Political Polarization and the Size of Government

Erik Lindqvist and Robert Östling

No 749, Working Paper Series from Research Institute of Industrial Economics

Abstract: We study the effect of political polarization on government spending and redistribution using the dispersion of self-reported political preferences as our measure of polarization. Politically polarized countries have lower levels of redistribution and government consumption. The relationship between political polarization and the size of government is stronger in democratic countries, indicating that the effect goes through the political system. The results are robust to a large set of controlvariables, including GDP per capita and income inequality.

Keywords: Political Polarization; Social Cohesion; Ethnic Fractionalization; Social Capital; Size of Government (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H11 H20 H41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 32 pages
Date: 2008-05-15
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-dev, nep-pbe, nep-pol and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Published as Lindqvist, Erik and Robert Östling, 'Political Polarization and the Size of Government' in American Political Science Review, 2010, pages 543-565.

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Related works:
Journal Article: Political Polarization and the Size of Government (2010)
Working Paper: Political Polarization and the Size of Government (2009)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:iuiwop:0749

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