Errata in “The Political Economy of the Kuznets Curve”

• Author: Bernardo Alves Furtado,Brais Álvarez Pereira,Claudius Gräbner,Francesca Lipari,Heath Henderson,Catherine S. E. Bale,James E. Gentile
• Date: 01 November 2016
• Published date: 01 November 2016
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/rode.12285

Comment

Errata in “The Political Economy of the Kuznets

Curve”

Brais



Alvarez Pereira, Heath Henderson, Francesca Lipari, Bernardo

Alves Furtado, Catherine S. E. Bale, James E. Gentile, and Claudius

Gr€

abner*

In “The Political Economy of the Kuznets Curve” (2002), Daron Acemoglu and

James A. Robinson (AR hereafter) develop a political economy theory of the

Kuznets curve. The authors contend that when capitalist industrialization increases

economic inequality, political instability may induce changes in the political regime

(i.e. democratization). Democratization then leads to a reduction in economic

inequality through redistributive measures that accompany the institutional change.

AR further suggest that development does not necessarily lead to a Kuznets curve.

Accordingly, their theory also accommodates two non-democratic paths: the

“autocratic disaster” and “East Asian Miracle.”

In this comment, we highlight two apparent errors in AR’s article. The errors in

question are associated with their Conditions 1 and 5, and in what follows we

describe these errors in turn. We find that correcting these errors does not

substantively affect the results of the article.

Condition 1

Condition 1 (page 193) pertains to the democratic case where the poor are unable

to accumulate without transfers from the rich. AR state the condition as follows:

cBþðABÞð1kÞhD

SS þk



[1:(1)

If the condition holds, redistributive taxation is sufficient to ensure that the poor

eventually accumulate. The condition evidently depends on hD

SS, which is the steady-

state level of assets of the rich. AR provide the following expression for hD

SS:

hD

SS ¼cZðAð1kÞþkBÞhD

SS þðABÞk



b;(2)

which appears incorrect.

The expression for hD

SS is derived from their equation (4), which is as follows:

*Henderson (Corresponding author): Drake University, College of Business and Public Administration,

Aliber Hall, Des Moines, IA, 50311, USA. E-mail: heath.henderson@drake.edu.



Alvarez-Pereira:

European University Institute, Florence, Italy. Lipari: University of Rome Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy.

Lipari: University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA. Furtado: Institute for Applied

Economic Research (IPEA), Brasilia, Brazil. Bale: School of Earth and Environment and School of

Chemical and Process Engineering, University of Leeds, Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK. Gentile: Invincea Labs,

Arlington, VA, 22203, USA. Gr€

abner: Institute of Institutional and Innovation Economics and University

of Bremen, 28359, Bremen, Germany.

Review of Development Economics, 20(4), 817–819, 2016

DOI:10.1111/rode.12285

©2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd