Flaherty, Eoin (2019) Varieties of Regulation and Financialization: Comparative Pathways to Top Income Inequality in the OECD, 1975–2005. Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis, 21 (1). pp. 90-115. ISSN 1387-6988

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Abstract

With financialization now acknowledged as one of the most potent threats to income equality, can finance-driven inequality be explained by a singular causal argument? Taking the case of top incomes across the OECD, this paper addresses the standard causal narrative of financedriven inequality, where rising top income inequality is explained as a function of deregulation, financial sector growth, and a parallel weakening of the role of trade unions and the government. Applying fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) to a time-series dataset (1975–2005), it assesses the ways in which configurations of institutions combined in different ways prior to the recent financial crisis, to create policy contexts conducive to top income growth. It does this by adopting a time-series approach to QCA, involving calibration and analysis of data at three successive historical waves. Results suggest that top incomes in the era of finance-driven capitalism were subject to a diversity of causal paths which generated similar outcomes in different contexts, in a manner which departs substantially from the standard narrative. In doing so, it elaborates on the application of time-series approaches to case-based analysis, and uses its results to discuss the ways in which institutions may combine in different ways to generate similar, or divergent outcomes

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Eoin Flaherty (2019) Varieties of Regulation and Financialization: Comparative Pathways to Top Income Inequality in the OECD, 1975–2005, Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis: Research and Practice, 21:1, 90-115, DOI: 10.1080/13876988.2017.1416827
Keywords:	time-series qualitative comparative analysis; financialization; income inequality; top incomes; comparative; sociology;
Academic Unit:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Sociology
Item ID:	13597
Identification Number:	https://doi.org/10.1080/13876988.2017.1416827
Depositing User:	Eoin Flaherty
Date Deposited:	20 Nov 2020 15:41
Journal or Publication Title:	Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis
Publisher:	Routledge
Refereed:	Yes
URI:	Publisher
Use Licence:	This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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