Distribution and growth in the neoclassical traditions

The theory of income distribution, both functional and personal, has never been given great importance in the traditional neoclassical growth theory, occupying a marginal role in the theoretical debate. Within this approach, rather than a macroeconomic theory of income distribution, it would be more appropriate to talk about a mechanical extension of the analytical categories of microeconomics to dynamic macroeconomics, so that income distribution is an endogenous fact determined by the technological relations, defined as initial stock. With the abandonment of the concept of scarcity as the regulating principle by the new growth theorists, and its analytical equivalent represented by the decreasing marginal productivity of the accumulated factor, growth has become endogenous but it is no longer possible to maintain the old theory of distribution linked to determination of the related prices. A completely new distribution theory has emerged aimed at the political and social mechanisms that can condition accumulation and growth, starting with inequality in resources and therefore in opportunities, in this way incorporating important analysis elements which up to now had lain outside the reflection of economists.