Democratic redistribution and rule of the majority

Giacomo Corneo and Frank Neher

European Journal of Political Economy, 2015, vol. 40, issue PA, 96-109

Abstract: Does redistribution in democracies cater to the will of the majority? We propose a direct empirical strategy based on survey data that needs not assume that voters are guided by pecuniary motives alone. We find that most democracies implement the median voter's preferred amount of redistribution and the probability to serve the median voter increases with the quality of democracy. However, there is a non-negligible share of democracies that implement a minority-backed amount of redistribution. Political absenteeism of the poor cannot explain such outcomes. Rather, they can be explained by the electoral bundling of redistribution with values and rights issues.

Keywords: Redistribution; Democracy; Median-voter theorem; Inequality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D3 D7 H1 P16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (20)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Democratic Redistribution and Rule of the Majority (2014)
Working Paper: Democratic Redistribution and Rule of the Majority (2014)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:poleco:v:40:y:2015:i:pa:p:96-109

DOI: 10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2015.08.003

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