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Income inequality and redistribution: Does democracy matter? : 소득불평등과 재분배: 민주주의의 영향을 중심으로
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- Authors
- Advisor
- Erik Mobrand
- Major
- 국제대학원 국제학과
- Issue Date
- 2017-08
- Publisher
- 서울대학교 국제대학원
- Keywords
- Income inequality ; redistribution ; welfare state ; median voter ; democracy ; autocracy ; gerontocracy
- Description
- 학위논문 (석사)-- 서울대학교 국제대학원 국제학과, 2017. 8. Erik Mobrand.
- Abstract
- Recent quantitative research on democratic countries has found a positive
relationship between income inequality and redistribution. In other words, democracies
respond to higher inequality by redistributing more. Can similar sensitivity be seen in
non‐democracies? This paper seeks an answer by assembling a sample of 160 countries
that vary across political system and level of development from 1961 to 2015. I find weak
and non‐significant differences between regime types, suggesting that both democracies
and non‐democracies are concerned about reducing inequality. My findings challenge the
logic of prior literature that explain redistribution with the median voter model, a
mechanism that should only be found in democracies. I also find that population ageing
is related to redistribution in all regimes, reflecting the automatic role of pension
programmes more than fears of gerontocracy, where the elderly abuse their voting
power to enact unsustainable increases in pension generosity. I suggest that more
attention can be paid to the redistributive motivations of political actors in both
democracies and non‐democracies and their role in forging social contracts that
legitimate the state.
- Language
- English
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