GRK 2281: The Macroeconomics of Inequallity

经济不平等是我们这个时代的一个显著特征。大多数收入和财富集中度指标显示，近几十年来，工业化经济体的经济不平等大幅扩大，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，人们对不平等的宏观经济含义仍然知之甚少：例如，更大的不平等是否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、货币政策和财政政策有什么影响？在其研究计划中，该小组的第一个目标是通过深入分析与宏观经济学相关的不平等加剧的不同方面，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展该专业的理解，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这种冲击可以传播的新渠道。第三个重要目标是分析不平等、债务和金融脆弱性之间的联系。特别是，我们分析了不平等的增加是否以及如何使经济更容易在金融危机的积累中“过度”债务积累，以及不平等如何影响从这样的危机中复苏。所有这些都将使我们能够实现我们的第四个目标，即理解日益加剧的不平等对宏观经济政策设计的意义，同时考虑到它们对总体和政策分配影响的有效性。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，以推动我们对当代最紧迫的话题之一的理解，他们可以在小组工作时间之外进行独立研究。与此同时，他们将获得就不平等的宏观经济后果向经济政策制定者提供建议所需的知识。为了实现这些目标，RTG将召集一批国际知名的高、初级研究人员和博士生，在一个拥有该主题关键方面专门知识的小组中研究不平等的宏观经济学：在宏观经济分析中使用微观经济数据，金融市场与宏观经济之间的联系，以及研究具有异质代理的商业周期模型。

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.