Do Labor Market Policies and Growth Fundamentals Matter for Income Inequality in OECD Countries? Some Empirical Evidence

Abstract

This paper presents an assessment of the relationship between income distribution, fundamentals affecting economic growth, and labor market policies. When this relationship is tested, the explanatory power turns out to be surprisingly high: on average, economic fundamentals explain about three-fourths of the variation in various inequality measures for the countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Moreover, Granger causality between accumulating economic fundamentals and inequality seems to hold.