Why right-wing governments restrict market competition

A Demographic Theory

Bibliographic Data

ID4237446
AuthorsJingjing Huo (0000-0003-1733-8748, Department of Political Science, University of Waterloo , 200 University Avenue West , Waterloo, ON N2L 3G1, corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume23
Issue1
Pages309-334
Publication date2025-01-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSocio-Economic Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1475-1461 • E-ISSN: 1475-147X
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/ser/mwae049
OpenAlexW4400872535
LanguageEN
References cited70

Recent scholarship on the evolution of neoliberalism points out that, despite free market discourse, right-wing rule has often resulted in re-regulation and further market concentration, to the advantage of large corporations. This article argues that such an outcome is not an inevitable result of right-wing incumbency. Instead, I identify an exogenous, demographic, change that prompts right-wing governments to increasingly embrace market concentration: the aging of the workforce, which has intensified the substitution of capital for labor, and as a result, somewhat paradoxically, reduced the amount of pure profits that can be distributed to wealthy households. In response, right-wing governments restrict competition to shore up pure profits. Drawing on data from 14 to 20 OECD countries, I show that as workforce aging intensifies, right partisanship becomes increasingly associated with more regulatory restrictions on competition, greater market concentration, and a greater pure profit share of income

Capital (architecture) · Competition (biology) · Economic growth · Economics · Labour economics · Market economy · Market regulation · Neoliberalism (international relations) · Political economy · Scholarship · Workforce · Economic Policies and Impacts · Political and Economic history of UK and US · Social Policy and Reform Studies

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