Inflation and income inequality: a shopping-time approach

Abstract

Our work is based on a heterogenous agent shopping-time economy in which economic agents present distinct productivities in the production of the consumption good, and differentiated access to transacting assets. The purpose of the analysis is to investigate whether this setting can lead to a positive correlation between inflation and income inequality. Our main result is to show that, provided the productivity of the interest-bearing asset in the transacting technology is high enough, it is true that a positive link between inflation and income inequality is generated. An example is offered to illustrate the mechanism. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.