This paper investigates the effects of financialization and functional income distribution on aggregate demand in the USA by estimating the effects of the increase in rentier income (dividends and interest payments) and housing and financial wealth on consumption and investment. The redistribution of income in favor of profits suppresses consumption, whereas the increase in the rentier income and wealth has positive effects. A higher rentier income decreases investment. Without the wealth effects, the overall effect of the changes in distribution on aggregate demand would have been negative. Thus a pro-capital income distribution leads to a slightly negative effect on growth, i.e. the USA economy is moderately wage-led.

-An increase in the wage share has contradictory effects on the subaggregates of aggregate demand. Private consumption expenditures ought to increase because wage incomes typically are associated with higher consumption propensities than capital incomes. Investment expenditures ought to be negatively affected because investment will positively depend on profits. Net exports will be negatively affected because an increase in the wage share corresponds to an increase in unit labor costs and thus a loss in competitiveness. Theoretically aggregate demand can therefore be either wage led or profit led depending on how these effects add up. The results will crucially depend on how open the economy is internationally. The paper estimates a Post-Kaleckian macro model incorporating these effects for the Euro area and finds that the Euro area is presently in a wage-led demand regime. Implications for wage policies are discussed.

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This paper estimates the effects of financialization on physical investment in the UK using panel data based on balance-sheets of publicly listed non-financial companies supplied by Worldscope for the period 1985-2013. We find robust evidence of an adverse effect of not only financial payments (interests and dividends) but also financial incomes on the rate of accumulation. The negative impacts of financial incomes from interests and dividends are particularly strong for the pre-crisis period. Our findings support the 'financialization thesis' that the increasing orientation of the non-financial sector towards financial activities is ultimately leading to lower physical investment, hence to stagnant or fragile growth, as well as long term concerns for productivity.

This paper estimates a multi-country demand-led growth model for EU15 countries. A decrease in the share of wages in national income in isolation leads to lower growth in Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom, whereas it stimulates growth in Austria, Belgium, Denmark and Ireland. However, a simultaneous decline in the wage share leads to an overall decline in EU15 GDP; hence EU15 as a whole is a wage-led economy. Furthermore, Austria and Ireland also experience negative effects on growth when they decrease their wage share along with their trading partners. The results indicate that a decline in the wage share has had significant negative effects on growth in the EU15 countries and supports the case of wage coordination. We present different wage-led recovery scenarios taking into account further effects of a change in the wage share on prices, nominal unit labour costs, investment, and net exports.