Inequality, local wealth, and electoral politics

B.K. Song and Woo Chang Kang

European Journal of Political Economy, 2025, vol. 86, issue C

Abstract: We investigate whether the effect of rising inequality on electoral outcomes is conditional on local wealth within a country. In general, rising inequality increases support for left-wing parties among both poor and relatively well-off voters, but it also discourages turnout among those who are economically disadvantaged. As a result, left-wing parties’ electoral advantages become more salient in affluent localities, while they diminish in less affluent ones with larger shares of poor voters. To test these claims, we develop a unique measure of local inequality using actual transaction prices for residential housing in South Korea. Our analysis of aggregate data across four national legislative elections between 2008 and 2020 suggests that the effect of rising economic inequality varies depending on local wealth, generating political inequality where the policy preferences of voters in more affluent localities are better represented in the policy-making process.

Keywords: Economic inequality; Local wealth; Political inequality; Election (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0176268024001198
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:poleco:v:86:y:2025:i:c:s0176268024001198

DOI: 10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2024.102617

Access Statistics for this article

European Journal of Political Economy is currently edited by J. De Haan, A. L. Hillman and H. W. Ursprung

More articles in European Journal of Political Economy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().