Inequality in financial capitalism

The Institute of Economics will hold the next meeting of its Seminar Series on Tuesday, November 13, 2018: Pasquale Tridico, from the University of Roma Tre, will give a seminar on Inequality in financial capitalism.

Abstract of related paper

The objective of this paper is to identify the determinants of the increase in income inequality that OECD countries have experienced over the past two decades. The main hypothesis is that along with the financialisation of economies that has taken place since 1990, inequality increased because labour flexibility intensified, labour market institutions weakened as trade unions lost power, and public social spending started to retrench and did not compensate for the vulnerabilities created by the globalisation process. Using data from 25 high-income OECD countries from 1990 to 2013, the paper empirically evaluates this hypothesis. Results clearly suggest that the increase in inequality over the past two decades is caused by an increase in financialisation, a deepening of labour flexibility, the weakening of trade unions and the retrenchment of the welfare state.