Risks at work: the demand and supply sides of government redistribution

Thomas R. Cusack, Torben Iversen and Philipp Rehm

Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Institutions, States, Markets from WZB Berlin Social Science Center

Abstract: To understand how the welfare state adjusts to economic shocks it is important to explain both the genesis of popular preferences and the institutional incentives of governments to respond to these preferences. This paper attempts to do both, using a general theoretical framework and detailed data at both the individual and national levels. In a first step, we focus on how risk exposure and income are related to preferences for redistribution. To test our hypotheses, we extract detailed risk exposure measures from labor force surveys and marry them to cross-national survey data. In a second step, we turn our attention to the supply side of government redistribution. Institutions, we argue, mediate governments’ reactions to redistributional demands following economic shocks. Using time-series cross-country data, we demonstrate how national training systems, electoral institutions as well as government partisanship shape government responses.

Keywords: Public Opinion; Preferences; Redistribution; Varieties of Capitalism; Partisanship; Unemployment; Occupations (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D31 D72 E24 H53 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:wzbism:spii200515

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