Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/121373 
Year of Publication: 
2015
Series/Report no.: 
SFB/TR 15 Discussion Paper No. 514
Publisher: 
Sonderforschungsbereich/Transregio 15 - Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems (GESY), München
Abstract: 
Does redistribution in democracies cater to the will of the majority? We propose a direct empirical strategy based on survey data that needs not assume that voters are guided by pecuniary motives alone. We find that most democracies implement the median voter's preferred amount of redistribution and the probability to serve the median voter increases with the quality of democracy. However, there is a non-negligible share of democracies that implement a minority-backed amount of redistribution. Political absenteeism of the poor cannot explain such outcomes. Rather, they can be explained by the electoral bundling of redistribution with values and rights issues.
Subjects: 
Redistribution
Democracy
Median-voter theorem
Inequality
JEL: 
D3
D7
H1
P16
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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