Inequality, growth and redistribution: the role of social stratification.

Summary The purpose of the thesis is to study the nature of the links between social stratification and inequality. First, we try to understand how, starting from a given level of inequality, society is structured into homogeneous groups. We thus study the link between the characteristics of income distribution and the organization of society into communities. More precisely, we highlight the relationship between the degree of heterogeneity of the distribution of endowments and the size and number of communities. Secondly, we ask ourselves how, in return, social stratification feeds the evolution of inequalities over time. In this perspective, beyond the dynamics of inequalities, we are also interested in the dynamics of societies. By examining the combined evolution of inequalities and the organization of society into communities, we identify the scenarios that lead to segregated and unequal societies in the long term and those that lead to integrated and equal societies. Furthermore, we highlight the negative effect of inequality on the rate of stationary growth. Finally, we address the macroeconomic question of the effects of inequality on voting choices for redistributive policies when individuals have prospects for social mobility. We show that this new dimension of the trade-off in the voting decision leads to a non-monotonic inequality-redistribution relationship. In order to address all these issues, we focus on the theoretical framework of endogenous coalition formation.