Descriptive, theoretical, scientific, and welfare uses[edit]

Income distribution can describe a prospectively observable element of an economy. It has been used as an input for testing theories explaining the distribution of income, for example human capital theory and the theory of economic discrimination (Becker, 1993, 1971).


In welfare economics, a level of feasible output possibilities is commonly distinguished from the distribution of income for those output possibilities. But in the formal theory of social welfare, rules for selection from feasible distributions of income and output are a way of representing normative economics at a high level of generality.

Neoclassical distribution theory[edit]

In neoclassical economics, the supply and demand of each factor of production interact in factor markets to determine equilibrium output, income, and the income distribution. Factor demand in turn incorporates the marginal-productivity relationship of that factor in the output market.[3][4][5][6] Analysis applies to not only capital and land but the distribution of income in labor markets.[7]


The neoclassical growth model provides an account of how the distribution of income between capital and labor is determined in competitive markets at the macroeconomic level over time with technological change and changes in the size of the capital stock and labor force.[8] More recent developments of the distinction between human capital and physical capital and between social capital and personal capital have deepened analysis of distribution.

Statistics[edit]

Vilfredo Pareto proposed the distribution of income can be described by a power-law: this is now called the Pareto distribution.

Median household income

Income quintiles

Economic inequality

Income inequality metrics

Generational accounting

Involuntary unemployment

and F. Bourguignon, ed. (2000). Handbook of Income Distribution, v. 1. Elsevier. Description & chapter-preview links.

A.B. Atkinson

_____ (2001). "Income Distribution," , pp. 7265–71. Abstract.

International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences

(1971). The Economics of Discrimination (2nd ed.). University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-04115-5. (UCP descr)

Gary S. Becker

Gary S. Becker (1993). Human Capital: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis, with Special Reference to Education (3rd ed.). University of Chicago Press.  978-0-226-04120-9. (UCP descr)

ISBN

Harry Brighouse and Adam Swift (2008). "egalitarianism." . 2nd Edition. Abstract.

The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics

Sheldon Danziger and Peter Gottschalk (1995). America Unequal, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA  0-674-01810-9 (book abstract)

ISBN

Sheldon Danziger, Robert Haveman, Robert Plotnick (1981). "How Income Transfer Programs Affect Work, Savings, and the Income Distribution: A Critical Review," Journal of Economic Literature 19(3), .

pp. 975–1028

and Simon Kuznets (1945). Income from Independent Professional Practice NBER.

Milton Friedman

Julian Lamont (2003). , Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

"Distributive Justice"

Gian Singh Sahota (1978). "Theories of Personal Income Distribution: A Survey", Journal of Economic Literature, 16(1), .

pp. 1–55

Xavier Sala-Martin (2006).(+ button to enlarge), Quarterly Journal of Economics," 121(2), May, pp. 351–97.

"The World Distribution of Income: Falling Poverty and… Convergence, Period,"

and William D. Nordhaus (2004). Economics, 18th ed.,

Paul A. Samuelson

Some distribution entries from The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics (1987):


Some distribution entries from The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics (2008), 2nd Ed.:

from 2006 Economic Report of the President via Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

U.S. National income by type of income, 1959–2005