Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/244731 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2021
Series/Report no.: 
Working Papers on Capital as Power No. 2021/04
Publisher: 
Forum on Capital As Power - Toward a New Cosmology of Capitalism, s.l.
Abstract: 
Although the determinants of income are complex, the results are surprisingly uniform. To a first approximation, top incomes follow a power-law distribution, and the redistribution of income corresponds to a change in the power-law exponent. Given the messiness of the struggle for resources, why is the outcome so simple? This paper explores the idea that the (re)distribution of top incomes is uniform because it is shaped by a ubiquitous feature of social life, namely hierarchy. Using a model first developed by Herbert Simon and Harold Lydall, I show that hierarchy can explain the power-law distribution of top incomes, including how income gets redistributed as the rich get richer.
Subjects: 
corporation
despotism
government
hierarchy
income
distribution
inequality
power
JEL: 
E13
C01
O47
URL of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by-nc-nd Logo
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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