 Mind the gap: Disparity in redistributive preference between political elites and the public in ChinaWeihua An and Maoliang Ye European Journal of Political Economy, 2017, vol. 50, issue C, 75-91 Abstract: In this research, we emphasize the importance of studying the gap in redistributive preference between political elites and the public because of the strategic roles played by the former in policy processes. We use China as a case study, wherein the fulfillment of surging demands for redistribution is largely dependent on whether or not the political elites will advocate for redistribution. Using data from the Chinese General Social Survey, we find that the political elites prefer significantly less progressive taxation and less redistributive expenditure than the public. The gap in redistributive preference is larger on the expenditure side than on the taxation side. Moreover, the causes of the gap appear to vary by the measures for redistribution. Accounting for covariate differences fully explains the gap in preference for progressive taxation, but not the gap in preference for redistributive expenditure. Keywords: D31; D63; D72; D73; H11; H2; H5; O57; Inequality; Redistributive preference; Progressive taxation; Redistributive expenditure; Political elites; Bureaucracy; China (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:poleco:v:50:y:2017:i:c:p:75-91 DOI: 10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2017.04.006 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 |
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