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Democracy, Redistribution and Inequality
TLDR
The relationship between democracy, redistribution, and inequality has been explored in this article, where the authors show that there is a significant and robust effect of democracy on tax revenues as a fraction of GDP, but no robust impact on inequality.Abstract:
In this paper we revisit the relationship between democracy, redistribution and inequality. We first explain the theoretical reasons why democracy is expected to increase redistribution and reduce inequality, and why this expectation may fail to be realized when democracy is captured by the richer segments of the population; when it caters to the preferences of the middle class; or when it opens up disequalizing opportunities to segments of the population previously excluded from such activities, thus exacerbating inequality among a large part of the population. We then survey the existing empirical literature, which is both voluminous and full of contradictory results. We provide new and systematic reduced-form evidence on the dynamic impact of democracy on various outcomes. Our findings indicate that there is a significant and robust effect of democracy on tax revenues as a fraction of GDP, but no robust impact on inequality. We also find that democracy is associated with an increase in secondary schooling and a more rapid structural transformation. Finally, we provide some evidence suggesting that inequality tends to increase after democratization when the economy has already undergone significant structural transformation, when land inequality is high, and when the gap between the middle class and the poor is small. All of these are broadly consistent with a view that is different from the traditional median voter model of democratic redistribution: democracy does not lead to a uniform decline in post-tax inequality, but can result in changes in fiscal redistribution and economic structure that have ambiguous effects on inequality.read more
Citations
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ReportDOI
Democracy Does Cause Growth
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors provide evidence that democracy has a positive effect on GDP per capita and provide a dynamic panel strategy that controls for country fixed effects and the rich dynamics of GDP.
Journal ArticleDOI
Democracy Does Cause Growth
Daron Acemoglu,Daron Acemoglu,Daron Acemoglu,Suresh Naidu,Pascual Restrepo,James A. Robinson,James A. Robinson,James A. Robinson +7 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors provide evidence that democracy has a significant and robust positive effect on economic growth, and they use a linear model for GDP dynamics estimated using either a standard within estimator or various different generalized method of moments estimators.
Journal ArticleDOI
Voting Technology, Political Responsiveness, and Infant Health: Evidence From Brazil
Thomas Fujiwara,Thomas Fujiwara +1 more
TL;DR: In this article, the introduction of electronic voting technology in Brazilian elections was studied, and it was found that electronic voting reduced residual (error-ridden and uncounted) votes and promoted a large de facto enfranchisement of mainly less educated citizens.
Journal ArticleDOI
World income inequality databases: an assessment of WIID and SWIID
TL;DR: In this article, the authors assess two secondary data compilations about income inequality, the World Income Inequality Database (WIIDv2c) and the SWIIDv4.0, with all observations multiply-imputed.
Book
Crises of Democracy
TL;DR: In this article, Adam Przeworski presents a panorama of the political situation throughout the world of established democracies, places it in the context of past misadventures of democratic regimes, and speculates on the prospects.
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