Voting for income-immiserizing redistribution in the Meltzer-Richard model

Richard Barnett, Joydeep Bhattacharya and Helle Bunzel

ISU General Staff Papers from Iowa State University, Department of Economics

Abstract: This paper argues that income received via redistributive transfers, unlike labor income, requires no direct sacrifice of leisure; this makes it attractive to many voters even if it leaves them poorer. This point is made within the classic Meltzer and Richard (1981) model wherein heterogeneous voters evaluate an income-redistribution program that finances a lump-sum transfer to all via a distorting income tax. The political-equilibrium policy under majority rule is the tax most preferred, utility-wise, by the median voter. She, and many poorer voters, may support income redistribution that, ironically, leaves them poorer in income terms but with higher utility.

Date: 2013-07-17
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://dr.lib.iastate.edu/server/api/core/bitstre ... d2c189fe6754/content
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 403 Forbidden

Related works:
Journal Article: VOTING FOR INCOME-IMMISERIZING REDISTRIBUTION IN THE MELTZER–RICHARD MODEL (2014)
Working Paper: Voting for income-immiserizing redistribution in the Meltzer-Richard model (2014)
Working Paper: Voting for income-immiserizing redistribution in the Meltzer-Richard model (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:isu:genstf:201307170700001051

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in ISU General Staff Papers from Iowa State University, Department of Economics Iowa State University, Dept. of Economics, 260 Heady Hall, Ames, IA 50011-1070. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Curtis Balmer ().