 Nordic exceptionalism? Social democratic egalitarianism in world-historic perspectiveMattia Fochesato and Samuel Bowles Journal of Public Economics, 2015, vol. 127, issue C, 30-44 Abstract: In what respect, if any, are the Nordic economies exceptionally egalitarian when viewed from a world historical perspective? Our answer is based on archaeological, historical and ethnographic as well as contemporary evidence over the past three thousand years. The countries exemplifying the Nordic model are not exceptionally equal in the ownership of material wealth. Moreover, the advent of social democracy in the Nordic nations did not result in a more equal distribution of years of schooling. But intergenerational economic and social mobility appears to be exceptional in the Nordic nations, and by most measures, inequalities in living standards in the Nordic economies are less than in other advanced economies. The closest Nordic analogy in our data set is to the egalitarian distribution of well-being and limited intergenerational transmission of wealth found in some horticultural and (especially) forager economies. Keywords: Wealth inequality; Redistribution; Nordic model; Economic systems; Gini coefficient; Social democracy; Horticulturalists; Hunter gatherers (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:pubeco:v:127:y:2015:i:c:p:30-44 DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2014.03.001 Access Statistics for this article Journal of Public Economics is currently edited by R. Boadway and J. Poterba More articles in Journal of Public Economics from Elsevier |
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