IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/lis/liswps/584.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Median Voter and Power Resources Revisited: A Composite Model of Inequality

Author

Listed:
  • Mathew Y. H. Wong

Abstract

This paper explains redistribution and income inequality by revisiting traditional approaches. First, despite the popularity of two dominant theories, the median voter hypothesis (the Meltzer-Richard model) and power resources theory, they are thought to have contrasting predictions and have seldom been incorporated under a single framework. We develop a composite model of inequality by accommodating their core arguments. This study also analyzes stages of inequality formation, such as market wage inequality and redistribution, and adds in a dynamic component to the model, completing the cycle of inequality. The model is supported empirically with data from 18 OECD countries from 1970 to 2006. We demonstrate the joint relevance and significance of the two theories, showing that they are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

Suggested Citation

  • Mathew Y. H. Wong, 2013. "Median Voter and Power Resources Revisited: A Composite Model of Inequality," LIS Working papers 584, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    • Handle: RePEc:lis:liswps:584
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.lisdatacenter.org/wps/liswps/584.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michael Ross, 2006. "Is Democracy Good for the Poor?," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 50(4), pages 860-874, October.
    2. Wittman, Donald, 1983. "Candidate Motivation: A Synthesis of Alternative Theories," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 77(1), pages 142-157, March.
    3. Iversen, Torben & Soskice, David, 2006. "Electoral Institutions and the Politics of Coalitions: Why Some Democracies Redistribute More Than Others," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 100(2), pages 165-181, May.
    4. Ezrow, Lawrence, 2008. "Parties' Policy Programmes and the Dog that Didn't Bark: No Evidence that Proportional Systems Promote Extreme Party Positioning," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 38(3), pages 479-497, July.
    5. Castles, Francis G., 2004. "The Future of the Welfare State: Crisis Myths and Crisis Realities," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199273928.
    6. Lane Kenworthy & Jonas Pontusson, 2005. "Rising Inequality and the Politics of Redistribution in Affluent Countries," LIS Working papers 400, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    7. Romer, Thomas, 1975. "Individual welfare, majority voting, and the properties of a linear income tax," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 4(2), pages 163-185, February.
    8. Roland Benabou, 2000. "Unequal Societies: Income Distribution and the Social Contract," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(1), pages 96-129, March.
    9. Cameron, David R., 1978. "The Expansion of the Public Economy: A Comparative Analysis," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 72(4), pages 1243-1261, December.
    10. Allan Meltzer & Scott Richard, 1983. "Tests of a rational theory of the size of government," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 41(3), pages 403-418, January.
    11. Mueller,Dennis C., 2003. "Public Choice III," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521894753.
    12. Barro, Robert J. & Lee, Jong Wha, 2013. "A new data set of educational attainment in the world, 1950–2010," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 184-198.
    13. Korpi, Walter & Palme, Joakim, 2003. "New Politics and Class Politics in the Context of Austerity and Globalization: Welfare State Regress in 18 Countries, 1975–95," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 97(3), pages 425-446, August.
    14. Nathan J. Kelly & Peter K. Enns, 2010. "Inequality and the Dynamics of Public Opinion: The Self‐Reinforcing Link Between Economic Inequality and Mass Preferences," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(4), pages 855-870, October.
    15. James P. Allan & Lyle Scruggs, 2004. "Political Partisanship and Welfare State Reform in Advanced Industrial Societies," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 48(3), pages 496-512, July.
    16. 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.
    17. Crepaz, Markus M. L., 2002. "Duane Swank, Global Capital, Political Institutions, and Policy Change in Developed Welfare States. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2002," Journal of Public Policy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 22(01), pages 101-106, January.
    18. Brambor, Thomas & Clark, William Roberts & Golder, Matt, 2006. "Understanding Interaction Models: Improving Empirical Analyses," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 14(1), pages 63-82, January.
    19. Swank,Duane, 2002. "Global Capital, Political Institutions, and Policy Change in Developed Welfare States," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521806688.
    20. World Bank, 2011. "World Development Indicators 2011," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 2315, December.
    21. Beramendi, Pablo & Cusack, Thomas R., 2004. "Diverse disparities: The politics and economics of wage, market and disposable income inequalities," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Institutions, States, Markets SP II 2004-08, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    22. Perotti, Roberto, 1996. "Growth, Income Distribution, and Democracy: What the Data Say," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 1(2), pages 149-187, June.
    23. Cusack, Thomas R, 1997. "Partisan Politics and Public Finance: Changes in Public Spending in the Industrialized Democracies, 1955-1989," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 91(3-4), pages 375-395, June.
    24. Gouveia, Miguel & Masia, Neal A, 1998. "Does the Median Voter Model Explain the Size of Government?: Evidence from the States," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 97(1-2), pages 159-177, October.
    25. Korpi, Walter, 2003. "Welfare State Regress in Western Europe: Politics, Institutions, Globalization and Europeanization," Working Paper Series 5/2003, Stockholm University, Swedish Institute for Social Research.
    26. Milanovic, Branko, 2000. "The median-voter hypothesis, income inequality, and income redistribution: an empirical test with the required data," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 367-410, September.
    27. Swank,Duane, 2002. "Global Capital, Political Institutions, and Policy Change in Developed Welfare States," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521001441.
    28. Pontusson, Jonas & Rueda, David & Way, Christopher R., 2002. "Comparative Political Economy of Wage Distribution: The Role of Partisanship and Labour Market Institutions," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 32(2), pages 281-308, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Micael Castanheira & Gaëtan Nicodème & Paola Profeta, 2012. "On the political economics of tax reforms: survey and empirical assessment," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 19(4), pages 598-624, August.
    2. Brady, David & Lee, Hang Young, 2014. "The rise and fall of government spending in affluent democracies, 1971-2008," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 24(1), pages 56-79.
    3. Leslie McCall & Lane Kenworthy, 2007. "Inequality, Public Opinion, and Redistribution," LIS Working papers 459, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    4. Vincent Mahler, 2006. "Electoral Turnout and Income Redistribution by the State: A Cross-National Analysis of the Developed Democracies," LIS Working papers 455, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    5. Brady, David & Beckfield, Jason & Seeleib-Kaiser, Martin, 2004. "Economic Globalization and the Welfare State in Affluent Democracies, 1975-1998," Working papers of the ZeS 12/2004, University of Bremen, Centre for Social Policy Research (ZeS).
    6. Oliver Pamp & Philipp Mohl, 2008. "Income Inequality and Redistributional Spending: An Empirical Investigation of Competing Theories," LIS Working papers 491, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    7. Micael Castanheira & Gaëtan Nicodème & Paola Profeta, 2012. "On the political economics of tax reforms: survey and empirical assessment," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 19(4), pages 598-624, August.
    8. Jon Olaskoaga-Larrauri & Ricardo Aláez-Aller & Pablo Díaz-de-Basurto, 2010. "Measuring is Believing! Improving Conventional Indicators of Welfare State Development," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 96(1), pages 113-131, March.
    9. Troeger, Vera & Plumper, Thomas, 2012. "Tax Competition and Income Inequality: Why did the Welfare State Survive?," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 83, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    10. Jo Thori Lind, 2005. "Why is there so little redistribution?," Nordic Journal of Political Economy, Nordic Journal of Political Economy, vol. 31, pages 111-125.
    11. Jon Olaskoaga-Larrauri & Ricardo Aláez-Aller & Pablo Díaz-de-Basurto, 2010. "Retrenchment or Resilience? New Evidence on Relative Social Expenditure Trends," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 28(5), pages 923-942, October.
    12. Stanley L. Winer, 2016. "The Political Economy of Taxation: Power, Structure, Redistribution," Carleton Economic Papers 16-15, Carleton University, Department of Economics.
    13. Duane Swank, 2015. "The Political Foundations of Redistribution in Post-industrial Democracies," LIS Working papers 653, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    14. Vincent Mahler & David Jesuit, 2004. "State Redistribution in Comparative Perspective: A Cross-National Analysis of the Developed Countries," LIS Working papers 392, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    15. Andreas Georgiadis & Alan Manning, 2012. "Spend it like Beckham? Inequality and redistribution in the UK, 1983–2004," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 151(3), pages 537-563, June.
    16. Kosack, Stephen & Tobin, Jennifer L., 2015. "Which Countries’ Citizens Are Better Off With Trade?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 95-113.
    17. Rommel, Tobias & Walter, Stefanie, 2016. "The Electoral Consequences of Offshoring," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 286, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    18. Fabio Padovano, 2013. "Are we witnessing a paradigm shift in the analysis of political competition?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 156(3), pages 631-651, September.
    19. Huo, Jingjing, 2015. "How Nations Innovate: The Political Economy of Technological Innovation in Affluent Capitalist Economies," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198735847.
    20. Castater Eric Graig, 2015. "Unionization and the partisan effect on income inequality," Business and Politics, De Gruyter, vol. 17(1), pages 1-40, April.

    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:lis:liswps:584. 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: Piotr Paradowski (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lisprlu.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.