IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/del/abcdef/95-30.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Labour Market Institutions and the Cohesion of the Middle Class

Author

Listed:
  • Saint-Paul, G.

Abstract

We develop a simple model to study how relative wage rigidity affects equilibrium taxation. It is argued that relative wage rigidity, by compressing incomes within the middle class, leads to a lower degree of redistributive conflict within the politically important core of society, even though income inequality may increase for society as a whole. In the model, people vote first on wage rigidity and second on redistributive taxation. The rigid society has a lower tax rate than the flexible one. it is supported by the 'middle-class' in the first stage, while the poor, the rich and the unemployed suffer from it.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Saint-Paul, G., 1995. "Labour Market Institutions and the Cohesion of the Middle Class," DELTA Working Papers 95-30, DELTA (Ecole normale supérieure).
    • Handle: RePEc:del:abcdef:95-30
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below 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.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Saint-Paul, Gilles, 1995. "Some political aspects of unemployment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 39(3-4), pages 575-582, April.
    2. Roberto Perotti, 1993. "Political Equilibrium, Income Distribution, and Growth," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 60(4), pages 755-776.
    3. Saint-Paul, Gilles & Verdier, Thierry, 1993. "Education, democracy and growth," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(2), pages 399-407, December.
    4. Alberto Alesina & Dani Rodrik, 1994. "Distributive Politics and Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(2), pages 465-490.
    5. Gilles Saint-Paul, 1993. "On the Political Economy of Labor Market Flexibility," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1993, Volume 8, pages 151-196, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. repec:bla:scandj:v:95:y:1993:i:4:p:559-79 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 1994. "Is Inequality Harmful for Growth?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(3), pages 600-621, June.
    8. Wright, Randall, 1986. "The redistributive roles of unemployment insurance and the dynamics of voting," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 377-399, December.
    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. Saint-Paul, Gilles, 2021. "Pareto-improving structural reforms," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 194(C).
    2. Wasmer, Etienne, 1998. "Labor Supply Dynamics, Unemployment and Human Capital Investments," Seminar Papers 651, Stockholm University, Institute for International Economic Studies.
    3. Schob, Ronnie & Wildasin, David E., 2007. "Economic integration and labor market institutions: Worker mobility, earnings risk, and contract structure," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 141-164, March.
    4. Maya Bacache-Beauvallet & Etienne Lehmann, 2008. "Minimum wage or negative income tax: why skilled workers may favor wage rigidities," Spanish Economic Review, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 10(1), pages 63-81, March.

    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. Shinhye Chang & Rangan Gupta & Stephen M. Miller, 2018. "Causality Between Per Capita Real GDP and Income Inequality in the U.S.: Evidence from a Wavelet Analysis," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 135(1), pages 269-289, January.
    2. Saint-Paul, Gilles, 1997. "The role of rents to human capital in economic development," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(2), pages 229-249, August.
    3. Mark Gradstein & Branko Milanovic, 2004. "Does Libertè = Egalité? A Survey of the Empirical Links between Democracy and Inequality with Some Evidence on the Transition Economies," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(4), pages 515-537, September.
    4. Enea Baselgia & Reto Foellmi, 2022. "Inequality and growth: a review on a great open debate in economics," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2022-5, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    5. Michael Groemling, 2002. "Why does redistribution not shrink when equality is high?," Intereconomics: Review of European Economic Policy, Springer;ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics;Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), vol. 37(4), pages 204-211, July.
    6. Boschini, Anne, 2003. "Skills, Franchise and Industrialization," Research Papers in Economics 1999:10, Stockholm University, Department of Economics.
    7. Ugo Panizza, 1999. "Desigualdad del ingreso y crecimiento económico: elementos de juicio de datos de USA," Research Department Publications 4179, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    8. Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel & José-Carlos Tello, 2014. "The Political Economy of Growth, Inequality, the Size and Composition of Government Spending," Working Papers 19, Peruvian Economic Association.
    9. Mehmet Balcilar & Rangan Gupta & Wei Ma & Philton Makena, 2021. "Income inequality and economic growth: A re‐examination of theory and evidence," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(2), pages 737-757, May.
    10. Francesco Scervini, 2012. "Empirics of the median voter: democracy, redistribution and the role of the middle class," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 10(4), pages 529-550, December.
    11. 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.
    12. Josef Zweimüller & Johann K. Brunner, 2005. "Innovation And Growth With Rich And Poor Consumers," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 56(2), pages 233-262, May.
    13. Bourguignon, Francois & Verdier, Thierry, 2000. "Oligarchy, democracy, inequality and growth," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(2), pages 285-313, August.
    14. Krusell, Per & Quadrini, Vincenzo & Rios-Rull, Jose-Victor, 1997. "Politico-economic equilibrium and economic growth," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 243-272, January.
    15. Denis Cogneau & Charlotte Guénard, 2002. "Les inégalités et la croissance : une relation introuvable," Working Papers DT/2002/03, DIAL (Développement, Institutions et Mondialisation).
    16. Barseghyan, Levon & Battaglini, Marco, 2016. "Political economy of debt and growth," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 36-51.
    17. Christiane Clemens & Maik Heinemann, 2005. "Distributional Conflict, Political Cycles And Growth," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 73(4), pages 500-521, July.
    18. Chang, Roberto, 1998. "Political party negotiations, income distribution, and endogenous growth," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 227-255, April.
    19. Cecilia Garcia Peñalosa, 1994. "Inequality and growth: a note on recent theories," Investigaciones Economicas, Fundación SEPI, vol. 18(1), pages 97-116, January.
    20. Djeto Assane & Abbas Grammy, 2003. "An assessment of the growth and inequality causality relationship," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(14), pages 871-873.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    LABOUR MARKET; TAX POLICY;

    JEL classification:

    • J20 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - General
    • J49 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Other
    • J50 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining - - - General

    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:del:abcdef:95-30. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deltafr.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.