Political institutions and income (re-)distribution: evidence from developed economies

Lars Feld and Jan Schnellenbach

Public Choice, 2014, vol. 159, issue 3, 435-455

Abstract: We discuss the effect of formal political institutions (electoral systems, fiscal decentralization, presidential and parliamentary regimes) on the extent and direction of income (re-)distribution. Empirical evidence is presented for a large sample of 70 economies and a panel of 13 OECD countries between 1981 and 1998. The evidence indicates that presidential regimes are associated with a less equal distribution of disposable incomes, while electoral systems have no significant effects. Fiscal competition is associated with less income redistribution and a less equal distribution of disposable incomes, but also with a more equal primary income distribution. Our evidence also is in line with earlier empirical contributions that find a positive relationship between trade openness and equality in primary and disposable incomes, as well as the overall redistributive effort. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014

Keywords: Redistribution; Formal institutions; Fiscal decentralization; Presidential and parliamentary regimes; Electoral systems; D31; H22; H11; H50; I38; P50 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (19)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11127-013-0116-4 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Political Institutions and Income (Re-)Distribution: Evidence from Developed Economies (2013)
Working Paper: Political institutions and income (re-)distribution: Evidence from developed economies (2013)
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:kap:pubcho:v:159:y:2014:i:3:p:435-455

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... ce/journal/11127/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s11127-013-0116-4

Access Statistics for this article

Public Choice is currently edited by WIlliam F. Shughart II

More articles in Public Choice from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().