspective: “Wealth
inequality is currently much less extreme than a century ago.”
16. 資料來源:Dong-Sung Cho & Hwy-Chang Moon, From Adam Smith to Michael Porter: Evolution of Competitiveness Theory (Extended
Edition), World Scientific, 2013
16
23. According to the Kauffman Foundation’s index of entrepreneurial activity, in
2005 an average of 0.29 percent of the non-business-owing population started a
new business each month. That would be 3.5 percent of the population per year,
which would mean that with a static population, in thirty years everyone would
own a business. While this is not going to occur, it does seem likely that close to a
majority of Americans will start businesses at some point in their lives.
All societies have people with entrepreneurial inclinations and people with
bureaucratic inclinations. Economics 2.0 says that societies where institutions
present the fewest obstacles to the entrepreneurs are the ones where the standard
of living will be highest. Nobel laureate Phelps, cited earlier, points out that
continental Europe’s “corporatism” stifles the entrepreneurial spread of
knowledge. Collaboration among unions, business, and government strengthens
incumbents and helps to institutionalize resistance to change.
In Economics 1.0, innovation descends on the economy like manna from
heaven. Anyone who has experienced either intrapreneurship or
entrepreneurship knows that the reality is far different. Introducing change
requires significant emotional energy and persistence. Entrepreneurialism is
essential to the process of pumping fresh supplies of innovation into the economy.
資料來源:Arnold Kling and Nick Schulz, From Poverty to Prosperity, 2009
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