Democracy Deficits, Inequality and Pollution. A Politico-Economic Analysis

Thomas Drosdowski

Hannover Economic Papers (HEP) from Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät

Abstract: The article examines conditions, under which the degree of democratization influences environmental policy outcomes, with a given resource endowments' heterogeneity as a crucial feature of a politico-economic process. We develop an OLG model with pollution as an aggregate externality. The decisive voter, whose income can differ from the median one, chooses redistribution to finance abatement. By comparing the optimal taxation under alternative political regimes we analyze their implications for environment, efficiency and growth. We find that left regimes, choosing more progressive redistribution, maintain better environmental quality, which supports empirical research. Inequality does not appear to be harmful for the environment, and it dampens the effect of democracy imperfections on redistribution.

Keywords: pollution; political economy; inequality; redistribution; growth (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D31 D63 D72 H23 Q53 Q58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 29 pages
Date: 2005-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-env, nep-pbe and nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:han:dpaper:dp-323

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