Redistributive politics, power sharing and fairness

"We study the effect of power sharing over income redistribution among different socio-economic groups in a model of redistributive politics with fairness concern. We prove that a unique pure-strategy equilibrium exists under fairly general conditions; and we show that equilibrium transfers dep...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Debowicz, Dario, Saporiti, Alejandro, Wang, Yizhi
Institution:ETUI-European Trade Union Institute
Format: TEXT
Language:English
Published: Luxembourg 2016
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Online Access:https://www.labourline.org/KENTIKA-019912483719-Redistributive-politics,-power.htm
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author Debowicz, Dario
Saporiti, Alejandro
Wang, Yizhi
author_facet Debowicz, Dario
Saporiti, Alejandro
Wang, Yizhi
collection Library items
description "We study the effect of power sharing over income redistribution among different socio-economic groups in a model of redistributive politics with fairness concern. We prove that a unique pure-strategy equilibrium exists under fairly general conditions; and we show that equilibrium transfers depend on the interplay of four main factors: (i) the gap between the population and the group average pre-tax income; (ii) the relative ideological neutrality of the poor, (iii) parties’ and voters’ concern with income inequality, and (iv) the proportionality of the electoral rule. A number of comparative statics predictions emerge from our characterization. Among them, our analysis shows that the net transfers to the middle class and the rich (resp., the poor) increase (resp., decrease) with power sharing disproportionality. Further, we prove that the Gini coefficient associated with the distribution of disposable incomes also rises with the disproportionality of the power sharing rule, which amount to say that income inequality rises as policymaking power gets more concentrated in the majority winning party. We confront these predictions to the data, using an unbalanced panel of developed and developing democracies. The empirical evidence strongly supports both, the positive effect of the income gap over the group transfers, and the relationship between the Gini index (and respectively, the group transfers) and power sharing disproportionality."
format TEXT
id 019912483719_d3aa7defa2da43e68179eca3fdaf78a2
institution ETUI-European Trade Union Institute
is_hierarchy_id 019912483719_d3aa7defa2da43e68179eca3fdaf78a2
is_hierarchy_title Redistributive politics, power sharing and fairness
language English
physical 41 p.
Digital
publishDate 2016
publisher Luxembourg
LIS
spellingShingle Debowicz, Dario
Saporiti, Alejandro
Wang, Yizhi
income redistribution
social class
social inequality
Redistributive politics, power sharing and fairness
thumbnail https://www.labourline.org/Image_prev.jpg?Archive=105872492305
title Redistributive politics, power sharing and fairness
topic income redistribution
social class
social inequality
url https://www.labourline.org/KENTIKA-019912483719-Redistributive-politics,-power.htm