Democracy and Income Inequality : An Empirical Analysis

Gradstein, Mark ; Milanovic, Branko ; Ying, Yvonne

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: COALITION GOVERNMENTS;    COMMUNISM;    COMMUNIST;    COMMUNIST PARTY;    COUNTRY DUMMIES;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-2561
RP-ID  :  WPS2561

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Standard political economy theoriessuggest that democratization has a moderating effect onincome inequality. But the empirical literature has failedto uncover any such robust relationship. The authors takeanother look at the issue. The authors argue that prevailingideology may be an important determinant of inequality andthat the democratization effect "works through"ideology. In societies that value equality highly there isless distributional conflict among income groups, sodemocratization may have only a negligible effect oninequality. But in societies that value equality less,democratization reduces inequality through redistribution asthe poor outvote the rich. The authors' cross-countryempirical analysis, covering 126 countries in 1960-98,confirms the hypothesis: ideology, as proxied by acountry's dominant religion, seems to be related toinequality. In addition, while in Judeo-Christian societiesincreased democratization appears to lead to lowerinequality, in Muslim and Confucian societies it has aninsignificant effect. The authors hypothesize that Muslimand Confucian societies rely on informal transfers to reachthe desired level of inequality, while Judeo-Christiansocieties, where family ties are weaker, use political action.