Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/237166 
Year of Publication: 
2019
Citation: 
[Journal:] Financial Innovation [ISSN:] 2199-4730 [Volume:] 5 [Issue:] 1 [Publisher:] Springer [Place:] Heidelberg [Year:] 2019 [Pages:] 1-23
Publisher: 
Springer, Heidelberg
Abstract: 
This study aims to investigate the validity of the Rajan hypothesis, which argues that increasing income inequality plays a key role in the outbreak of financial crises. The relationship between income inequality and credit booms are examined in 10 developed countries: Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, the United Kingdom, Japan, Norway, Sweden, and the United States. In doing so, a bootstrap rolling-window estimation procedure is used to detect any possible causal link between inequality and credit booms in financial crisis sub-periods. The results reveal that the Rajan hypothesis is supported for the 1989 crisis in Australia, the 1991 and 2007 crises in the United Kingdom, and the 1929 and 2007 crises in the United States. Therefore, increasing income inequality has positive predictive power on credit booms in Anglo-Saxon countries. However, the hypothesis is not confirmed for Scandinavian and continental European countries. Our study is novel in its use of the bootstrap rolling-window procedure, which allows us to detect the possible relationship between inequality and credit booms in financial crises. The findings suggest that a progressive taxation policy or investments to accumulate human capital and increase the labor force are more beneficial than temporary solutions.
Subjects: 
Income inequality
Credit booms
Financial crisis
Rolling window estimation
JEL: 
E25
E51
G01
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by Logo
Document Type: 
Article

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