cite: Alexiou2023 author: Alexiou, C., & Trachanas, E. year: 2023 title: "The impact of trade unions and government party orientation on income inequality: Evidence from 17 OECD economies" publisher: Journal of Economic Studies uri: https://doi.org/10.1108/JES-12-2021-0612 pubtype: article discipline: economics country: global period: maxlength: targeting: group: data: design: method: sample: unit: representativeness: causal: # 0 correlation / 1 causal theory: power resources theory limitations: can not account for individual drivers such as collective bargaining, arbitration, etc observation: - intervention: collective action (trade unionization) institutional: 1 structural: 1 agency: 0 inequality: income; gender type: # 0 vertical / 1 horizontal indicator: # 0 absolute / 1 relative measures: Gini coeff findings: unionization strongly related with decreasing income inequality; right-wing institutional contexts related with increased income inequality channels: redistribution of political power under unions; weak unionization increases post-redistribution inequality direction: # -1 neg / 0 none / 1 pos significance: # 0 nsg / 1 msg / 2 sg notes: PRELIMINARY EXTRACTION annotation: | A study on the effects of both political orientation of governments' parties and a country's trade unionization on its income inequality. It finds that, generally, strong unionization is strongly related to decreasing income inequality, most likely through a redistribution of political power through collective mobilization in national contexts of stronger unions. It also suggests that in contexts of weaker unionization, post-redistribution income inequality is higher, thus also fostering unequal redistributive policies. Lastly, it finds positive relations between right-wing orientation of a country's government and its income inequality, with more mixed results for centrist governments pointing to potential fragmentations in their redistributive policy approaches. The study is mostly limited in not being able to account for individual drivers (or barriers) and can thus not disaggregate for the effects for example arbitration or collective bargaining.