Evaluation of the Socioeconomic Impact of Income Inequality in Morocco Using a CGE Model

The main objective of this paper is to assess the impact of a change in household income inequality on macroeconomic variables of a developing country, in this case Morocco. To this end, we run a static CGE model calibrated to the 2016 Moroccan SAM. Among the main results, we find that a 1% increase in household income inequality leads to a decrease of (–1.60%) in GDP at market prices, which implies a loss of (–1.93%) in primary sector value added (agriculture and fishing) which remains a key sector in this economy. Furthermore, we find that a fiscal and budgetary policy that targets reducing inequality can also improve social and economic outcomes.

Income inequality, socioeconomic impact, public policy, North Africa, computable general equilibrium model