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Do beliefs about fairness interact with past experiences of labor market shocks to condition redistributive preferences? In a large-scale survey experiment, we investigate the effect of informing individuals that growth in automation could disrupt labor markets in ways that are (possibly) viewed as unfair. We then exploit the COVID-19-induced labor market shock to test for an interaction between treatments and shock exposure. We find that beliefs interact with shock exposure to increase redistributive preferences and commitments to donate potential prize winnings. Our findings suggest this may be motivated by respondents' concerns about their vulnerability to future labor market shocks. • Fairness and inequality concerns increase demand for redistribution. • Lived experience of job loss amplifies informational treatment effects. • Information about luck resonates with experiences of labor shocks. • Personal shock history informs future economic anxiety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Financial transfer has the functions of allocating financial resources and income redistribution, which is of great significance to reduce the income gap. From the perspective of financial transfer, based on the panel data of 31 provinces in China from 1998 to 2019, this manuscript introduces the bilateral stochastic frontier method, constructs a measurement model of farmers' income distribution including the influence channels of financial transfer, and tests the effect of different financial transfer channels on Farmers' income distribution. The empirical results show that the financial transfer within the sample interval increases the income distribution of farmers, which shows the distribution characteristics of "differentiation at both ends and convergence in the middle" in general. There are obvious differences in the impact of different financial transfer paths on Farmers' income distribution. Farmers' income distribution is directly proportional to inflation, and inversely proportional to financial and educational expenditure and rural economic growth. Under the two characteristic factors of regional factors and rural financial development level, the impact of financial transfer on Chinese farmers' income distribution shows heterogeneity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Redistribution for income equality is a contentious issue, with advocates citing increased economic stability and skeptics fearing potential negative impacts on economic growth. The United States (U.S.) faces notably high income inequality compared to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) average, with wealth concentrated in the top brackets. This paper critically examines the existing U.S. redistribution methods, including the taxation system and welfare programs, highlighting challenges such as the lack of tax progressiveness in top brackets and limited redistribution compared to European counterparts. Based on this overview, the study evaluates alternative redistribution strategies, including wealth and business taxes. The paper compares theory with insights from pilot programs in other countries. Finally, the paper argues for a universal basic income (UBI) set at per-capita welfare spending, positing that this approach can empower individuals to escape poverty traps, enhance productivity, and introduce a choice mechanism for welfare consumption. Ultimately, this research seeks to propose the most effective and feasible income redistribution policies for the U.S. to bridge the income inequality gap. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Examine the effect of corruption, income inequality and redistribution on energy mix. • Income inequality reduces renewable energy demand and increases nonrenewable demand. • Income redistribution increases renewable energy demand and decreases nonrenewable demand. • Control of corruption increases renewable and nonrenewable energy consumption. • Reducing income inequality and corruption is key for hastening renewable energy transition. This study examines the impact of corruption, income inequality, and redistribution on energy consumption (renewable, nonrenewable, and total) in 166 countries. Panel data and the two-step dynamic system-generalized method of moments techniques are utilised. Our findings show that net (post-tax/transfer Gini index) and market (pre-tax/transfer Gini index) income inequality reduce total energy and renewable energy consumption while increasing nonrenewable energy consumption. The results indicate that income redistribution drives total energy and renewable energy consumption while decreasing nonrenewable energy use. The study highlights that control of corruption increases total energy, renewable, and nonrenewable energy consumption. Moderation and marginal effect analysis suggest that when control of corruption increases, income inequality increases total energy, nonrenewable, and renewable energy consumption. Again, when corruption is effectively controlled, income redistribution increases renewable energy consumption while reducing nonrenewable energy consumption. These findings differ amongst regions. Following these findings, we recommend that policymakers should focus on reducing corruption and addressing income inequality through redistribution policies to accelerate the transition towards a renewable energy economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies have investigated to what extent voters can achieve proximity between their preferences and the positions of the party they vote for. Combining data from the European Social Survey and the Chapel Hill Expert Survey, we investigate whether trust in political parties increases ideological proximity voting. We argue that voters use their level of trust in parties as a heuristic mechanism. First, trust can increase proximity voting because citizens need to trust that political parties will take voters' policy preferences into account when in government. Second, we examine whether low-trusting voters tend to cast a protest vote, and do not engage in ideological proximity voting. We test this assumption regarding three determinants of the vote choice: general left-right ideology views, preferences for income redistribution, and anti-immigrant sentiments. We find that ideological proximity voting is indeed moderated by trust: those who trust political parties are more likely to cast a vote based on their policy preferences, while those who distrust tend to vote for protest parties. Nevertheless, also among protest voters, trust is conducive for higher levels of proximity voting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cross-country income inequality has declined in the last decades, but this trend has been paralleled by an increase in within-countries inequality. At the same time, many governments have implemented fiscal decentralization policies, devolving increasing decision-making powers on fiscal matters to sub-national levels of government. In this paper, we provide empirical evidence on the relationship between fiscal decentralization and intra-regional income redistribution, based on regional level data on inequality and local government revenues for 183 regions of 14 OECD countries. Our results show that within region income redistribution is negatively associated with fiscal decentralization, especially when it takes the form of revenue decentralization. • We analyze the nexus between fiscal decentralization and intra-regional income redistribution. • We use data for 183 regions of 14 OECD countries. • Within region income redistribution is negatively associated with fiscal decentralization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Iversen and Soskice's notion that electoral rules affect democracies' propensity for income redistribution is one of the political economy's most discussed concepts. Yet, it comes with a number of caveats. Most importantly, it is not clear whether electoral rules indeed affect states' propensity for redistribution or vice versa and thus whether or not Iversen and Soskice's findings are spurious. In this article, we focus on the critical case of New Zealand's electoral reform of the 1990s and offer a comprehensive test of Iversen and Soskice's concept. We employ the recently developed Bayesian alternative to the synthetic control method and compare the relevant dynamics for New Zealand to those of six majoritarian democracies. Our results largely support Iversen and Soskice's claims; due to the lower prevalence of right (center-right) governments, proportional representation democracies tend to redistribute more than majoritarian ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is still debated whether people are driven by self-interest or ideological motives when judging redistributive policies of the welfare state. Drawing on personality research, we suggest that both material and ideational factors matter but not for the same kinds of individuals. Specifically, we theorize that the Big Five personality trait openness to experience increases the weight put on general ideological principles and reduces the importance of private economic concerns, as this trait is related to creative and philosophical thinking and uncertainty tolerance. To test this proposition, we use Danish survey panel data linked to registry data on income. Consistent with the argument, we find that higher openness promotes an ideological evaluation of income redistribution and depresses the influence of material self-interest as measured by income. Among open individuals, attitudes toward redistribution reflect left–right positions but are unrelated to personal income fluctuations. People who are close-minded, on the other hand, are less likely to be ideological and do base their support for redistribution on whether their income is rising or falling. Similar, although not identical, results are obtained using U.S. data. The findings have implications for our understanding of citizens' motivations to support welfare policies and political opinion formation more broadly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The low public demand for redistribution despite growing economic inequality has been characterized as a paradox especially for disadvantaged individuals. One prominent explanation for people's tolerance to growing inequality posits that increased optimism about prospects of upward mobility undermines support for redistribution. A less explored explanation postulates that low political efficacy of disadvantaged individuals to enact meaningful change erodes collective demand for redistribution. In two preregistered experiments, we create a dynamic environment where low-income individuals collectively demand income redistribution by contributing to a public pool (collective action strategy), compete with each other for high-income group positions (individual mobility strategy), or avoid risks and disengage from both strategies (social inaction strategy). Lack of political efficacy, operationalized as high redistribution thresholds, gradually curtailed collective action, while exposure to high prospects of mobility did not influence collective action even when income group boundaries were highly permeable. Across participants, we identified three behavioral types (i.e., "mobility seekers", "egalitarians", and "disillusioned") whose prevalence was affected by political efficacy but not by prospects of mobility or actual group permeability. These results cast doubt on the universality of the prospects of mobility hypothesis and highlight the prominent role of political inequality in the perpetuation of economic inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the effect of conflict on individuals' preferences for income redistribution. To this end, I compare individuals' preferences before and after a war between Israel and a Lebanese terror organization in 2006. Using information from both panel and repeated cross-sectional datasets, I find that residing in war-affected regions increases individuals' support for income redistribution. An examination of several mechanisms that may elicit this finding reveals that conflict increases the importance of luck in individuals' perceptions and rules out other channels such as changes in individuals' risk preferences or beliefs. Placebo analyses using the years preceding the war and individuals' preferences unrelated to violence (e.g., attitudes about the environment) reinforce my main findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The low public demand for redistribution despite growing economic inequality has been characterized as a paradox especially for disadvantaged individuals. One prominent explanation for people's tolerance to growing inequality posits that increased optimism about prospects of upward mobility undermines support for redistribution. A less explored explanation postulates that low political efficacy of disadvantaged individuals to enact meaningful change erodes collective demand for redistribution. In two preregistered experiments, we create a dynamic environment where low-income individuals collectively demand income redistribution by contributing to a public pool (collective action strategy), compete with each other for high-income group positions (individual mobility strategy), or avoid risks and disengage from both strategies (social inaction strategy). Lack of political efficacy, operationalized as high redistribution thresholds, gradually curtailed collective action, while exposure to high prospects of mobility did not influence collective action even when income group boundaries were highly permeable. Across participants, we identified three behavioral types (i.e., "mobility seekers", "egalitarians", and "disillusioned") whose prevalence was affected by political efficacy but not by prospects of mobility or actual group permeability. These results cast doubt on the universality of the prospects of mobility hypothesis and highlight the prominent role of political inequality in the perpetuation of economic inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that the 2020–2022 youth liberation movement in Thailand represents a crucial politico-economic force calling for an alternative version of Thai capitalism. In contrast to existing literature that views the contest between young protesters and the military-backed government as a generation division and national polarisation, this article argues that the movement is a catalyst for the rearticulation and restructuring of Thai capitalism. The movement has prioritised democracy but has also targeted Prime Minister General Prayuth Chan-ocha's economic policy that exacerbates economic disparity. This emphasis urges us to revisit the history of Thailand's capitalism. While some in Thailand had benefited spectacularly during periods of capitalist expansion, facilitated by links between capitalists and the state, the movement's political agenda seeks a capitalism that is less oppressive and more egalitarian. This has caused generational tensions, even among members of the same family. By highlighting such complex tensions associated with capitalism, family, and the state, the youth liberation movement has brought the country to a crossroads, calling for a societal transformation and new economic practices that modify or reform existing capitalism through measures such as the welfare state, a universal basic income, and income redistribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior research has suggested three explanations why levels of voluntary engagement rise and fall over time within societies. A social structural explanation considers individual resources crucial for engagement and argues that a redistribution of those resources may bring about changes in engagement. A cohort-based explanation considers socialisation and experiences in formative years as crucial for the uptake of engagement. Finally, a period-based explanation considers extraordinary events, external shocks, and crises to be crucial for engagement. So far, these explanations have mainly been tested separately and little is known about the relative strength of each of the proposed factors. Using data from a large German household panel survey that assessed engagement almost annually across four decades, we found that most social structural factors (e.g., education, employment, income) maintained their predictive effects for engagement, irrespective of cohort or period. The only notable exception was that the gender gap observed has narrowed substantially across periods and cohorts. Moreover, cohort effects were rendered almost negligible once we factored in periods. Taken together, our results suggest that individual characteristics and extraordinary events are the main factors influencing voluntary engagement rather than shared societal experiences of cohorts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are ongoing debates in the literature on whether central or the local governments will implement income redistribution policies more effectively, and in this direction the impact of fiscal decentralization on income inequality and poverty have been frequently researched especially in the recent period. In this study, the impact of fiscal decentralization on income inequality and poverty in Turkey are analyzed using panel data methods based on six different models with regional data from 26 sub-regions for the years 2014-2020. The empirical results of this study, where fiscal decentralization is measured by expenditure and revenue decentralization as well as local fiscal autonomy indicators, find strong evidence that revenue decentralization reduces income inequality but weak evidence on the impact of fiscal decentralization on regional poverty. The results of the analysis on the impact of fiscal decentralization on regional income inequality support the second generation fiscal decentralization theories and show that revenue decentralization in Turkey can have an important role in reducing regional income inequality. On the other hand the results of the analysis on the impact of fiscal decentralization on regional poverty support the first generation fiscal decentralization theories and show that central government can be more effective in combating poverty in Turkey. However, the results also suggest that both expenditure and revenue decentralization in Turkey should be re-evaluated in terms of their welfare effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Income redistribution is determined, to some extent, by how fair citizens judge the income distribution in their societies to be. Nonetheless, there seems to be a contradiction between what people declare as a fair income distribution, and the increase in inequalities across countries. An unexplored methodological reason for that is that survey instruments do not perfectly capture individual's perception of income fairness, biasing results. Therefore, in this paper we use data from a Multitrait-Multimethod experiment conducted in wave 6 of the probability-based CROss-National Online Survey (CRONOS) panel in Great Britain, Estonia and Slovenia. Specifically, we explore the effect of three different scales on how fair people report an income to be, and the subsequent measurement quality of these answers. Overall, we find that survey scales do have an impact on what people report as a fair income, and the quality of these answers. Specifically, we find that the use of branching scales increases participants' likelihood of considering an income distribution as "Fair", while using partial-labelling and visual clues to separate (fair/unfair) dimensions increases the likelihood of considering these as "extremely unfair high/low." In addition, our results suggest that using a 9-point fully labelled unfolding scale without visual clues yields the best measurement quality across all countries, being preferred over the other tested methods (9-point partially labelled unfolding scale with visual clues; 9-point fully labelled branching scale without visual clues). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout Europe and North America, mainstream political parties have ceded electoral support to antiestablishment parties from the far left and far right. We investigate the hypothesis that individual differences in system justification--the psychological tendency to defend and justify the overarching social system--would be negatively associated with antiestablishment voting, even among citizens who would otherwise be inclined to support radicalism. In three large, nationally representative surveys conducted in France (N = 14,432), Germany (N = 1,168), and the United Kingdom (N = 2,337), we observed that system justification was positively associated with voting for establishment parties and negatively associated with antiestablishment voting. System justification was associated with reduced support for antiestablishment parties on the right and left--even among respondents who were high on ethnic intolerance, opposition to the European Union, economic distress, and support for income redistribution. Thus, all other things being equal, system-justification tendencies reinforce political moderation, establishment voting, and therefore social stability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mexico, among the OECD countries, is the country with the greatest difference in income between rich and poor. This situation has been accompanied by high levels of perception of corruption. The goal is to show that corruption and income inequality are correlated. The estimates are affected by the endogeneity problem caused by the two-way causality of corruption and income inequality, and by measurement errors of the variable used for corruption. Therefore, the method of simultaneous equations is used and it is estimated by error-component two stage least squares (EC2SLS), alternatively the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) and sys-GMM are used, to analyze the sensitivity of the results. Robust evidence is found of a positive relationship between corruption and income inequality in Mexico in the period 2010-2020. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stagnating incomes have been a widespread concern in advanced democracies over the past decades. However, despite a turn towards dynamic frameworks, the consequences of stagnation on political support for the welfare state are still unclear. This study introduces the distinction between 'absolute' and 'relative' income stagnation – that is, experiencing stagnating incomes over time (without reference to other groups) and in relative comparison to other groups – and explores how they shape citizens' attitudes towards redistribution. I argue that absolute and relative stagnation have opposite effects on redistributive preferences. Contrary to political economy theories, I expect that low absolute income growth reduces demand for redistribution, because it reduces voters' ability and willingness to afford welfare state policies. Support for this hypothesis is provided in an empirical analysis that combines novel estimates for absolute and relative income stagnation with longitudinal survey data on redistribution preferences in 14 advanced democracies between 1985 and 2018. The distinction between absolute and relative experiences has broader implications for comparative politics research and might contribute to explain why income stagnation and rising inequality have not led to higher political demand for redistributive welfare policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In constitutional states, representatives exchange information, discuss the budget direction and agree on a budget. The agreement is assumed to hold for one fiscal year. To test the validity of this constitutional assumption, we implemented an online panel survey with a randomized conjoint design three times over one year in Japan to track the direction of respondents' preferences within a multidimensional public policy space. The policy space consisted of spending on education, infrastructure, health insurance, pensions, and poverty relief programs, as well as fiscal retrenchment. Providing information on the poverty rate in the first wave directed respondents' preferences toward support for poverty relief programs by either increasing or reallocating the budget. The effects persisted in the second wave 5 months later across a diverse range of respondent backgrounds and political positions. By the third wave one year later, the effects had diminished. Once placed in a multidimensional space, information exchange might have a more extended scope than unidimensional approaches have shown. This finding, we believe, can broaden our capability to implement policies for poverty reduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Growing economic inequality has raised concerns that democratic governments are no longer responsive to popular demands for redistribution either because the state capacity is eroded by footloose capital or because the wealthy subvert democracy through the power of money. In this paper we critically assess these conjectures against long-standing arguments about redistribution and insurance under democracy. We test the alternatives on a new comprehensive dataset on income inequality from 17 advanced democracies between 1980 and 2019. We find that before taxes and transfers income inequality has increased markedly everywhere but also that government redistribution has played a critical role in compensating the middle class and to a perhaps surprising degree also the poor. However, the United States is a large outlier. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to common understanding, Immanuel Kant's moral philosophy is rigid, harsh, and uncompromising. Immanuel Kant and utilitarian ethics: by Samuel Hollander, Routledge, London, 2022, 224 pp., £120 (hardcover), ISBN 9781032198156 Significantly, he downplays the importance of the famous passage from I The Metaphysics of Morals i ([5], 468) in which Kant seems to endorse income redistribution, which has motivated more assertive arguments that Kant supported utilitarian public policy (Kaufman [6]). [Extracted from the article]

Friedrich Hayek was a staunch advocate of the free market principle. He was convinced that progressive taxation was a great threat to individual liberty and social fairness, particularly because there is no limit how high a progressive rate can be in it. The only explanation by which a progressive taxation can be defended is a wish to alter the income distribution, but this approach cannot be explained by any scientific argument. Progressive taxation is unjust and short-sighted while, according to Hayek, a proportional tax system satisfies a standard of fairness and justice because it applies the same general rule to all and prevents discrimination against the well-off taxpayers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using different versions of a vignette, this study examines how preferences for redistributive healthcare change as luck plays a progressively stronger role in contributing to wealth and poverty. Participants saw one version of a vignette that describes why someone is wealthy or poor, with wealth and poverty stemming from effort, various mixtures of effort and luck, one dimension of luck, or two dimensions of luck. Results show that support for redistributive healthcare increases as bad luck becomes marginally more important in causing poverty but is unaffected as good luck becomes marginally more important in causing wealth. These results imply that preferences for redistributive healthcare may be sensitive to information that points to the unlucky barriers (headwinds) that affect the poor but insensitive to information that points to the lucky blessings (tailwinds) that affect the wealthy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Income redistribution and changes in redistributive policies are highly contested issues that often have a bearing on societal debate and electoral competition. Using European Social Survey data, we trace trends in public attitudes toward income redistribution in 18 European countries from 2002 to 2019, a time period which included the Great Recession, the 2015 migrant crisis, and an increase in income inequality. Although attitudes toward income redistribution were relatively stable, trends presented by countries grouped by welfare regime display considerable variation both among countries and among welfare regimes. We also trace trends in public support for redistribution by income groups and gauge the strength of belief in meritocracy and egalitarianism. The level of redistribution support among middle-income residents is similar to redistribution support of low-income residents, most notably in post-communist and social-democratic regimes. While egalitarianism is most widespread in the Mediterranean regime, meritocracy is most common in liberal and conservative regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A neo-kaleckian model is proposed to analyze the bidirectional relationship between growth and income distribution. To do this, the price equation of Kalecki (1971) is modified and the model of Bhaduri and Marglin (1990) is extended. If the growth is wage-led, then the income path is shown to be cyclical. In contrast, if it is profit-driven, it is sustained. In this last scenario, income is concentrated in profits because the profit rate is higher than the growth rate. Finally, it is argued that if the state redistributes income in a greater amount than the market concentrates it, wage-led growth can be sustained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay aims at providing a novel analytical framework based on the concept of "duality" as proposed by the Brazilian economist Ignacio Rangel. In this portrayal, neoliberal policies are the consequence of the reinforcement of the dual character of the Brazilian society, which induces the economic outcomes of financialization and regression amid institutional change that (re)position class asymmetries. In this scheme, redistributive welfare state measures are of key importance to maintaining social cohesion and political support and, therefore, enabling the harmonization of these conflicting objectives in a neoliberal economic agenda. In this framework, the current Brazilian right-wing extremism and crisis is the outcome of such long-term entanglement in which democratic mediation is jeopardized. JEL Classification : B51, P16 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A generous welfare state decommodifies social relations and frees citizens from relying excessively on markets. We argue that decommodification is associated with population health in two ways: directly, as it provides better social protection to households and indirectly, as it mitigates health-damaging labour market polarization and reduces the incidence of labour market risks. Using time-series cross-sectional quantitative analysis for 21 OECD countries from 1971 to 2010, we observe a negative relationship between decommodification and the age-standardized death rate. We then analyze three correlates of decommodification—income redistribution, labour market polarization and the reduction of labour market risk incidence—and find that only the latter two are associated with population health. Higher labour market polarization, measured by the share of market income allocated to the richest decile relative to the share of the poorest decile, is associated with a higher death rate. A new measure of risk reduction, the degree to which the welfare state reduces the prevalence of large income losses, is also associated with lower death rates, especially for men. Welfare state decommodification thus contributes to population health directly, and indirectly, via the attenuation of labour market polarization and the mitigation of labour market risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using annual data for India, we examine the impact of taxation and government expenditure on income inequality by endogenizing GDP, urbanization, economic globalization, remittances inflows and net FDI flows. For the empirical analysis, we use the nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag model, which indicates a long‐run interplay between government expenditure and taxation on income inequality. Further, the results show that a rise in taxation increases the income inequality, while government expenditure reduces the income inequality in the long‐run. Contrastingly, the findings reveal that GDP, urbanization and economic globalization worsen and remittance inflows and net FDI flows exacerbate income inequality. Therefore, the study suggests that the active policy makers in India can curb rising income inequality by looking at both government expenditure and the sources of taxation before framing any policies related to income distribution. Our results also underscore the close interlinkages between development strategies pursued by India and the wealth gap, which have facilitated the redistribution of gains among those already enjoying high income levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The available statistical information points to a growth in income and wealth inequality in the last decade, which has stimulated the debate on the most appropriate policies to reverse the process. The discussion revolves around the definition of the objective to be achieved, the most appropriate way to measure it and the instruments to be used, taking into account the collateral effects of the measures implemented. In this context, the opportunity arises for companies to strengthen their social commitment by seeking, in their field of action, distributive justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to provide evidence about the POUM hypothesis (prospects of upward mobility) in Latin America. It postulates that preferences for redistribution decrease with the prospects of upward mobility of individuals, given that in a possible economic improvement they would be harmed by redistribution. The case of Latin America is analyzed for the period 2009-2018, which has registered changes in inequality and intragenerational mobility in part, due to redistributive policies in the past decade. For this, data from Latinobarómetro and the Probit-Adapted OLS methodology are used. The results support the POUM hypothesis, unlike what the studies carried out for previous periods obtain, in another context of inequality and mobility in Latin America. In addition, suggestive results are obtained about the influence of intergenerational mobility, religiosity, ideology and institutional quality on preferences for redistribution. It should be noted that these results vary according to the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A prominent line of research on electoral systems and income redistribution argues that proportional representation (PR) leads to tax-and-transfer policies that benefit the poor at the expense of the rich. This is because PR produces encompassing center-left coalitions that protect the poor and middle classes. Yet countries with PR electoral systems tend to rely heavily on consumption taxes and tax profits lightly, both of which are inconsistent with this expectation. Both policies are regressive and seem to benefit the rich at the expense of the poor. This article argues that PR electoral institutions, when combined with trichotomous multipartism, are not as hostile to the rich as commonly believed, and that it is important to understand how electoral and party systems interact with labor market institutions in order to explain the puzzling pattern of taxation that is observed. The author develops a theoretical model and evaluates its empirical implications for a world in which production has become multinational. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the link between income, and wealth inequality and the ecological footprint in France, Netherlands, United States, and United Kingdom from 1962 to 2021. Based on theoretical considerations, we allow the relationship to vary over time. Our analysis provides some support for income inequality influencing ecological footprints, specifically through carbon emissions. Yet, we do not observe a significant effect on non‑carbon footprints. Notably, the link between income inequality and carbon emissions shifted from negative in the 1960s to positive from the late 1980s onwards. Over all our findings imply that economic inequality's impact on the environment is likely limited and context dependent. • We test the relationship between economic inequality and the ecological footprint. • The results indicate a weak relationship that varies over time. • Inequality only affects the carbon footprint and not the non‑carbon footprint. • Changes in consumption patterns may partially explain the time varying effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many countries, we have seen an increase in economic inequality over the past 20 to 25 years. The populations might therefore have changed their attitude about how and how much different countries should intervene to reduce the extent of economic inequality. A question is whether there is any connection between changes in redistribution preferences and trends in economic inequality in the prosperous Nordic welfare states. This article contributes by examining whether there are differences in redistribution attitude and changes herein based upon socio-economic criteria, which might include self-interest arguments. Nordic countries are interesting because there have been differences in development, and even strong growth in economic inequality, especially in Sweden and Denmark, although these countries in the literature have been seen as highly equal societies. The analysis shows that support for redistribution is relatively stable over time in each country, but also that there are major differences between countries, with support being much higher in Finland compared with Denmark. Females, discriminated groups and the unemployed generally support redistribution to a higher degree. Ageing generally increases redistributional support, while more education reduces support for government redistribution in Finland. In all four countries, the highest income groups are less supportive of redistribution of income. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Income redistribution and insurance are core functions of welfare states. What role should the EU play in this domain? I examine the purchase of normative theorizing on social justice on this question, focusing on the contrast between three models of EU involvement: the EU as Support, which implies the sharing of resources through intergovernmental transfers; the EU as Provider, which implies EU cross‐border transfers towards individual citizens; the EU as Norm‐setter, which implies that the EU formulates normative policy ideals. I review different accounts of justice for the EU and how they bear on the choice between these models of EU involvement. Conceptions of "background justice" have some purchase in a debate on the EU's role, but that purchase is limited. They need to be complemented by shared conceptions of domestic justice and a degree of moral cosmopolitanism. I argue that a "European Social Union" should be a Support and Norm‐setter in the realm of insurance and redistribution. Through the establishment of interstate insurance, it would be a true "insurance union." It would engage in interstate redistribution, but there are no compelling reasons of justice for it to become a direct Provider of insurance or redistribution towards individual citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Income inequality is viewed as one of the greatest challenges facing democracies today. Democracy is predicated on the ideal of equality, but political inequality occurs when the preferences of some are systematically afforded more weight in the political process than others. This research paper investigates the causal chain that allows for political inequality to arise through preference formation, articulation, and aggregation, by outlining the effects that income inequality can have on preferences for redistribution, political participation, and policy responsiveness. It finds that the policy choices presented to the electorate substantially matter for democracy, especially so in this age of increasing income inequality. There appears to be a lack of policy choice provided by political parties resulting in unequal policy responsiveness to the preferences of lower-income earners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 2000s, new concepts of developmentalism have emerged in Latin America. In such approaches, the state deliberately pushes the development to achieve structural change and income redistribution. We analyse these from the perspective of policy space constraints imposed by international economic asymmetries, which today are predominantly of a financial nature. Based on a broad overview, we identify and compare the most relevant recent approaches. 'New developmentalism' has its strength in formulating adequate macroeconomic policies shielding the economy from volatility, although it considers redistribution as rather an outcome of structural change. 'Social developmentalism' emphasises the links between redistribution, domestic growth and structural change but lacks a coherent formulation of macroeconomic policies. The same applies to the concept of buen vivir, as the only approach that considers environmental aspects. Thus, all of these concepts have their strength in addressing specific issues, but are incomplete insofar as they do not provide a consistent framework for achieving all goals of growth with structural change, income redistribution and ecological sustainability. We identify the need to debate the interdependencies between sustained economic growth, income distribution and ecological sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A redistributive wave across Latin America provided credence to existing explanations that emphasize the importance of democracy and the political left for democratic redistribution. Yet, neither of these theories tells the entire story behind the contemporary politics of inequality in Latin America. This article stresses the importance of party systems for democratic redistribution, especially their role in increasing the scope of social policy as well as igniting competitive electoral environments that incentivize political elites to redistribute, leading to the amelioration of inequality over time. Utilizing a time-series cross-sectional dataset on fifteen Latin American countries covering the period of 1990-2015, and extending the analysis to sixty-five global democracies, this article finds that countries with institutionalized party systems exhibit greater income redistribution and lower levels of inequality than those with inchoate counterparts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analysing fiscal policy from the perspective of feminist economics means examining gender equality policies, both in terms of tax revenue and other sources of fund (indebtedness), as well as redistribution and public spending. Finding out the number of resources assigned to these policies, their macroeconomic impact, and their temporality (longevity) is extremely essential. In this paper, we will analyse public expenditure in the budgets of Latin American countries during the COVID-19 pandemic. The budget proposals tabled for the region focus on employment generation through the creation of care centres, with policies that focus on both redistribution of income and redistribution of care work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - This study aims to determine whether there is an effect of internal and public debt on income inequality in Kenya for the period 1970-2018. Design/methodology/approach - The relationship is examined by using the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model by Pesaran et al. (2001) and Toda Yamamoto causality by Toda and Yamamoto (1995). Findings - Our findings suggest that both internal and public debt harm inequality in Kenya in the long term. Furthermore, a one-way causality from internal debt to income inequality is also obtained while no causality relationship is found to exist between public debt and income inequality. Based on these findings, the study recommends that to reduce income inequality levels in Kenya, other methods of financing other than debt financing should be preferred because debt financing is not pro-poor. Originality/value - This study is unique based on the fact that no previous paper has analysed the debt and inequality relationship in Kenya. To the best of our knowledge, this will be the first study to analyse the applicability of redistribution effect of debt in Kenya. The study is also different in that it provides separate analysis for public debt and internal debt on their effects on income inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Living in low-income neighborhoods can have adverse effects. Public policies that reduce income inequality might prevent residential segregation by income. However, previously documented associations between income inequality and residential segregation may not reflect residential sorting effects. We use rich full-population data for Sweden 1990–2017 and take advantage of how in-moving residents change the municipal income composition to rule out the influence of reverse causation and mechanical effects. We find that changing taxes and transfers has limited residential sorting effects on segregation. However, our results strongly suggest that raising the education levels of low-income residents is effective for fighting segregation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The link between income inequality and economic growth remains poorly understood. The global economic crisis challenged numerous growth studies by highlighting considerable degrees of spatial interdependence among economies. The existence of fewer restrictions on factor movements prompted spatial redistributions of income inequalities. Our paper attempts to reestimate such inequality impacts across the EU by allowing for these redistributions. We employ the spatial Durbin error specification, and unlike other studies, we make statistical inferences along the lines of a welfare-adjusted production function. Our results lend support to the presence of spillover effects emanating from income redistribution larger than those from unemployment, knowledge, or human capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When are high earnings considered a legitimate target for redistribution, and when not? We design a real-effort laboratory experiment in which we manipulate the assignment of payrates (societal "reward rules") that translate performance on a real-effort counting task into pre-tax earnings. We then ask subjects to vote on a flat tax rate in groups of three. We distinguish three treatment conditions: the same payrate for all group members ("equal" reward rule), differential (low, medium, and high) but random payrates ("luck" rule), and differential payrates based on subjects' performance on a quiz with voluntary preparation opportunity ("merit" rule). Self-interest is the dominant tax voting motivation. Tax levels are lower under "merit" rule than under "luck" rule, and merit reasoning overrides political ideology. But information is needed to activate merit reasoning. Both these latter effects are present only when voters have "full merit knowledge" that signals precisely how others obtained their incomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At face, Ireland's economy had staged a remarkable recovery by 2020 since the devastating impact of the Global Financial Crisis. The economy was the fastest growing in Europe, unemployment had reached record lows, and Ireland's debt was back to its lowest level since 2009. The traditional economic voting model assumes voters punish outgoing governments for poor economic performance by voting against them but rewards incumbents for a sound economy by voting for them. Nevertheless, Irish voters delivered a stunning rebuke to the Fine Gael government in 2020, registering an incumbent administration's sixth-worst performance since 1932, raising questions about the applicability of the economic vote. Using the 2020 Irish National Election Study, our contribution unpacks this apparent puzzle. We uncover that macroeconomic conditions were less rosy than at first sight, a pattern recognised by voters. We find the economic vote was alive and well, with voter economic perceptions, and their views on income redistribution (and taxes/spending) having a potent effect on the vote. Brexit, as an economic issue, however, was not influential in shaping the vote. The Fine Gael challenge, and the answer to the conundrum, was most voters perceived the economy was lackluster and the government was on the wrong side of economic policy preferences of most voters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evidence indicates that populist attitudes matter for voting decisions, but findings are still inconclusive about whether this happens regardless of individuals' positioning on more traditional dimensions of electoral competition. This article focuses on the probability of voting for populist parties in Spain, a country where only left-wing populist parties existed in 2015–2016. Therefore, not all populist individuals, who were spread across the left–right axis, had a natural voting option that combined their populist and left–right preferences. Although this situation could make it more likely that stronger populist attitudes increase likelihood of voting populist regardless of preferences on other political dimensions, the results of this analysis show otherwise. Stronger populist attitudes significantly increase the likelihood of voting for left-wing populist parties only among individuals located in the left side of the ideological axis. The effect seems largely influenced by preferences related to economic redistribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kaleckian literature is considered an important theme in the post-Keynesian school of economic thought. In the aftermath of the financial crisis, the endeavors of forming a new consensus regarding essential economic issues, in particular achieving economic growth became a need. Thus, the Kaleckian models returned to be in the spot since these models tackle the impact of changes in the distribution of income and address the question whether a redistribution of income away from wages and towards profits is capable of boosting growth. In this sense, this paper return to Kaleckian insights and offers a theoretical discussion of the distributional effects on aggregate demand and economic growth. Moreover, through the lens of neo-Kaleckian tradition, the evolution of the debate on wage-led and profit-led regimes in recent decades can be traced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Experimental study on how future income redistribution (IR) shapes support for economic inclusion (EI). • EI equalizes investment opportunities, IR spreads risks and returns of investment. • Result: Insurance effect of IR triggers more risky/profitable investments. • Result: Efficiency-increasing potential of IR increases support for EI. We experimentally investigate how income redistribution shapes support for economic inclusion, i.e., a policy that creates equality of opportunity for income generation. We study a setting in which low-endowment subjects are excluded from investment opportunities unless those with high endowments transfer resources to the low-endowment subjects. We find that support for economic inclusion is stronger among high-endowment subjects when incomes are known to be redistributed in the future compared to when redistribution is precluded by design. Income redistribution spreads both risks and returns of investments in the population, which in turn induces a higher rate of profitable investments, and this prospect tends to foster support for economic inclusion. Income redistribution thus induces more equal and efficient outcomes by boosting popular support for economic inclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are multiple reasons to motivate the role of capital taxation in the heterogenous-agent incomplete-markets (HAIM) model. One is the production inefficiency caused by precautionary savings. The other is the wealth redistribution role played by capital taxation. To distinguish between these two reasons, this article uses an analytical tractable HAIM model with a degenerated distribution of wealth while preserving the role of precautionary savings. The degenerated wealth distribution shuts down the distributional role played by capital taxation. Our results show that, with no role to play for redistribution, the government bond is more suitable than capital tax for addressing the production inefficiency caused by households' precautionary savings in the HAIM model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]