The Elusive Rentier Rich: Piketty's Data Battles and the Power of Absent Evidence

The popularity of Thomas Piketty's research on wealth inequality has drawn attention to a curious question: why was widening wealth inequality largely neglected by mainstream economists in recent decades? To explore and explain that neglect, I draw on the writing of the early neoclassical econo...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inScience, technology, & human values Vol. 42; no. 2; pp. 257 - 279
Main Author McGoey, Linsey
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publishing 01.03.2017
SAGE Publications
SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
Subjects
Economic theory
Economists
Income distribution
Income inequality
Piketty, Thomas
Productivity
inequality
marginal productivity theories
neoclassical economics
rent extraction
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Summary:The popularity of Thomas Piketty's research on wealth inequality has drawn attention to a curious question: why was widening wealth inequality largely neglected by mainstream economists in recent decades? To explore and explain that neglect, I draw on the writing of the early neoclassical economist John Bates Clark, who introduced the notion of the marginal productivity of income distribution at the end of the nineteenth century. I then turn to Piketty's Capital in order to analyze the salience of marginal productivity theories of income today. I suggest that most of the criticism and praise for Piketty's research is focused on data that are accessible and measurable, obscuring attention to questions over whether current methods for measuring economic capital are defensible or not. My overarching aim is to explore how "absent" data in economics as a whole help to reinforce blind spots within mainstream economic theory.
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ISSN:0162-2439
1552-8251
DOI:10.1177/0162243916682598