Growth and inequality

•General growth processes whose dynamics are governed by ODEs are explored.•A comprehensive inequality-based socioeconophysical study of these processes is presented.•The results describe how different forms of growth yield different forms of inequality.•The results establish a socioeconomic classification of physical growth processes.

How are growth and inequality related? Evidently, this question is of prime importance in the social sciences, as socioeconomic inequality is one of the major forces shaping the course of human history. Moreover, this question is of importance also in the physical sciences, as the notion of socioeconomic inequality can be applied to analyze physical growth. In this paper we consider general growth processes whose dynamics are governed by ordinary differential equations, and present a comprehensive inequality-based socioeconophysical study of their evolutions. From a social-sciences perspective, the results established describe the inequality that will be generated by different types of economic growth. From a physical-sciences perspective, the results established provide a socioeconomic classification of growth processes.