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Capital in the Twenty-First Century by the economist Thomas Piketty has been acclaimed as one of the most influential books of this decade. Its thesis, that wealth inequality in the rich world is going back to levels last reached 100 years ago, has prompted a fierce debate among academics and policy makers. While commentators have disagreed over the implications of the findings, even critics have hailed the data work underpinning the book’s conclusions.
A Financial Times investigation, however, has found data problems and errors in Prof Piketty’s work. These include unexplained entries in his spreadsheets, cherry picking data sources and transcription errors. Taken together, these problems seem to undermine his conclusion that wealth inequality is rising in the US and in Europe.
The FT’s replication of Prof Piketty’s results was only possible because he published all his sources and spreadsheets online. Open data are a welcome fashion in economics and Prof Piketty should be lauded for embracing it. Capital in the Twenty-First Century calls for important policy changes, including an international wealth tax. It is essential that the data on which he draws his conclusion are subject to public scrutiny.
The FT’s discovery of problems with Prof Piketty’s data undermine his thesis that capitalism has a natural tendency for wealth to become ever more concentrated in the hands of the rich.
Data on the distribution of wealth are notoriously unreliable, so any comparisons with more than 100 years ago must also be looked at with scepticism. Even if Prof Piketty’s figures were flawless – something which he too accepts is impossible – wealth inequalities would still be much lower in the early 20th century. Modern America and Europe are nothing like Downton Abbey.
Other conclusions from the best-seller are also unconvincing. The FT has found grounds to question the finding that the holding of wealth by the rich in Europe has increased since 1980. Without that result, there cannot be an iron law of capitalism that leads to ever rising inequality.
The theoretical argument that wealth inequalities are likely to rise if growth rates are weak is also dubious. As Prof Lawrence Summers has argued, there are deep questions regarding the likely return to capital in coming decades and whether it will be reinvested to provide a rentier income.
Even if wealth inequalities were to rise, it is important to understand the reasons for this increase. There is a gulf of difference between wealth derived from entrepreneurial skills and inheritance. There will also be a natural tendency for wealth concentrations to rise in an ageing society, as people need to stash more in private pensions to prepare for a long retirement. This is not to say that, in the modern world, there are no cases in which wealth for the few is inhibiting opportunities for the many. But rather than simply assuming there is a central contradiction in capitalism, one should seek the specific causes.
In London, climbing property prices are creating disparities between those who own a house and those who do not. Attacking planning restrictions to build more homes should be the answer well before politicians reach for the policy marked tax. In the UK and elsewhere, extraordinary wealth may derive from monopoly profits. Enlightened governments should encourage competition and remove barriers to entry so that unfair rents disappear. That still leaves open the possibility that policy makers will need to address extreme wealth disparities in coming years. But before you use blunt tools, proper information on the distribution of wealth is required. Prof Piketty’s book is a remarkable collection of statistics, but does not provide the definitive answer.
Editorial
Fonte: FT
