Topic
Redistribution (election)
About: Redistribution (election) is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 836 publications have been published within this topic receiving 20230 citations.
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TL;DR: In this article, balanced budget redistribution between socioeconomic groups is modeled as the outcome of electoral competition between two political parties, and a sufficient condition for existence is given, requiring that there be enough heterogeneity with respect to party preferences in the electorate.
Abstract: This paper models balanced-budget redistribution between socio-economic groups as the outcome of electoral competition between two political parties. Equilibrium is unique in the present model, and a sufficient condition for existence is given, requiring that there be enough ‘stochastic heterogeneity’ with respect to party preferences in the electorate. The validity of Hotelling's ‘principle of minimum differentiation’, and of ‘Director's Law’, are examined under alternative hypotheses concerning administrative costs of redistributions, and voter's possibilities both of abstaining from voting and of becoming campaign activists for one of the parties. The policy strategy of expected-plurality maximization is contrasted with the strategy of maximizing the probability of gaining a plurality. Incomes are fixed and known, so lump-sum taxation is feasible. However, constraints on tax/transfer differentiation between individuals are permitted in the analysis.
1,486 citations
TL;DR: This paper showed that the electoral system plays a key role in the distribution of redistributions in the United States and Sweden, and that redistribution is much more prevalent in democracies than in non-democratic countries.
Abstract: Standard political economy models of redistribution, notably that of Meltzer and Richard (1981), fail to account for the remarkable variance in government redistribution across democracies. We develop a general model of redistribution that explains why some democratic governments are more prone to redistribute than others. We show that the electoral system plays a key role because it shapes the nature of political parties and the composition of governing coalitions, hence redistribution. Our argument implies (1) that center-left governments dominate under PR systems, whereas center-right governments dominate under majoritarian systems; and (2) that PR systems redistribute more than majoritarian systems. We test our argument on panel data for redistribution, government partisanship, and electoral system in advanced democracies. W hy do some countries redistribute more than others? Most work on the politics of redistribution starts from the premise that democratic institutions empower those who stand to benefit from redistribution. The basic logic is succinctly captured in the Meltzer‐Richard (1981) model, where the voter with the median income is also the decisive voter. With a typical right-skewed distribution of income, the median voter will push for redistributive spending up to the point where the benefit of such spending to the median voter is outweighed by the efficiency costs of distortionary taxation. This argument implies that redistibution is much greater in democracies than in nondemocracies (at least of the right-authoritarian variety), and that, among the latter, inegalitarian societies redistribute more than egalitarian ones. There is some evidence to supportthefirstimplication,althoughitisdisputed(see Ross 2005), but most of the variance in redistribution is probably within the same regime type. According to datafromtheLuxembourgIncomeStudy,forexample, the reduction in the poverty rate in United States as a result of taxation and transfers was 13% in 1994, whereas the comparable figure for Sweden was 82% (thepovertyrateisthepercentageofhouseholdsbelow 50% of the median income). To explain this variance, we have to look at political and economic differences
946 citations
Book•
27 May 2004
TL;DR: Redistribution in the United States and Europe: the data as discussed by the authors, the data, economic explanations, political institutions and redistribution, the origin of political institutions, race and redistribution and the ideology of redistribution.
Abstract: 1 Introduction 2 Redistribution in the United Sates and Europe: the data 3 Economic explanations 4 Political institutions and redistribution 5 The origin of political institutions 6 Race and redistribution 7 The Ideology of Redistribution 8 Conclusions Index
912 citations