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Connecting comparative political economy (CPE) approaches, as the Varieties of Capitalism (VoC) theory, with post-Keynesian (PK) research on different demand and growth regimes in modern capitalism has recently given rise to some interesting claims regarding differentiation and shifts of demand and growth regimes. However, we find some difficulties in the way PK approaches have been interpreted and integrated in modern CPE approaches. Therefore, we first provide a theoretically consistent and empirically applicable classification of demand and growth regimes under the conditions of finance-dominated capitalism, as it recently has been proposed by PK authors. Second, instead of using the traditional VoC dual classification, we focus on a more differentiated welfare model classification, which can be seen as different socio-institutional responses towards the challenges of globalisation and financialisation. For the period before the 2007-9 crisis, we link the PK demand and growth regimes with five socio-economic models identified by Hay and Wincott (2012), and thus provide an alternative approach. Third, going beyond the current debate, we examine the regime shifts after the 2007-9 global crisis with respect to the demand and growth regimes, and we also examine the changes within the welfare models. Whereas we find a clear pattern for the shift of demand and growth regimes, the changes in the welfare models are not as clear-cut. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the early 1980s, financialization has become an increasingly important trend in developed capitalist countries, with different timing, speed, and intensities in different countries. Rising inequality has been a major feature of this trend. Shares of wages in national income have declined and personal income inequality has increased. Against this background unsustainable demand and growth regimes have developed that dominated the major economies before the crisis: the 'debt-led private demand boom' and the 'export-led mercantilist' regime. The article applies this post-Keynesian approach to the macroeconomics of finance-dominated capitalism of three Baltic Sea countries, Denmark, Estonia, and Latvia, both for the pre-crisis and the post-crisis period. First, the macroeconomics of finance-dominated capitalism are briefly reiterated. Second, the financialization-distribution nexus is examined for the three countries. Third, macroeconomic demand and growth regimes are analyzed, both before and after the crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that the re-emergence of stagnation tendencies in modern capitalism can be related to financialisation and its macroeconomic failures leading to the recent crises, and in particular to the macroeconomic responses towards the crisis and the respective regime shifts in mature capitalist economies. The focus of the paper is on the latter, and it examines the regime changes for six mature capitalist economies, the two liberal Anglo-Saxon economies of the USA and the UK, a representative country from the Nordic welfare states, Sweden, the three important Eurozone countries France, Germany and Spain, as well as the core Eurozone (EA-12) as a whole. The concept of macroeconomic regimes under the conditions of financialisation is recapitulated, applied to the period before the crisis, and finally the regime changes during and after the crisis are examined. It is shown that a dominant tendency towards export-led mercantilism, in particular in the Eurozone and its main member countries, imposes an aggregation problem on the global economy and thus contributes to stagnation and rising global macroeconomic risks. Finally, short- and long-run alternative policies to deal with these problems are suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this article is twofold. First, we examine if, and to what extent, a general Kaleckian analysis of the potential effects of financialisation on income shares in advanced capitalist economies is of relevance for the three Eurozone countries under investigation—France, Germany and Spain—in the period before the recent financial and economic crisis. Second, we study changes in the financialisation-distribution nexus that have occurred in the course of and after the financial and economic crisis. We find that the countries examined here have shown broad similarities regarding redistribution before the crisis, although there are some differences in the underlying determinants. These differences have continued during the period after the crisis and have led to different results in the development of distribution since then. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we analyze the effects of financialization on income distribution, before and after the Great Financial Crisis and the Great Recession, for the two liberal Anglo-Saxon economies, the United States and the United Kingdom, and for a typical Nordic welfare state economy, Sweden. We apply a Kaleckian perspective in which the focus will be on functional income distribution and thus on the relationship between financialization and the wage share or the gross profit share. According to this approach, financialization may affect aggregate wage or gross profit shares of the economy as a whole through three channels: first, the sectoral composition of the economy; second, the financial overhead costs and profit claims of the rentiers; and third, the bargaining power of workers and trade unions. We examine empirical indicators for each of these channels, both before and after the crisis. We find that the types of countries investigated here have shown broad similarities regarding redistribution before the crisis, however, with major differences in the underlying determinants. These differences have carried through to the period after the crisis and have led to different results regarding the development of distribution since then. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article a major channel through which financialisation or finance-dominated capitalism affects macroeconomic performance is examined: the distribution channel. Empirical data for the following dimensions of (re-)distribution in the period of finance-dominated capitalism since the early 1980s is provided for 15 advanced capitalist economies: functional distribution, personal/household distribution and the share and the composition of top incomes. Based on the Kaleckian approach to the determination of income shares, the effects of financialisation on functional income distribution are studied in more detail. Some stylised facts of financialisation are integrated into the Kaleckian approach, and by means of reviewing empirical and econometric literature it is found that financialisation and neoliberalism have contributed to the falling labour income share since the early 1980s through three main Kaleckian channels: 1) a shift in the sectoral composition of the economy, 2) an increase in management salaries and rising profit claims of the rentiers and thus in overheads, and 3) weakened trade union bargaining power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyze the long-run imbalances of finance-dominated capitalism underlying the present crisis, which began in 2007, with a focus on developments in the United States and Germany. We argue that beyond inefficient regulation of the financial sector, the severeness of the present crisis has been mainly caused by increasing inequalities of income distribution and rising imbalances in the world economy associated with finance-dominated capitalism. From this it follows that in the near and not so near future, the United States will no longer be able to act as the driving force for world demand. In order to avoid a period of deflationary stagnation in major parts of the world economy, we finally propose the policy package of a global Keynesian New Deal that should consist of (1) reregulation of the financial sector, (2) reorientation of macroeconomic policies along (post) Keynesian lines, and (3) reconstruction of international macroeconomic policy coordination, in particular on the European level, and a new world financial order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]