The Growth of US Top Income Inequality: A Hierarchical Redistribution Hypothesis

Fix, Blair

doi:10.31235/osf.io/suqnk

Cited by 3 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…Possibly. I have previously found that the growth of top US incomes may be due to a redistribution of income towards the tops of firm hierarchies [65].…”

Section: Open Questionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

How the rich are different: hierarchical power as the basis of income size and class

Fix

2020

J Comput Soc Sc

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This paper investigates a new approach to understanding personal and functional income distribution. I propose that hierarchical power-the command of subordinates in a hierarchy-is what distinguishes the rich from the poor and capitalists from workers. Specifically, I hypothesize that individual income increases with hierarchical power, as does the share of individual income earned from capitalist sources. I test this idea using evidence from US CEOs, as well as a numerical model that extrapolates the CEO data. The results indicate that income tends to increase with hierarchical power, as does the capitalist composition of income. This suggests that hierarchical power may be a determinant of both personal and functional income.

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“…Possibly. I have previously found that the growth of top US incomes may be due to a redistribution of income towards the tops of firm hierarchies [65].…”

Section: Open Questionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

How the rich are different: hierarchical power as the basis of income size and class

Fix

2020

J Comput Soc Sc

Self Cite

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“…This changing income distribution within US firms, and the resulting fall in wage shares and weak effective demand and investment rates, has been associated with increasingly hierarchical structures and the systematic redistribution of income to the top of the corporate hierarchy (Fix, ). This is reflected in a swelling CEO pay ratio: Disney, while cutting its workers’ real pay by 15 per cent, gave its CEO a compensation package equal to the pay of over 9,000 Disneyland workers .…”

Section: The Distribution Of ‘Market’ Income Across the World: ‘Markementioning

confidence: 99%

Behind the Seven Veils of Inequality. What if it's all about the Struggle within just One Half of the Population over just One Half of the National Income?

Palma¹

2019

Development and Change

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This article addresses three main issues: why there is such a huge diversity of disposable income inequality across the world, why there is such a deterioration of market inequality among countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and why inequality seems to move in ‘waves’. There are many underlying questions: does diversity reflect a variety of fundamentals, or a multiplicity of power structures and choice? Is rising market inequality the product of somehow ‘exogenous’ factors (e.g., r>g), or of complex interactions between political settlements and market failures? How do we get through the veils obscuring these interactions and distorting our vision of the often self‐constructed nature of inequality? Has neoliberal globalization broadened the scope for ‘distributional failures’ by, for example, triggering a process of ‘reverse catching‐up’ in the OECD, so that highly unequal middle‐income countries like those in Latin America now embody the shape of things to come? Are we all converging towards features such as mobile élites creaming off the rewards of economic growth, and ‘magic realist’ politics that lack self‐respect if not originality? Should I say, ‘Welcome to the Third World’? In this paper I also develop a new approach for examining and measuring inequality (distance from distributive targets), and a new concept of ‘distributional waves’. The article concludes that, to understand current distributive dynamics, what matters is to comprehend the forces determining the share of the rich — and, in terms of growth, what they choose to do with it (and how they are allowed do it).

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“…Possibly. Fix (2018a) finds that the growth of top US incomes may be due to a redistribution of income towards the tops of firm hierarchies.…”

Section: Open Questionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

How the Rich Are Different: Hierarchical Power as the Basis of Income Size and Class

Fix

2019

Preprint

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper investigates a new approach to understanding personal and functional income distribution. I propose that hierarchical power --- the command of subordinates in a hierarchy --- is what distinguishes the rich from the poor and capitalists from workers. Specifically, I hypothesize that individual income increases with hierarchical power, as does the share of individual income earned from capitalist sources. I test this idea using evidence from US CEOs, as well as a numerical model that extrapolates the CEO data. The results indicate that income tends to increase with hierarchical power, as does the capitalist composition of income. This suggests that hierarchical power may be a determinant of both personal and functional income.

show abstract

The Growth of US Top Income Inequality: A Hierarchical Redistribution Hypothesis

Cited by 3 publications

References 46 publications

How the rich are different: hierarchical power as the basis of income size and class

How the rich are different: hierarchical power as the basis of income size and class

Behind the Seven Veils of Inequality. What if it's all about the Struggle within just One Half of the Population over just One Half of the National Income?

How the Rich Are Different: Hierarchical Power as the Basis of Income Size and Class

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