The authors argue that inequality matters for redistributive politics in advanced capitalist societies, but it is the structure of inequality, not the level of inequality that matters, and they test this proposition with data from 15 to 18 advanced democracies and find that both redistribution and none-lderly social spending increase as the dispersion of earnings in the upper half of the distribution increases relative to the distribution in the lower half.
Abstract:
Against the current consensus among comparative political economists, we argue that inequality matters for redistributive politics in advanced capitalist societies, but it is the structure of inequality, not the level of inequality, that matters. Our theory posits that middle-income voters will be inclined to ally with low-income voters and support redistributive policies when the distance between the middle and the poor is small relative to the distance between the middle and the rich. We test this proposition with data from 15 to 18 advanced democracies and find that both redistribution and nonelderly social spending increase as the dispersion of earnings in the upper half of the distribution increases relative to the dispersion of earnings in the lower half of the distribution. In addition, we present survey evidence on preferences for redistribution among middle-income voters that is consistent with our theory and regression results indicating that the left parties are more likely to participate in government when the structure of inequality is characterized by skew.
TL;DR: This paper found that the personal experience of economic hardship, particularly the loss of a job, had a major effect on increasing support for welfare spending, and this effect was appreciably larger among Republicans than among Democrats.
TL;DR: Bermeo and Bartels as discussed by the authors studied the dynamics of economic opinions during the Great Recession and found that people were more likely to support redistribution in the United Kingdom during the financial crisis.
TL;DR: This article studied the course of social welfare policy over the second half of the twentieth century in 16 nations and examined social insurance and service programs, major public expenditure and revenue aggregates, and an array of fine-grained indicators of state redistributive and safety net outcomes, from 1960 through 1994.
TL;DR: Skills and Inequality as discussed by the authors studies the political economy of education and training reforms from the perspective of comparative welfare state research, highlighting the striking similarities between established worlds of welfare capitalism and educational regimes.
TL;DR: The authors showed that the large shocks that capital owners experienced during the Great Depression and World War II have had a permanent effect on top capital incomes and argued that steep progressive income and estate taxation may have prevented large fortunes from fully recovering from these shocks.
TL;DR: This article developed an index of globalization covering its three main dimensions: economic integration, social integration, and political integration, using panel data for 123 countries in 1970-2000 and analyzed empirically whether the overall index and sub-indexes constructed to measure the single dimensions affect economic growth.
TL;DR: This paper examined the origins, character, effects and prospects of generous welfare states in advanced industrial democracies in the post-World War II era, showing that prolonged government by different parties results in different welfare states with strong differences in levels of poverty and inequality.
TL;DR: Garrett as mentioned in this paper showed that globalization has strengthened the relationship between the political power of the left and organized labour and economic policies that reduce market-generated inequalities of risk and wealth, and macroeconomic outcomes in the era of global markets have been as good or better in strong left-labour regimes ('social democratic corporatism') as in other industrial countries.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a model of the distribution of power in a democratic system and the role of the middle class in the creation and consolidation of the system, as well as a dynamic model of democratic consolidation.
Q1. What have the authors contributed in "The structure of inequality and the politics of redistribution" ?
In addition, the authors present survey evidence on preferences for redistribution among middle-income voters that is consistent with their theory and regression results indicating that the left parties are more likely to participate in government when the structure of inequality is characterized by skew.
Q2. What have the authors stated for future works in "The structure of inequality and the politics of redistribution" ?
One hypothesis to be explored in future work is that center-right parties adjust strategically to the advantages that center-left parties enjoy when the structure of inequality is skewed, pursuing more redistributive policies. Although the authors do not believe that governments are exclusively responsive to the policy preferences of middle-income voters, it seems reasonable to suppose that middle-income voters play a pivotal role in coalitional politics. Their preliminary analysis of survey data suggests that the structure of inequality shapes the preferences of middle-income voters and that these preferences in turn impact government policy. Further analysis of individual preferences constitutes an obvious next step that the authors intend to pursue.
Q3. In what countries did the OECD find the skew of earnings in the U.?
In several of these countries—notably, Australia, France, Ireland, and Switzerland—government policy appears to have become more redistributive relative to countries in which earnings skew has remained stable.
Q4. What is the likely explanation for the structure of earnings inequality?
As Piketty and Saez (2003) suggest, the rapid growth of corporate compensation, linked to the dynamics of equity markets, constitutes yet another possible factor behind changes in the structure of earnings inequality over the past two decades.
Q5. Does the addition of government partisanship affect the estimated effects of skew?
With redistribution as the dependent variable, introducing government partisanship into their models does not noticeably alter the estimated effects of skew.
Q6. What is the reason for the decline in relative income mobility?
A number of recent crossnational studies indicate that relative income mobility tends to decline with aggregate inequality (Aaberge et al.
Q7. What is the reason why middle-income voters empathize with the poor?
In particular, the authors expect middleincome voters to empathize with the poor (or affluent) to the extent that they live in the same neighborhoods, send their children to the same schools, and circulate within the same social networks (McPherson, SmithLovin, and Cook 2001).