Monetary Policy, Generational Inequality and Wealth Distribution in the UK

This thesis consists of three separate papers: The first paper is Chapter 1 of this thesis, titled Monetary Policy and Intergenerational Inequality. Young people are the most affected by economic crises, and monetary policy tools are one of the key measures used to alleviate the impact of such crises. This study investigates inequality between two generations: the young and the old. This paper examines whether expansionary monetary policy exacerbates income, consumption and wealth inequality between the young generation and the old generation. The periods before monetary policy intervention (1999–2008) and after monetary policy intervention (2009–2020) in the UK are compared to analyse changes in intergenerational inequality. The second paper is Chapter 2 of this thesis, titled Monetary Policy and Generational Inequality. Interest rates have been raised to contain inflation in the UK. This paper investigates the short-term impact of monetary policy on generational inequality and the Granger-Causality relationship between monetary policy and income, consumption and wealth inequality in three generations: the young, the middle-aged and pensioners. The analysis provides detailed insight into the micro-level impact of monetary policy rather than providing a new intuition on its macro-level impact. The third paper is Chapter 3 of this thesis, titled Wealth Distribution and Inequality in the UK: A Survey. Over the years, the UK government and the central bank have implemented fiscal and monetary policy measures that may have consequences for wealth distribution and inequality. This paper analyses wealth distribution and inequality in the UK using data from the Wealth and Assets Survey (WAS). It demonstrates the unevenness of total wealth, property wealth, financial wealth, pension wealth and physical wealth distribution in the UK, among the top and the bottom UK population and across generations.