PRÍJMOVÉ NEROVNOSTI AKO PRÍCINA SVETOVEJ FINANCNEJ A EKONOMICKE J KRÍZY

The global financial and economic crisis and its causes have become one of the most important fields of study of the last five years. The present paper analyzes the assumption that rising income inequality is one of the leading causes of the crisis. It focuses on analyzing the development of income inequality in the U.S. economy and on identifying the main causes of the significant increase in income inequality in the USA over the last 30 years. Several basic theoretical concepts are presented, claiming that growing income inequality is the primary cause of the crisis. A special attention is paid to explaining the nature of the transmission mechanism by which the rising income inequality has led to the emergence of the crisis. The paper also briefly describes outcomes of the empirical research that aimed to confirm whether rising inequality has any explanatory power in accounting for financial and economic crisis. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]