Has there been any scholarship done on the proportion of producers producing high-end vs low-end goods? This could also be framed as the proportion of economic activity generated by wealth excess of a certain amount per person. Or is there a better way to understand this issue?
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$\begingroup$ Good question, but I think it's almost impossible to answer satisfactorily. Many if not most of workers do not produce final goods but intermediate or primary goods, which are used in a variety of final goods (e.g. a tomato producer sells to both high-end restaurants and supermarkets). There are also important conceptual issues with differentiating between necessary and luxury goods. Is a smartphone or a sandwich in the cornershop a luxury good? Is education a necessary good? And a long etc. $\endgroup$ – luchonacho Sep 29 '17 at 21:11
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$\begingroup$ in terms of the mainstream it doesn't really matter as long as what gets produced reflects relative scarcities; perhaps you'd be interested in the classical distinction between productive and unproductive labor $\endgroup$ – user14471 Sep 30 '17 at 13:40
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