Growth and Distribution: Evidence from a Variable-Parameter Cross-National Time-Series Analysis

This article investigates the impact of industrialization, economic growth, and the unemployment rate on property-income shares in a sample of 21 nations in four different geopolitical regions over a period of 24 years. This focus on the property-income share is motivated by our interest in studying the power of propertied elites in market societies. Following prior theory and research, we expect the property share to decline with industrialization but to increase with economic growth and the unemployment rate. To test these expectations, we estimate a variable-parameter time-series regression model on pooled annual data. Findings are consistent with prior expectations, but we also find between-country differences in the effects of growth. We urge further research to specify the institutional mechanisms responsible for observed similarities and differences.