IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/socsci/v86y2005is1p996-1012.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Lottery and Income Inequality in the States

Author

Listed:
  • Elizabeth A. Freund
  • Irwin L. Morris

Abstract

Objective. Since the early 1970s, income inequality in the United States has increased dramatically. We examine the impact of state lotteries on income inequality in the American states from 1976–1995. Methods. We use cross‐sectional time‐series data to evaluate the effect of lotteries as well as those of other state tax policies, redistributive programs, and demographic factors on income inequality. Results. We find that state lotteries foster income concentration. Ceteris paribus, states with lotteries have higher levels of income inequality than those states without a lottery. We also find that additional demographic and policy factors have an impact on income inequality in the states. Conclusions. One of the most important policy‐oriented determinants of income inequality is the lottery and a significant portion of the increase in income inequality over our two‐decade time period is attributable to the increasing prevalence and popularity of state lotteries.

Suggested Citation

  • Elizabeth A. Freund & Irwin L. Morris, 2005. "The Lottery and Income Inequality in the States," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 86(s1), pages 996-1012, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:socsci:v:86:y:2005:i:s1:p:996-1012
    DOI: 10.1111/j.0038-4941.2005.00333.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0038-4941.2005.00333.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.0038-4941.2005.00333.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Andrew B. Bernard & J. Bradford Jensen, 2000. "Understanding Increasing and Decreasing Wage Inequality," NBER Chapters, in: The Impact of International Trade on Wages, pages 227-268, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Charles T. Clotfelter & Philip J. Cook, 1989. "Selling Hope: State Lotteries in America," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number clot89-1, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kent Grote & Victor Matheson, 2011. "The Economics of Lotteries: A Survey of the Literature," Working Papers 1109, College of the Holy Cross, Department of Economics.
    2. Kent Grote & Victor Matheson, 2011. "The Economics of Lotteries: An Annotated Bibliography," Working Papers 1110, College of the Holy Cross, Department of Economics.
    3. Arianna Galliera & E. Elisabet Rutström, 2021. "Crowded out: Heterogeneity in risk attitudes among poor households in the US," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 63(2), pages 103-132, October.

    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. Thomas A. Garrett & Russell S. Sobel, 2004. "State Lottery Revenue: The Importance of Game Characteristics," Public Finance Review, , vol. 32(3), pages 313-330, May.
    2. Robin Leichenko & Julie Silva, 2004. "International Trade, Employment and Earnings: Evidence from US Rural Counties," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(4), pages 355-374.
    3. Carl Lin, 2016. "How Do Immigrants From Taiwan Fare In The U.S. Labor Market?," The Singapore Economic Review (SER), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 61(05), pages 1-38, December.
    4. Rachel Croson & James Sundali, 2005. "The Gambler’s Fallacy and the Hot Hand: Empirical Data from Casinos," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 30(3), pages 195-209, May.
    5. William R. Eadington, 1998. "Contributions of Casino-Style Gambling to Local Economies," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 556(1), pages 53-65, March.
    6. Michael Cain & David Law & David Peel, 2008. "Bounded cumulative prospect theory: some implications for gambling outcomes," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(1), pages 5-15.
    7. Robin Maximilian Stetzka & Stefan Winter, 2023. "How rational is gambling?," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(4), pages 1432-1488, September.
    8. repec:lan:wpaper:3582 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Andrew B. Carver & John A. McCarty, 2013. "Personality and psychographics of three types of gamblers in the United States," International Gambling Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(3), pages 338-355, December.
    10. Nerilee Hing & Lorraine Cherney & Alex Blaszczynski & Sally M. Gainsbury & Dan I. Lubman, 2014. "Do advertising and promotions for online gambling increase gambling consumption? An exploratory study," International Gambling Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(3), pages 394-409, December.
    11. James Angel & Douglas McCabe, 2009. "The Ethics of Speculation," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 90(3), pages 277-286, December.
    12. Thomas S. Dee, 2004. "Lotteries, Litigation, and Education Finance," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 70(3), pages 584-599, January.
    13. Jeff Borland, 1999. "Earnings Inequality in Australia: Changes, Causes and Consequences," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 75(2), pages 177-202, June.
    14. Cletus C. Coughlin & Thomas A. Garrett & Ruben Hernandez-Murillo, 2004. "Spatial probit and the geographic patterns of state lotteries," Working Papers 2003-042, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    15. Meir Gross, 1998. "Legal Gambling as a Strategy for Economic Development," Economic Development Quarterly, , vol. 12(3), pages 203-213, August.
    16. Antonio Cabrales & Haydée Lugo, 2011. "An impure public good model with lotteries in large grou," Documentos de Trabajo del ICAE 2011-05, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Empresariales, Instituto Complutense de Análisis Económico.
    17. Rubenstein, Ross & Scafidi, Benjamin, 2002. "Who Pays and Who Benefits? Examining the Distributional Consequences of the Georgia Lottery for Education," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association, vol. 55(N. 2), pages 223-238, June.
    18. Can Xu & Andreas Steiner & Jakob de Haan, 2023. "Does Economic Policy Uncertainty Encourage Gambling? Evidence from the Chinese Welfare Lottery Market," CESifo Working Paper Series 10241, CESifo.
    19. Glenn P. Jenkins & Chun-Yan Kuo, 2004. "The Taxation and Regulation of Casino’s and Games of Chance in the Dominican Republic," Development Discussion Papers 2004-07, JDI Executive Programs.
    20. von Meduna, Marc & Steinmetz, Fred & Ante, Lennart & Reynolds, Jennifer & Fiedler, Ingo, 2020. "Loot boxes are gambling-like elements in video games with harmful potential: Results from a large-scale population survey," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    21. Thomas A. Garrett, 2011. "A closer look at the tax incidence of instant lottery games: an analysis by price point," Working Papers 2011-010, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

    More about this item

    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:bla:socsci:v:86:y:2005:i:s1:p:996-1012. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0038-4941 .

    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.