Income inequality and social institutions: beyond the Kuznets curve and economic determinism

The paper outlines and examines a social‐institutional conception of income inequality or economic distribution. The fundamental proposition of this conception is that income inequality/distribution is far from being the outcome of the operation of strictly market laws or economic forces but rather one of institutional arrangements or social structures. Of the latter particularly important have shown to be the institutional structure of the economy, particularly labour markets, as well as the degree of democracy of political systems. The results suggest transcending single‐factor economic explanations and predictions of income inequality, as implied in the Kuznets curve and its ramifications, in favour of an alternative multilevel sociological approach.