There is an ongoing debate within political economy on how finance affects capital-labour relations. Industrial relation scholars have demonstrated that financialization empowers capital and induces the liberalization of industrial relations. Additionally, meso and macro level studies show that finance reduced the labour share during neoliberalism. However, the literature is relatively limited and does not extend to the pre-WWII period. Considering finance as historically integral to capitalism, this paper estimates the impact of finance on the labour shares of France (1911France ( -2010 and Sweden (1891Sweden ( -2000. The results show that mortgage debt decreases the labour shares of both countries, thus, the financialization of households induces industrial discipline historically. However, the negative effect is substantially smaller in Sweden where housing finance is state-led and bargaining coordination is centralized over the last century.

Contributing to a better understanding of the varying inequality patterns within Latin America, this article examines the drivers of the private sector labour shares of Chile and Mexico between 1980 and 2011. Over this period, Chile’s labour share has declined, similar to many advanced economies, while Mexico’s labour share has remained relatively stable. Our historical and econometric analysis suggests that in Chile high private indebtedness has undermined wage demands and induced wage cuts, while policies of small government have also contributed to the decline in its wage share. Chile’s natural resource exports have benefited from Latin America’s commodity boom and exhibited some limited positive effects on its wage share. Contrariwise, we find that Mexico, as a more capital-intensive economy, has experienced significant substitution effects, which have undermined its wage share. Yet, high government spending has counterbalanced the negative effects of globalization. These comparative results challenge popular narratives around hyper-globalization and policy homogenization.

This paper examines Iran and Thailand and shows that the distributional consequences of financialisation and globalisation do not depend exclusively on the extent of financial deepening and exposure to globalisation.Instead, the cultural and legal underpinnings of the creditor-debtor relationship and the form of global integration matter more. | INTRODUCTIONDespite the employment contract is the cornerstone of the employment relationship, the broader economic and social conditions are also key components of the employer-employee relations (Kahn-Freund, 1954). During the last several decades, two fundamental macro-level socio-economic shifts relevant to employment relations have occurred (Blyton et al., 2010, p. 5): first, financialisation, that is, the increased influence of financial institutions on the behaviour and priorities of non-financial firms and individuals and second, trade liberalisation and the globalisation of production. Consequently, a growing body of work within industrial relations and political economy looks at how these structural shifts have altered corporate governance structures and the employment relationship (e.g.

The substantial literature in political economy and sociology has shown that the increasing importance of financial activities (financialisation) exhibits significant effects on many socioeconomic conditions. While these conditions are relevant to public health, the dominant focus of the literature has been centred on the impact of financial markets on health services and health‐care systems. This paper analyses how the financialisation of non‐financial corporations, real estate and pensions can worsen public health through the transformation of workplace and living conditions as well as financially dependent social groups' perception of health risk. Our analysis raises several questions which aim to provide the basis of a future research agenda on the effects of financialisation on public and global health.

This study examines the drivers of the steady decline in South Africa’s private sector labour share between 1971 and 2019. The focus on South Africa is instructive as its distributional contestation is bounded in a matrix of racial conflict. Crucial reforms on trade, finance and welfare were undertaken since 1994, but the study finds little evidence that the extension of the franchise promoted egalitarianism, since white economic elites invested in de facto political power. This study employs an Unrestricted Error Correction Model to estimate the drivers of the private sector labour share, and the findings suggest that globalisation, financialisation and public spending have decreased the labour share, while the effects of education have been positive but insufficient to halt the decline.