GRK 2281: The Macroeconomics of Inequallity

经济不平等是我们这个时代的一个决定性特征。大多数衡量收入和财富集中度的指标显示，近几十年来，工业化经济体的经济不平等程度大幅扩大，使不平等成为一种备受争议的政治现象，并促使一些人诊断出一个新的“镀金时代”。然而，不平等对宏观经济的影响仍然知之甚少：例如，更大的不平等是否会迫使我们重新思考现有的总体波动宏观经济模型？不平等对我们的金融稳定理论以及货币和财政政策有什么影响？在其研究计划中，该组织的第一个目标是通过深入分析与宏观经济学相关的不同不同层面的不平等，提供坚实的经验基础。在此基础上，该小组的第二个目标是扩大该行业的理解，即更大的不平等如何改变经济对宏观经济冲击的动态反应，以及不平等在多大程度上创造了新的渠道，通过这些渠道可以传播这种冲击。第三个重要目标将是分析不平等、债务和金融脆弱性之间的联系。特别是，我们分析了日益加剧的不平等是否以及如何可能使经济在金融危机的积累过程中更容易“过度”积累债务，以及不平等对从这场危机中复苏来说是如何重要的。所有这些都将使我们能够实现我们的第四个目标，即理解不断加剧的不平等对宏观经济政策的设计意味着什么，同时考虑到它们对总体和政策的分布影响的有效性。在追求这些目标的过程中，该小组将培训研究人员，他们将获得工具，以推动我们对OurTime最紧迫的主题之一的理解，以及谁可以在小组中超越他们的时间进行独立研究。同时，他们将获得必要的知识，就不平等的宏观经济后果向经济政策制定者提供建议。为实现这些目标，RTG将召集大量在国际上具有知名度的高级和初级研究人员和博士生，在一个在该专题的关键方面拥有专长的小组学习不平等的宏观经济学：宏观经济分析中使用微观经济数据，金融市场和宏观经济之间的联系，以及研究具有不同因素的商业周期模型。

Economic inequality is a defining characteristic of our times. Most indicators of incomeand wealth concentration show a substantial widening of economic inequality in industrializedeconomies in recent decades, making inequality a highly debated political phenomenonand prompting some to diagnose a new “Gilded Age.” The macroeconomicimplications of inequality remain poorly understood, however: does greater inequalityforce us to rethink existing macroeconomic models of aggregate fluctuations, for example?And what implications does inequality have for our theories of financial stability,and for monetary and fiscal policy?In its research program, the group’s first goal is to provide a solid empirical groundingthrough an in-depth analysis of the different dimensions of rising inequality that arerelevant for macroeconomics. Based on this, the group’s second goal is to extend theprofession’s understanding of how greater inequality changes the dynamic responses ofthe economy to macroeconomic shocks, and to what extent inequality creates new channelsthrough which such shocks can propagate. A third important goal will be to analyzethe linkages between inequality, debt, and financial fragility. In particular, we analyze ifand how increasing inequality may make the economy more prone to “excessive” debtaccumulation in the build-up of a financial crisis as well as how inequality matters for therecovery from such a crisis. All of this will enable us to address our fourth goal, namely,understanding what rising inequality implies for the design of macroeconomic policies,having in mind both their effectiveness for the aggregate and the policies’ distributionalimpacts.In pursuing these goals, the group will train researchers who will acquire the tools forpushing the boundaries of our understanding of one of the most pressing topics of ourtime, and who can pursue independent research above and beyond their time in thegroup. At the same time, they will acquire the knowledge needed to advise economicpolicy makers with respect to the macroeconomic consequences of inequality.To achieve these goals, the RTG will bring together a critical mass of internationally visiblesenior and junior researchers and doctoral students to study the macroeconomics ofinequality in a group that has expertise in key aspects of the topic: the use of microeconomicdata in macroeconomic analysis, the links between financial markets and themacroeconomy, and the study of business cycle models with heterogeneous agents.