Abstract
The study of ‘growth and inequality’ has a long tradition. One well-known relationship in economic development is the Kuznets curve. Kuznets observed that in the early stage of human development, when agriculture was the main economic activity, inequality in the distribution of income was relatively low. As the economy industrialized and the workforce moved towards industry and away from agriculture, the distribution of income tended to widen. At some critical point in the economy’s development, this tendency reversed. Although more recent evidence does not support the Kuznets curve hypothesis (see, for example, the widening income inequality observed in the United States starting in the early 1980s), the original empirical finding of Kuznets (1955) stimulated a large body of research activity.
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Quadrini, V. (2010). growth and inequality (macro perspectives). In: Durlauf, S.N., Blume, L.E. (eds) Economic Growth. The New Palgrave Economics Collection. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230280823_15
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