Accounting for Inequality: Questioning Piketty on National Income Accounts and the Capital-Labor Split. (May 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Reitz, Charles
• Is Part Of: Review of radical political economics. Volume 48:Number 2(2016:Summer)
• Page Start: 310
• Page End: 321
• Publication Date: 2016-05
• Subjects: Piketty -- inequality -- capital-labor split; B24 -- D63 -- J3 -- L6 -- P26; Economics -- Periodicals; United States -- Economic policy -- Periodicals; United States -- Economic conditions -- Periodicals; 330
• DOI: 10.1177/0486613415605075
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0486-6134

Abstract

Piketty's study of capital and inequality, especially the distribution of the national income through a "capital-labor split, " is examined and compared with a model developed from data sets from the U.S. Department of Commerce. Piketty's inclusion of executive supersalaries as labor income is questioned as over-estimating labor's share of national income distribution and labor's role as a causal factor in the intensification of inequality.