The Political Economy of the Kuznets Curve

Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson

Review of Development Economics, 2002, vol. 6, issue 2, 183-203

Abstract: The paper provides a political economy theory of the Kuznets curve. When development leads to increasing inequality, this can induce political instability and force democratization on political elites. Democratization leads to institutional changes which encourage redistribution and reduce inequality. Nevertheless, development does not necessarily induce a Kuznets curve, and it is shown that development may be associated with two types of nondemocratic paths: an “autocratic disaster,” with high inequality and low output, and an “East Asian Miracle,” with low inequality and high output. These arise either because inequality does not increase with development, or because the degree of political mobilization is low.

Date: 2002
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (118)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9361.00149

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:bla:rdevec:v:6:y:2002:i:2:p:183-203

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=1363-6669

Access Statistics for this article

Review of Development Economics is currently edited by E. Kwan Choi

More articles in Review of Development Economics from Wiley Blackwell
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().