This paper analyses the effect of wealth inequality on UK economic growth in recent decades with a heterogeneous-agent growth model where agents can enhance individual productivity growth by undertaking entrepreneurship. The model assumes wealthy people are more able to afford the costs of entrepreneurship. Wealth concentration therefore stimulates entrepreneurship among the rich and so aggregate growth, whose fruits in turn are largely captured by the rich. This process creates a mechanism by which inequality and growth are correlated. The model is estimated and tested by Indirect Inference and is not rejected. Policy-makers face a trade-off between redistribution and growth.

本文使用异构代理增长模型分析了财富不平等对英国近几十年经济增长的影响，代理通过代理模型可以通过从事企业家精神来提高个人生产率。该模型假设富人更有能力负担创业成本。因此，财富集中会刺激富人的创业精神，从而促进总体增长，而富人的果实反过来又在很大程度上获得了财富。这个过程创造了不平等与增长相关的机制。该模型是通过间接推断估算和测试的，不会被拒绝。决策者面临重新分配与增长之间的权衡。