Party Age and Party Color : New Results on the Political Economy of Redistribution and Inequality

Keefer, Philip ; Milanovic, Branko

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: AGGREGATE INEQUALITY;    AVERAGE INCOME;    BARRIERS TO ENTRY;    CASH PROPERTY INCOME;    CASH TRANSFERS;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-7129
RP-ID  :  WPS7129

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

This paper advances research oninequality with unique, new data on income distribution in61 countries, including 20 Latin American countries, toexplore the effects of political parties on redistribution.First, consistent with a central -- but still contested --assumption of the political economy literature, left-winggovernments redistribute more. In addition, consistent withrecent research on the importance of party organization andthe organizational differences between younger and olderparties, older left-wing parties are more likely tointernalize the long-run costs of redistribution and to bemore credible in their commitment to redistribution, leadingthem to redistribute less. With entirely different data, thepaper also provides evidence on mechanisms: left-winggovernments not only redistribute more, they tax more; olderleft-wing parties, though, tax less than younger ones.