IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/dip/dpaper/2013-04.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Do Politicians Serve the One Percent? Evidence in OECD Countries

Author

Abstract

Present social movements, as "Occupy Wall Street" or the Spanish "Indignados", claim that politicians work for an economic elite, the 1%, that drives the world economic policies. In this paper we show through econometric analysis that these movements are accurate: politicians in OECD countries maximize the happiness of the economic elite. In 2009 center-right parties maximized the happiness of the 100th-98th richest percentile and center-left parties the 100th-95th richest percentile. The situation has evolved from the seventies when politicians represented, approximately, the median voter.

Suggested Citation

  • Torija, P., 2013. "Do Politicians Serve the One Percent? Evidence in OECD Countries," CITYPERC Working Paper Series 2013-04, Department of International Politics, City University London.
  • Handle: RePEc:dip:dpaper:2013-04
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://openaccess.city.ac.uk/id/eprint/2114/1/CITYPERC-WPS-2013_04.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Leonardo Felli & Antonio Merlo, 2006. "Endogenous Lobbying," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 4(1), pages 180-215, March.
    2. Axel Dreher & Friedrich Schneider, 2010. "Corruption and the shadow economy: an empirical analysis," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 144(1), pages 215-238, July.
    3. Daron Acemoglu & James A. Robinson, 2008. "Persistence of Power, Elites, and Institutions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(1), pages 267-293, March.
    4. Anthony Downs, 1957. "An Economic Theory of Political Action in a Democracy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 65, pages 135-135.
    5. Charles Revelle & David Marks & Jon C. Liebman, 1970. "An Analysis of Private and Public Sector Location Models," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 16(11), pages 692-707, July.
    6. Richard E. Baldwin & Frédéric Robert-Nicoud, 2007. "Entry and Asymmetric Lobbying: Why Governments Pick Losers," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 5(5), pages 1064-1093, September.
    7. James E. Alt & David Dreyer Lassen, 2010. "Enforcement and Public Corruption: Evidence from US States," EPRU Working Paper Series 2010-08, Economic Policy Research Unit (EPRU), University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
    8. Strömberg, David & Prat, Andrea, 2011. "The Political Economy of Mass Media," CEPR Discussion Papers 8246, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    9. Chris Edmond, 2013. "Information Manipulation, Coordination, and Regime Change," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 80(4), pages 1422-1458.
    10. Claudio Ferraz & Frederico Finan, 2011. "Electoral Accountability and Corruption: Evidence from the Audits of Local Governments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(4), pages 1274-1311, June.
    11. Niklas Potrafke, 2009. "Did globalization restrict partisan politics? An empirical evaluation of social expenditures in a panel of OECD countries," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 140(1), pages 105-124, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Who cares about the median voter? Not the politicians, maybe
      by Economic Logician in Economic Logic on 2013-04-05 20:26:00
    2. 'Is Democratic Keynesianism Possible?'
      by Mark Thoma in Economist's View on 2015-02-03 16:44:11
    3. 'Why Not Worker Control?'
      by Mark Thoma in Economist's View on 2014-07-20 13:46:53
    4. 'Inequality, Evolution, & Complexity'
      by Mark Thoma in Economist's View on 2013-03-22 22:59:55
    5. Radical Centrism: Uniting the Radical Left and the Radical Right
      by Ashwin in Macroeconomic Resilience on 2013-04-08 18:54:59
    6. Guest Post: Inequality Undermines Democracy
      by Tyler Durden in Zero Hedge on 2015-10-29 04:05:00
    7. Chris Dillow — On Burkean Marxism
      by contrarianmedia@hotmail.com (Mike Norman) in Mike Norman Economics on 2016-11-13 22:17:00
    8. Inequality, evolution & complexity
      by chris dillow in Stumbling and Mumbling on 2013-03-22 20:04:39
    9. Age, luck & unearned privilege
      by chris dillow in Stumbling and Mumbling on 2013-05-01 18:23:22
    10. Housing vs financial wealth
      by ? in Stumbling and Mumbling on 2014-05-24 11:53:00
    11. What can governments do?
      by ? in Stumbling and Mumbling on 2014-05-22 13:50:00
    12. Economists' advice
      by ? in Stumbling and Mumbling on 2014-06-01 09:27:00
    13. See no evil
      by ? in Stumbling and Mumbling on 2014-07-24 13:48:00
    14. Why not worker control?
      by ? in Stumbling and Mumbling on 2014-07-20 12:41:00
    15. Defending markets
      by ? in Stumbling and Mumbling on 2014-09-19 13:20:00
    16. False democracy
      by ? in Stumbling and Mumbling on 2014-09-01 13:23:00
    17. How to attack Labour leaders
      by ? in Stumbling and Mumbling on 2014-09-23 12:34:00
    18. Leaders' constraints
      by ? in Stumbling and Mumbling on 2014-10-15 12:29:00
    19. Out of touch?
      by ? in Stumbling and Mumbling on 2014-10-13 13:44:00
    20. The economy as hyperreality
      by ? in Stumbling and Mumbling on 2014-10-01 13:30:00
    21. Is democratic Keynesianism possible?
      by ? in Stumbling and Mumbling on 2015-02-02 14:24:00
    22. Why Miliband is right
      by ? in Stumbling and Mumbling on 2015-02-26 13:43:00
    23. Alienation: the non-issue
      by ? in Stumbling and Mumbling on 2015-03-25 13:19:00
    24. Some election non-issues
      by ? in Stumbling and Mumbling on 2015-04-02 14:00:00
    25. The paradox of plenty
      by ? in Stumbling and Mumbling on 2016-01-07 14:28:00
    26. Why not full employment?
      by ? in Stumbling and Mumbling on 2016-04-23 12:03:00
    27. On Burkean Marxism
      by ? in Stumbling and Mumbling on 2016-11-13 12:38:00
    28. How capitalist power works
      by ? in Stumbling and Mumbling on 2017-03-09 13:52:00
    29. Willing the ends but not the means
      by ? in Stumbling and Mumbling on 2017-08-22 12:39:00
    30. The impact bias against Labour
      by ? in Stumbling and Mumbling on 2017-09-29 12:51:00
    31. On capitalist hegemony
      by ? in Stumbling and Mumbling on 2018-01-18 13:42:00
    32. Getting away with murder
      by ? in Stumbling and Mumbling on 2018-03-06 13:30:01
    33. On top tax rates
      by ? in Stumbling and Mumbling on 2019-01-24 13:45:47
    34. Great economics, bad politics
      by ? in Stumbling and Mumbling on 2020-01-16 13:47:59
    35. Technocrats & class
      by ? in Stumbling and Mumbling on 2020-05-06 13:07:59
    36. Reclaiming freedom
      by ? in Stumbling and Mumbling on 2020-07-09 12:53:31
    37. Endogenous policy
      by ? in Stumbling and Mumbling on 2021-01-24 13:09:48
    38. It's not the 90s any more
      by ? in Stumbling and Mumbling on 2021-02-17 14:01:11
    39. Noise, interests & democracy
      by ? in Stumbling and Mumbling on 2021-02-25 14:10:23
    40. Capitalists against competition
      by ? in Stumbling and Mumbling on 2021-04-19 15:26:55
    41. Capital's political power
      by ? in Stumbling and Mumbling on 2021-04-29 12:56:31
    42. Capitalism and the state
      by ? in Stumbling and Mumbling on 2021-09-19 11:27:34
    43. What Starmer misses: the C-word
      by ? in Stumbling and Mumbling on 2021-09-27 13:03:54
    44. Productivity in late capitalism
      by ? in Stumbling and Mumbling on 2021-10-18 13:27:02
    45. The futility of economic policy debate
      by ? in Stumbling and Mumbling on 2022-07-25 09:08:58
    46. In praise of Enough is Enough
      by ? in Stumbling and Mumbling on 2022-08-30 12:47:08

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Andersen, Jørgen Juel & Heggedal, Tom-Reiel, 2019. "Political rents and voter information in search equilibrium," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 146-168.
    2. Julia Rothbauer & Gernot Sieg, 2013. "Public Service Broadcasting of Sport, Shows, and News to Mitigate Rational Ignorance," Journal of Media Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(1), pages 21-40, March.
    3. Francesco Drago & Tommaso Nannicini & Francesco Sobbrio, 2014. "Meet the Press: How Voters and Politicians Respond to Newspaper Entry and Exit," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 6(3), pages 159-188, July.
    4. Matthew Gentzkow & Jesse M. Shapiro & Michael Sinkinson, 2014. "Competition and Ideological Diversity: Historical Evidence from US Newspapers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(10), pages 3073-3114, October.
    5. Gouvêa, Raphael & Girardi, Daniele, 2021. "Partisanship and local fiscal policy: Evidence from Brazilian cities," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).
    6. Jamie Bologna, 2017. "Contagious corruption, informal employment, and income: evidence from Brazilian municipalities," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 58(1), pages 67-118, January.
    7. Eugen Dimant & Guglielmo Tosato, 2018. "Causes And Effects Of Corruption: What Has Past Decade'S Empirical Research Taught Us? A Survey," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(2), pages 335-356, April.
    8. Belke, Ansgar & Potrafke, Niklas, 2012. "Does government ideology matter in monetary policy? A panel data analysis for OECD countries," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(5), pages 1126-1139.
    9. Canen, Nathan & Ch, Rafael & Wantchekon, Leonard, 2023. "Political uncertainty and the forms of state capture," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    10. Debora Di Gioacchino & Paola Profeta, 2014. "Lobbying for Education in a Two-Sector Model," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(2), pages 212-236, July.
    11. Günther G. Schulze & Bambang Suharnoko Sjahrir & Nikita Zakharov, 2016. "Corruption in Russia," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 59(1), pages 135-171.
    12. Barbosa, Klenio & Ferreira, Fernando, 2023. "Occupy government: Democracy and the dynamics of personnel decisions and public finances," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 221(C).
    13. Daron Acemoglu & Tarek A. Hassan & Ahmed Tahoun, 2018. "The Power of the Street: Evidence from Egypt’s Arab Spring," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 31(1), pages 1-42.
    14. Qian, Nancy & Padró i Miquel, Gerard & Martinez-Bravo, Monica & Yao, Yang, 2012. "The Effects of Democratization on Public Goods and Redistribution: Evidence from China," CEPR Discussion Papers 8975, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    15. Christian Bjørnskov & Niklas Potrafke, 2012. "Political Ideology and Economic Freedom Across Canadian Provinces," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan;Eastern Economic Association, vol. 38(2), pages 143-166.
    16. Kym Anderson & Gordon Rausser & Johan Swinnen, 2013. "Political Economy of Public Policies: Insights from Distortions to Agricultural and Food Markets," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 51(2), pages 423-477, June.
    17. Brian Knight & Ana Tribin, 2022. "Opposition Media, State Censorship, and Political Accountability: Evidence from Chavez’s Venezuela," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank Group, vol. 36(2), pages 455-487.
    18. Jan Fałkowski & Alessandro Olper, 2014. "Political competition and policy choices: the evidence from agricultural protection," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 45(2), pages 143-158, March.
    19. Serena Marianna Drufuca, 2014. "Information, Media and Elections: Incentives for Media Capture," Working Papers (2013-) 1402, University of Bergamo, Department of Management, Economics and Quantitative Methods.
    20. Gehlbach, Scott & Sonin, Konstantin, 2014. "Government control of the media," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 163-171.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:dip:dpaper:2013-04. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Research Publications Librarian (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cpcituk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.