Finance, globalisation, technology and inequality: Do nonlinearities matter?

Abstract Relying on data for 90 economies over 1970-2015 and panel estimation techniques, we investigate how financial development, globalisation and technology affect income inequality. Our findings reveal significant nonlinearities, consistent with either Ushaped or inverted-U shaped relationships. As such, depending on whether a certain threshold value is achieved, the same determinants of income distribution exert opposite effects in different countries. Globalisation is associated with increasing inequality in most advanced economies, but with falling disparities for the large majority of emerging economies. Technology and financial development lead to increasing inequality for most em…