The Politics of Inequality

Session Submission Type: Created Panel

Session Description

This panel deals with the political economy of inequality. Two of the papers focus on the relationship between financialization and inequality, reporting that by most measures increased financialization has had a strong effect on inequality in liberal market economies, and that the rise in private debt has become a significant and overlooked driver of inequality. The paper on the relationship between union density and inequality makes the provocative argument that increased inequality reduces union density and tests this via an instrumental variable approach. The final paper reports that the expansion of knowledge employment is positively associated with the income share of the top 1%, but that these effects are mitigated by the presence of strong labour market institutions. Together, the papers on this panel highlight the importance of political institutions for understanding the growth of inequality in OECD countries. 

Sub Unit

• DIVISION 14: Comparative Politics of Advanced Industrial Societies

Cosponsor

• DIVISION 55: Class and Inequality

Individual Presentations

• Financialization and Inequality in Coordinated and Liberal Market Economies - Evelyne Huber, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Bilyana Petrova, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; John D. Stephens, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

• Income Inequality and Union Density: The Watchdog that Stopped Barking - Michele Fenzl, University of Essex

• Information and Financialization: Credit Markets as a New Source of Inequality - Torben Iversen, Harvard University; Philipp Rehm, Ohio State University

• The Knowledge Economy, Institutions, & Income Inequality in Advanced Democracies - David Thomas Hope, King's College London

Chair

• Mariely Lopez-Santana George Mason University

Discussants

• Aina Gallego Institut de Barcelona d'Estudis Internacionals

• Karen Long Jusko Stanford University