IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/worlde/v41y2018i9p2491-2527.html

Top income shares in OECD countries: The role of government ideology and globalisation

Author

Listed:
  • Florian Dorn
  • Christoph Schinke

Abstract

This paper investigates how government ideology and globalisation are associated with top income shares in 17 OECD countries over the period 1970 to 2014. We use top income shares of the World Wealth and Income Database (WID). Globalisation is measured by the KOF index of globalisation. Static and dynamic panel model results show that the top income shares increased more under right wing governments than under left wing governments. The ideology‐induced effect was stronger when globalisation proceeded more rapidly. Globalisation was positively correlated with income shares of the upper‐middle class (P99–P90), but negatively with income shares of the rich (top 1%) in the overall sample. We show that the relationship differs between Anglo‐Saxon countries and other OECD countries. Globalisation was more pro‐rich in Anglo‐Saxon countries than in other OECD countries. Government ideology does not turn out to have a statistically significant effect on top income shares in Anglo‐Saxon countries after the 1980s, whereas ideology‐induced differences in the distributional outcomes continued in other OECD countries.

Suggested Citation

  • Florian Dorn & Christoph Schinke, 2018. "Top income shares in OECD countries: The role of government ideology and globalisation," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(9), pages 2491-2527, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:worlde:v:41:y:2018:i:9:p:2491-2527
    DOI: 10.1111/twec.12638
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/twec.12638
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/twec.12638?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Klaus Gründler & Niklas Potrafke & Timo Wochner, 2020. "Structural Reforms and Income Inequality: Who Benefits From Market-Oriented Reforms?," EconPol Policy Reports 18, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich.
    2. Philipp Heimberger, 2019. "Beeinflusst die ökonomische Globalisierung die Einkommensungleichheit? Eine Meta-Analyse," Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft - WuG, Kammer für Arbeiter und Angestellte für Wien, Abteilung Wirtschaftswissenschaft und Statistik, vol. 45(4), pages 497-529.
    3. Johannes Blum & Florian Dorn & Axel Heuer, 2021. "Political institutions and health expenditure," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 28(2), pages 323-363, April.
    4. Florian Dorn & Clemens Fuest & Niklas Potrafke, 2022. "Trade openness and income inequality: New empirical evidence," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 60(1), pages 202-223, January.
    5. Edward Anderson & Samuel Obeng, 2021. "Globalisation and government spending: Evidence for the ‘hyper‐globalisation’ of the 1990s and 2000s," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(5), pages 1144-1176, May.
    6. Juan A. Román-Aso & Héctor Bellido & Lorena Olmos, 2025. "When government’s economic ideology shapes income redistribution. Empirical evidence from the OECD," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 23(1), pages 177-204, March.
    7. Florian Dorn & Clemens Fuest & Niklas Potrafke, 2017. "Globalisation and Income Inequality Revisited," European Economy - Discussion Papers 056, Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission.
    8. M. Mesut Badur & Md. Monirul Islam & Kazi Sohag, 2023. "Globalization–Income Inequality Nexus in the Post-Soviet Countries: Analysis of Heterogeneous Dataset Using the Quantiles via Moments Approach," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 11(7), pages 1-29, March.
    9. Niklas Potrafke, 2019. "The globalisation–welfare state nexus: Evidence from Asia," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(3), pages 959-974, March.
    10. Florian Haelg, 2022. "Drivers of financial globalisation: The role of informational frictions," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(3), pages 608-636, March.
    11. Can Sever & Emekcan Yücel, 2025. "Electoral cycles in inequality," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 23(2), pages 433-456, June.
    12. Björn Kauder & Manuela Krause & Niklas Potrafke, 2021. "Do Left-wing Governments Decrease Wage Inequality among Civil Servants? Empirical Evidence from the German States," Public Finance Review, , vol. 49(1), pages 106-135, January.
    13. M. Mesut Badur & Kazi Sohag & Shawkat Hammoudeh & Gazi Salah Uddin, 2023. "Costs of economic growth: new insights on wealth and income inequalities in the post-communist countries," Post-Communist Economies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(8), pages 830-855, November.
    14. Mehdi El Herradi & Jakob Haan & Aurélien Leroy, 2023. "Inflation and the Income Share of the Rich: Evidence for 14 OECD Countries," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 69(1), pages 170-194, March.
    15. Philipp Heimberger, 2020. "Does economic globalisation affect income inequality? A meta‐analysis," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(11), pages 2960-2982, November.
    16. Christian R. Proaño & Giorgos Galanis & Juan Carlos Peña, 2025. "On the macro-political dynamics of conflict inflation," Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, Springer;Society for Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents, vol. 20(3), pages 725-745, July.
    17. Isaiah Maket & Izabella Szakálné Kanó & Zsófia Vas, 2023. "Urban Agglomeration and Income Inequality: Is Kuznets Hypothesis Valid for Sub-Saharan Africa?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 170(3), pages 933-953, December.
    18. Markus Brueckner & Ngo Van Long & Joaquin Vespignani, 2022. "Trade, education, and income inequality," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 54(40), pages 4608-4631, August.
    19. Markus Brueckner & Ngo Van Long & Joaquin Vespignani, 2020. "Non-Gravity Trade," CAMA Working Papers 2020-52, Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    20. Björn Kauder & Manuela Krause & Niklas Potrafke, 2020. "Reduzieren linke Landesregierungen die Ungleichheit bei der Beamtenbesoldung?," ifo Schnelldienst, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 73(12), pages 28-31, December.
    21. Manuela Magalhães & Tiago Sequeira & Óscar Afonso, 2019. "Industry Concentration and Wage Inequality: a Directed Technical Change Approach," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 30(3), pages 457-481, July.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • F62 - International Economics - - Economic Impacts of Globalization - - - Macroeconomic Impacts
    • H80 - Public Economics - - Miscellaneous Issues - - - General
    • N30 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy - - - General, International, or Comparative

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:worlde:v:41:y:2018:i:9:p:2491-2527. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0378-5920 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.