Even relatively poor people oppose high rates of redistribution because of the anticipation that they, or their children, may move up the income ladder. This ‘Prospect of Upward Mobility’ (POUM) hypothesis is commonly advanced to explain why democracies do not engage in large-scale progressive redistributions. But is it compatible with rational expectations, given that not everyone can end up richer than average? This paper establishes the formal basis for the POUM hypothesis. There is a range of incomes below average where agents oppose lasting redistributions, provided tomorrow’s expected income is increasing and concave in today’s income. The laissez-faire coalition is larger the more concave the transition function and the longer the political horizon. We illustrate the general analysis with an example (calibrated to the United States) where three-quarters of families are always poorer than average, yet a two-thirds majority has expected future incomes above the mean. We also analyse mobility matrices from the Panel Study on Income Dynamics (PSID) and find significant evidence of the POUM effect.
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Paper provided by C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers in its series CEPR Discussion Papers with number
1955.
Find related papers by JEL classification: D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Models of Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior H20 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - General P16 - Economic Systems - - Capitalist Systems - - - Political Economy of Capitalism
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Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas & Jonathan A. Parker, 1999.
"Consumption Over the Life Cycle,"
NBER Working Papers
7271, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas & Jonathan A. Parker, 2002.
"Consumption Over the Life Cycle,"
Econometrica,
Econometric Society, vol. 70(1), pages 47-89, January.
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