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Income Inequality, Voting Over the Size of Public Consumption, and Growth

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Author Info
Volker Grossmann ()

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Abstract

According to a standard argument, higher income inequality fosters redistributive activities of the government in favor of the median income earner. This paper shows that if redistribution is achieved by a public provision of goods and services rather than by transfers, higher income inequality may imply a smaller size of the government in majority voting equilibrium. In addition to a static voting model, an endogenous growth model is analyzed to examine the role of saving decisions of heterogeneous individuals for both the distributional incidence of proportional factor income taxes and the voting outcome.

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Publisher Info
Paper provided by CESifo Group Munich in its series CESifo Working Paper Series with number CESifo Working Paper No. 731.

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Date of creation: 2002
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Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_731

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Related research
Keywords: income distribution; public consumption; majority voting; investment-driven growth;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
D33 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Factor Income Distribution
H40 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - General
O41 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - One, Two, and Multisector Growth Models

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:

  1. Romer, Paul M, 1986. "Increasing Returns and Long-run Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(5), pages 1002-37, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Bertola, Giuseppe, 1993. "Factor Shares and Savings in Endogenous Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(5), pages 1184-98, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  3. Epple, Dennis & Romano, Richard E, 1996. "Public Provision of Private Goods," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(1), pages 57-84, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Peltzman, Sam, 1980. "The Growth of Government," Journal of Law & Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 23(2), pages 209-87, October.
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  5. Roland Benabou, 2000. "Unequal Societies: Income Distribution and the Social Contract," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(1), pages 96-129, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Martin Browning & Annamaria Lusardi, 1996. "Household Saving: Micro Theories and Micro Facts," Discussion Papers 96-01, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
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  7. Uhlig, Harald & Yanagawa, Noriyuki, 1996. "Increasing the capital income tax may lead to faster growth," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(8), pages 1521-1540, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Gilles Saint-Paul, 2001. "The Dynamics of Exclusion and Fiscal Conservatism," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 4(2), pages 275-302, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  9. Rebelo, Sergio, 1991. "Long-Run Policy Analysis and Long-Run Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(3), pages 500-521, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  10. Bertola, Giuseppe, 1996. "Factor shares in OLG models of growth," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(8), pages 1541-1560, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  11. Richard Cornes & Todd Sandler, 2000. "Pareto-Improving Redistribution and Pure Public Goods," German Economic Review, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 1(2), pages 169-186, 05. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  12. Alesina, Alberto & Rodrik, Dani, 1994. "Distributive Politics and Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 109(2), pages 465-90, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  13. Bergstrom, Theodore C & Goodman, Robert P, 1973. "Private Demands for Public Goods," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 63(3), pages 280-96, June.
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  14. Meltzer, Allan H & Richard, Scott F, 1981. "A Rational Theory of the Size of Government," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(5), pages 914-27, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  15. Branko Milanovic, 2003. "The median voter hypothesis, income inequality and income," HEW 0305001, EconWPA. [Downloadable!]
  16. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 1994. "Is Inequality Harmful for Growth?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(3), pages 600-621, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  17. Roemer, John E., 1998. "Why the poor do not expropriate the rich: an old argument in new garb," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(3), pages 399-424, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  18. Kristov, Lorenzo & Lindert, Peter & McClelland, Robert, 1992. "Pressure groups and redistribution," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(2), pages 135-163, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  19. Figini, P, 1999. "Inequality and Growth Revisited," Trinity Economics Papers 992, Trinity College Dublin, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  20. Deininger, Klaus & Squire, Lyn, 1996. "A New Data Set Measuring Income Inequality," World Bank Economic Review, Oxford University Press, vol. 10(3), pages 565-91, September.
  21. Clarke, George R. G., 1995. "More evidence on income distribution and growth," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 403-427, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  22. Fiaschi, Davide, 1999. "Growth and inequality in an endogenous fiscal policy model with taxes on labor and capital," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 15(4), pages 727-746, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  23. Romer, Paul M, 1990. "Endogenous Technological Change," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(5), pages S71-102, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  24. Bassett, William F. & Burkett, John P. & Putterman, Louis, 1999. "Income distribution, government transfers, and the problem of unequal influence," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 207-228, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
Full references

Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. John Creedy & Shuyun May Li & Solmaz Moslehi, 2008. "The Composition of Government Expenditure in an Overlapping Generations Model," Department of Economics - Working Papers Series 1043, The University of Melbourne. [Downloadable!]
  2. Holger Strulik, 2007. "A distributional theory of government growth," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 132(3), pages 305-318, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  3. Margarita Katsimi & Thomas Moutos, 2004. "Monopoly, Inequality and Redistribution via the Public Provision of Private Goods," CESifo Working Paper Series CESifo Working Paper No. , CESifo Group Munich. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  4. John Creedy & Solmaz Moslehi, 2007. "Modelling the Composition of Government Expenditure in Democracies," Department of Economics - Working Papers Series 1007, The University of Melbourne. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  5. Thomas Leoni & Wolfgang Pollan, 2003. "The Impact of Inequality on Economic Growth," WIFO Working Papers 211, WIFO. [Downloadable!]
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This page was last updated on 2009-12-14.

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