From the 1980s to the present day, the theoretical aspects of inequality (its foundations, definitions, approaches and origins) and empirical evidence of income inequality in a wide range of advanced economies are examined. The key arguments are that income inequality increased during this period because labour and welfare became seen as costs to be compressed in "financial capitalism" rather than as a fundamental part of aggregate demand to be expanded. This period also witnessed the growth of "financial capitalism", characterised by the strong dependency of economies on the financial sector, by the globalisation and intensification of international trade and capital mobility, and by the "flexibilisation" of labour markets which contributed to the reduction of wage shares and therefore to the increase of inequality.

Pasquale Tridico is a professor of Labour economics at the Roma Tre University in Rome, Italy. He is director of the two-year master's degree in labour market, industrial relations and welfare systems and director of the master's in human development and food security. He teaches also economic policy, and is the Jean Monnet Chair of Economic Growth and Welfare Systems. He is also general secretary of the European Association for Evolutionary Political Economy (EAEPE). He is the author of the book "Inequality in Financial Capitalism": <link www.routledge.com/Inequality-in-Financial-Capitalism/Tridico/p/book/9781138944121&gt;https://www.routledge.com/Inequality-in-Financial-Capitalism/Tridico/p/book/9781138944121</link>