Documents Socio-Economic Review 386 results

"This study addresses the central question in political economy how the objectives of attaining economic growth and restricting income inequality are related. Thus far few studies explicitly distinguish between effects of income inequality as such and effects of redistributing public interventions to equalize incomes on economic growth. In fact, most studies rely on data that do not make this distinction properly and in which top-coding is applied so that enrichment at the top end of the distribution is not adequately captured. This study aims to contribute using a pooled time-series cross-section design covering 29 countries, using OECD, LIS, and World Top Income data. No robust association between inequality and growth or redistribution and growth is found. Yet there are signs for a positive association between top incomes and growth, although the coefficient is small and a causal interpretation does not seem to be warranted."

"Scholars studying democracy are just beginning to investigate the specifically political consequences of rising socio-economic inequalities. This paper analyses whether the degree of political inequality between social groups is shaped by features of the welfare capitalist system. Specifically, we hypothesize that more labour protection and social support decrease participatory inequality via more evenly distributed resources and engagement between high- and low educated citizens. Our regression analyses combining micro- and macro-level data from 37 capitalist democracies over the past 20 years provide evidence that some protective and supportive elements of welfare capitalism reduce education-based participatory inequality. Our fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis identifies three functionally equivalent types of welfare capitalism that all produce low participatory inequality via increased protection, support or both. Finally, we empirically demonstrate that the mechanisms behind this link are, indeed, a more equal distribution of resources and engagement across low- and high educated citizens."

"In this study, we review the patterns of low pay in Europe. We first describe the evolution of aggregate low-wage employment and the incidence of low pay among several groups of workers, then we look at the compositional changes that occurred in recent decades. Given the prevalence of wage regulation and collective bargaining in most European countries, we also analyse the role of labour market institutions on low pay. We show that minimum wages and union presence do play a relevant role in reducing wage inequalities. Finally, we investigate low pay in the long run and the evolution of earnings over the life-cycle. We show that earnings mobility has an equalizing effect over the long-run but its impact is small over 6/7 years. Empirical evidence from a number of OECD countries confirms that earnings inequality between individuals is lower when earnings are pooled over a number of years but, for Britain at least, the extent to which mobility reduces inequality has fallen over time suggesting a fall in mobility and an increase in long run inequality."

"The paper takes issue with demand-based interpretations of the consequences of deregulation through temporary employment in Spain. According to demand-based accounts, the introduction of temporary contracts has helped to generate and maintain a secondary segment in the Spanish labour market, in which specific product market conditions generate a need for highly flexible contracts to perform low-skilled tasks. In contrast to this view, the paper argues that partial deregulation has also had important segmenting consequences amongst Spanish professionals, despite the high levels of asset specificity and monitoring costs involved in their job tasks. Drawing on the analysis of the Spanish Labour Force Survey for the period 1987–1997, the paper presents empirical evidence that shows how, when introduced in a context of high unemployment and high dismissal costs for the permanent workforce, temporary contracts can generate a process of polarization of employment chances within both manual and professional occupations. The segmenting consequences of partial deregulation have, therefore, been more severe, pervasive and pernicious than it is acknowledged by demand-based accounts."

"This article presents a political economy analysis of extreme work hours in 18 advanced Western economies since the 1970s. Empirically, it shows that the culture of long work hours has gained significance not only in the Anglo-Saxon but also in most Continental European welfare states. Theoretically, it provides an institutionalist argument against the neoclassical, or supply-side, point of view on the drivers of long work hours in post-industrial labour markets. It demonstrates that the choice to work long hours is not entirely, or even mainly, left to the preference of the individual. Instead, individual choices are constrained by labour market policies, collective bargaining institutions and new labour market structures, the pattern and trends of which do not necessarily follow the contours of the regime typology. Data on extreme work hours was compiled from the Luxembourg Income Study and the Multinational Time Use Study micro-data collections."

"Using the rise of the Chinese ‘shareholding state' as an example, this article attempts to extend the study of financialization from the economy to the state. It documents a historical and institutional process in which the Chinese state refashioned itself as a shareholder and institutional investor in the economy and resorted to financial means to manage its ownership, assets and public investments. I demonstrate that financialization of economic management in the Chinese state contain three processes: the introduction of shareholder values by the state to managing its asset, the expansion of state asset management bodies and the provision of structured investment vehicles by these institutions to fund fixed asset investment. By uncovering the mutually leveraging effect between sovereign power and finance, this study illustrates a politically endogenous model for the rise of finance in state-directed economies."

"In recent decades, financialization has significantly restructured American capitalism. Social scientists have offered several accounts to explain financial markets' ascendance, but this work often portrays financialization as a totalizing force and is conducted within divergent theoretical paradigms—political economy and neo-institutionalism—with few attempts to bridge these differences. Accordingly, we risk talking past each other while failing to identify where financialization occurs. I address these issues with a unique panel data set, panel analysis and with a focus on identifying the meso-level determinants of financialization. I do so with a substantively important industry that exemplifies the global, flexible and competitive characteristics of neoliberal capitalism. I argue that the propensity to financialize rests significantly upon firms' productive roles, meaning we cannot understand financialization without understanding production—global production networks in particular. This is also a call for researchers to explore financialization's multifaceted character and to develop a more analytically rigorous research agenda."

"In various writings Karl Marx made references to an ‘aristocracy of finance' in Western Europe and the USA that dominated ownership of the public debt. Drawing on original research, this article offers the first comprehensive analysis of public debt ownership within the US corporate sector. The research shows that over the past three decades, and especially in the context of the current crisis, a new aristocracy of finance has emerged, as holdings of the public debt have become rapidly concentrated in favour of large corporations classified within Finance, Insurance and Real Estate. Operationalizing Wolfgang Streeck's concept of the ‘debt state', the article goes on to demonstrate how concentration in ownership of the public debt reinforces patterns of social inequality and proceeds in tandem with a shift in government policy, one that prioritizes the interests of government bondholders over the general citizenry."

"This article focuses on the impact of the process of financialization on two central labor market institutions, workers' bargaining power and employment protection legislation, in 16 OECD countries from 1970 to 2009. Financialization is described as a finance-led regime of accumulation and as the emergence of a shareholder value maximization strategy. Using various mechanisms at the micro and macro levels, empirical work has investigated the relationship between the type of financial relations and the agents' capacities of maintaining strong encompassing labor market institutions. I argue that the process of financialization will exert strong pressures on labor markets toward more eroded/decentralized bargaining institutions and more flexible employment relations. This article proposes an updated indicator of workers' bargaining power and various measures of financialization. Using panel data models, our main results point out that increased financialization is clearly associated with a reduction in workers' bargaining power and in the strictness of employment protection."

"Using firm-level data for the period 2004 to 2013, this article examines the connection between the financialization of French corporations and functional income distribution in the non-finance sector of the economy. Financialization of French non-financial corporations has increased their dependence on earnings through financial channels, and diminished labor bargaining power in income distribution. We examine the effects of these financial revenues on wage share using a panel data model of 6980 French non-financial firms. We conclude that increased dependence on financial profits is likely to decrease wage share in non-financial corporations. Moreover, this variable is more influential in our model than the other variables usually identified by the literature as determinants of functional income distribution, such as trade openness or labor market institutions. Of the determinants traditionally emphasized by the literature, only technological change has a greater impact than financialization."