Income Inequality and Corporate Structure
Stetson Law Review, Vol. 45, No. 1, 2015
Saint Louis U. Legal Studies Research Paper No. 2015-6
23 Pages Posted: 26 Apr 2016 Last revised: 11 May 2016
Date Written: March 14, 2016
Abstract
Efforts to address income inequality generally focus on wealth redistribution through taxation and government benefits. But these efforts do not attack the core problem -- the unfair distribution of wealth at the firm level. This essay, a contribution to the "Inequality, Opportunity, and the Law of the Workplace" symposium, argues that workers need power within their firms to stake their claims to larger slices of the corporate pie. Even though the current law of the workplace does provide regulatory support for workers, it fails to change internal firm governance. Policymakers who want to take on income inequality as a structural matter should turn to corporate law and provide workers with a way of playing a role in the ongoing governance of the business.
Keywords: income inequality, corporate law, stakeholder theory, employment law, labor law
JEL Classification: D63, K22, K31
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
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