IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/
MyIDEAS: Log in (now much improved!) to save this article

Targeting and political support for welfare spending

Author Info

Listed author(s):
  • Karl Ove Moene
  • Michael Wallerstein

Abstract

This paper investigates the political support for social assistance policies in a model in which incomes are stochastic (so that welfare policies have an insurance benefit) and unequal ex ante (so that welfare policies have a redistributive effect). With self-interested voting, narrow targeting may so reduce the probability of receiving benefits for the majority that the majority prefers to eliminate benefits altogether, even though the cost of narrowly targeted benefits is close to zero. In contrast, a majority of self-interested voters always supports positive welfare benefits when the policy is targeted sufficiently broadly. If voters are somewhat altruistic, the impact of targeting on political support for welfare spending diminishes but does not disappear. Copyright Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2001

Download Info

To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
1. Check below under "Related research" whether another version of this item is available online.
2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

Article provided by Springer in its journal Economics of Governance.

Volume (Year): 2 (2001)
Issue (Month): 1 (03)
Pages: 3-24

as
in new window

Handle: RePEc:spr:ecogov:v:2:y:2001:i:1:p:3-24
Contact details of provider: Web page: http://www.springer.com

Order Information: Web: http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/10101/PS2

Keywords: Key words: welfare state; voting; targeting; universal spending; JEL classification: H1; D3;

Find related papers by JEL classification:

  • H1 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government
  • D3 - Microeconomics - - Distribution

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.:

as
in new window


  1. Sinn, Hans-Werner, 1995. " A Theory of the Welfare State," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 97(4), pages 495-526, December.
  2. Thomas Piketty, 1995. "Social Mobility and Redistributive Politics," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 110(3), pages 551-584.
  3. Friend, Irwin & Blume, Marshall E, 1975. "The Demand for Risky Assets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 65(5), pages 900-922, December.
  4. Jon Elster, 1996. "Transmutation and Misrepresentation," Nordic Journal of Political Economy, Nordic Journal of Political Economy, vol. 23, pages 3-23.
  5. 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 914-927, October.
  6. Gans, Joshua S. & Smart, Michael, 1996. "Majority voting with single-crossing preferences," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(2), pages 219-237, February.
  7. Philippe De Donder & Jean Hindriks, 1998. "The political economy of targeting," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 95(1), pages 177-200, April.
  8. Barr, Nicholas, 1992. "Economic Theory and the Welfare State: A Survey and Interpretation," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 30(2), pages 741-803, June.
  9. Sandmo, Agnar, 1991. "Economists and the welfare state," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 35(2-3), pages 213-239, April.
  10. CASAMATTA, Georges & CREMER, Helmuth & PESTIEAU, Pierre, 1998. "On the political sustainability of redistributive social insurance systems," CORE Discussion Papers 1998038, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
  11. Karl Ove Moene & Michael Wallerstein, "undated". "Political Support for Targeted versus Universalistic Welfare Policies," IPR working papers 97-2, Institute for Policy Resarch at Northwestern University.
  12. Besley, Timothy, 1990. "Means Testing versus Universal Provision in Poverty Alleviation Programmes," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 57(225), pages 119-129, February.
  13. Blau, Francine D & Kahn, Lawrence M, 1996. "International Differences in Male Wage Inequality: Institutions versus Market Forces," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(4), pages 791-836, August.
  14. Timothy Besley & Stephen Coate, 1995. "The Design of Income Maintenance Programmes," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 62(2), pages 187-221.
  15. Killingsworth, Mark R. & Heckman, James J., 1987. "Female labor supply: A survey," Handbook of Labor Economics,in: O. Ashenfelter & R. Layard (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 2, pages 103-204 Elsevier.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

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

as
in new window


Cited by:

  1. Michaël Zemmour, 2015. "Economie politique du financement progressif de la protection sociale," Working Papers hal-01205217, HAL.
  2. Mathieu Lefèbvre, 2007. "The Redistributive Effects of Pension Systems in Europe: A Survey of Evidence," LIS Working papers 457, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
  3. Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay & Joan Esteban, 2009. "Redistributive Taxation, Public Expenditure, and Size of Governent," UFAE and IAE Working Papers 799.09, Unitat de Fonaments de l'Anàlisi Econòmica (UAB) and Institut d'Anàlisi Econòmica (CSIC).
  4. Stephan Klasen & Simon Lange, 2015. "Accuracy and Poverty Impacts of Proxy Means-Tested Transfers: An Empirical Assessment for Bolivia," Courant Research Centre: Poverty, Equity and Growth - Discussion Papers 164, Courant Research Centre PEG.
  5. De Donder, Philippe & Peluso, Eugenio, 2014. "Politically Sustainable Probabilistic Minority Targeting," CEPR Discussion Papers 10085, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  6. Tugrul Gurgur, 2016. "Voice, exit and local capture in public provision of private goods," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 17(4), pages 397-424, November.
  7. Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay & Joan Esteban, 2007. "Redistributive taxation and public expenditures," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 6537, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
  8. Stephan Klasen & Simon Lange, 2016. "How Narrowly Should Anti-poverty Programs Be Targeted? Simulation Evidence from Bolivia and Indonesia," Courant Research Centre: Poverty, Equity and Growth - Discussion Papers 213, Courant Research Centre PEG.
  9. Schüring, Esther & Gassmann, Franziska, 2012. "Whom to target: an obvious choice?," MERIT Working Papers 028, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
  10. Stephan Klasen & Simon Lange, 2015. "Targeting Performance and Poverty Effects of Proxy Means-Tested Transfers: Trade-offs and Challenges," Ibero America Institute for Econ. Research (IAI) Discussion Papers 231, Ibero-America Institute for Economic Research.

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Access and download statistics

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:ecogov:v:2:y:2001:i:1:p:3-24. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Sonal Shukla)

or (Rebekah McClure)

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 references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link 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 profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

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

This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis using RePEc data.