Working Paper

Financial Development, Cycles and Income Inequality in a Model with Good and Bad Projects

Spiros Bougheas, Pasquale Commendatore, Laura Gardini, Ingrid Kubin
CESifo, Munich, 2022

CESifo Working Paper No. 10135

We introduce a banking sector and heterogeneous agents in the Matsuyama et al. (2016) dynamic over-lapping generations neoclassical model with good and bad projects. The model captures the benefits and costs of an advanced banking system which can facilitate economic development when allocates resources to productive activities but can also hamper progress when invests in projects that do not contribute to capital formation. When the economy achieves higher stages of development it becomes prone to cycles. We show how the disparity of incomes across agents de-pends on changes in both the prices of the factors of production and the reallocation of agents across occupations.

CESifo Category
Labour Markets
Fiscal Policy, Macroeconomics and Growth
Keywords: banks, financial innovation, economic development, business cycles, income inequality
JEL Classification: E320, E440, G210