IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/uct/uconnp/2008-18.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Economics and Ideology: Causal Evidence of the Impact of Economic Conditions on Support for Redistribution and Other Ballot Proposals

Author

Listed:
  • Eric Brunner

    (Quinnipiac University)

  • Stephen L. Ross

    (University of Connecticut)

  • Ebonya Washington

    (Yale University)

Abstract

There is a large literature demonstrating that positive economic conditions increase support for incumbent candidates, but little understanding of how economic conditions affect preferences for parties and for particulars of their platforms. We ask how exogenous shifts to the value of residents. human capital affect voting behavior in California neighborhoods. As predicted by economic theory, we find that positive economic shocks decrease support for redistributive policies. More notably, we find that conservative voting on a wide variety of ballot propositions--from crime to gambling to campaign finance--is increasing in economic well being.

Suggested Citation

  • Eric Brunner & Stephen L. Ross & Ebonya Washington, 2008. "Economics and Ideology: Causal Evidence of the Impact of Economic Conditions on Support for Redistribution and Other Ballot Proposals," Working papers 2008-18, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics, revised Aug 2008.
    • Handle: RePEc:uct:uconnp:2008-18
    Note: We are grateful to Alberto Alesina, Elizabeth Oltmans Ananat, David Autor, Rafael di Tella, Yan Chen, Rachel Croson, Dhammika Dharmapala, Erica Field, Alan Gerber, Timothy Guinnane, Elizabeth Hoffman, Gregory Huber, Lawrence Katz, Lawrence Kenny, Ulrike Malmendier, Sendhil Mullainathan, Antoinette Schoar and Ken Shotts and to seminar participants at the Brookings Institute, Clark University, Harvard University, MIT, University of Chicago, University of Connecticut, University of Kentucky and University of Pennsylvania for helpful comments.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://media.economics.uconn.edu/working/2008-18r.pdf
    File Function: Full text (revised version)
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://media.economics.uconn.edu/working/2008-18.pdf
    File Function: Full text (original version)
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Thomas Piketty, 1995. "Social Mobility and Redistributive Politics," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 110(3), pages 551-584.
    2. Roland Benabou & Efe A. Ok, 2001. "Social Mobility and the Demand for Redistribution: The Poum Hypothesis," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(2), pages 447-487.
    3. Corneo, Giacomo & Gruner, Hans Peter, 2002. "Individual preferences for political redistribution," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(1), pages 83-107, January.
    4. Fair, Ray C, 1978. "The Effect of Economic Events on Votes for President," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 60(2), pages 159-173, May.
    5. Andrew Leigh, 2005. "Economic Voting And Electoral Behavior: How Do Individual, Local, And National Factors Affect The Partisan Choice?," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 17(2), pages 265-296, July.
    6. Timothy J. Bartik, "undated". "Who Benefits from Local Job Growth: Migrants or Original Residents?," Upjohn Working Papers tjb1993rs, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
    7. Timothy J. Bartik, 2003. "Local Economic Development Policies," Upjohn Working Papers 03-91, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
    8. Peltzman, Sam, 1987. "Economic Conditions and Gubernatorial Elections," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(2), pages 293-297, May.
    9. David H. Autor & Mark G. Duggan, 2003. "The Rise in the Disability Rolls and the Decline in Unemployment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(1), pages 157-206.
    10. Edward L. Glaeser, 2005. "The Political Economy of Hatred," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 120(1), pages 45-86.
    11. Alesina, Alberto & La Ferrara, Eliana, 2005. "Preferences for redistribution in the land of opportunities," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(5-6), pages 897-931, June.
    12. Edward L. Glaeser & Bruce Sacerdote, 2007. "Aggregation Reversals and the Social Formation of Beliefs," NBER Working Papers 13031, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Hastings, Justine S. & Kane, Thomas J. & Staiger, Douglas O. & Weinstein, Jeffrey M., 2007. "The effect of randomized school admissions on voter participation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(5-6), pages 915-937, June.
    14. Wolfers, Justin, 2002. "Are Voters Rational? Evidence from Gubernatorial Elections," Research Papers 1730, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    15. Timothy J. Bartik, 1991. "Who Benefits from State and Local Economic Development Policies?," Books from Upjohn Press, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, number wbsle, November.
    16. Rafael Di Tella & Sebastian Galiant & Ernesto Schargrodsky, 2007. "The Formation of Beliefs: Evidence from the Allocation of Land Titles to Squatters," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(1), pages 209-241.
    17. Jacob L. Vigdor, 2006. "Fifty Million Voters Can't Be Wrong: Economic Self-Interest and Redistributive Politics," NBER Working Papers 12371, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Ravallion, Martin & Lokshin, Michael, 2000. "Who wants to redistribute?: The tunnel effect in 1990s Russia," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(1), pages 87-104, April.
    19. Gerald E. Auten & Holger Sieg & Charles T. Clotfelter, 2002. "Charitable Giving, Income, and Taxes: An Analysis of Panel Data," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(1), pages 371-382, March.
    20. Andrew Leigh, 2005. "Economic Voting And Electoral Behavior: How Do Individual, Local, And National Factors Affect The Partisan Choice?," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 17, pages 265-296, July.
    21. Elisabeth R. Gerber & Justin H. Phillips, 2003. "Development Ballot Measures, Interest Group Endorsements, and the Political Geography of Growth Preferences," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 47(4), pages 625-639, October.
    22. 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.
    23. Bound, John & Holzer, Harry J, 2000. "Demand Shifts, Population Adjustments, and Labor Market Outcomes during the 1980s," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 18(1), pages 20-54, January.
    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. Paper of the Day
      by ryan in The bellows on 2009-02-13 20:39:29

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Manuel Bagues & Berta Esteve-Volart, 2016. "Politicians’ Luck of the Draw: Evidence from the Spanish Christmas Lottery," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 124(5), pages 1269-1294.
    2. Sylwia Pietkowska-Kamieniecka & Joanna Rutecka-Gora & Damian Walczak, 2019. "Willingness to redistribute: the case of Poland," Public Sector Economics, Institute of Public Finance, vol. 43(3), pages 247-266.
    3. Erzo F. P. Luttmer & Monica Singhal, 2011. "Culture, Context, and the Taste for Redistribution," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 3(1), pages 157-179, February.

    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. Erzo F. P. Luttmer & Monica Singhal, 2011. "Culture, Context, and the Taste for Redistribution," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 3(1), pages 157-179, February.
    2. Di Tella, Rafael & Galiani, Sebastian & Schargrodsky, Ernesto, 2012. "Reality versus propaganda in the formation of beliefs about privatization," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(5), pages 553-567.
    3. Laméris, Maite D. & Garretsen, Harry & Jong-A-Pin, Richard, 2020. "Political ideology and the intragenerational prospect of upward mobility," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    4. Vladimir Gimpelson & Daniel Treisman, 2018. "Misperceiving inequality," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(1), pages 27-54, March.
    5. Liza G. Steele, 2015. "Income Inequality, Equal Opportunity, and Attitudes About Redistribution," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 96(2), pages 444-464, June.
    6. Elvire Guillaud, 2008. "Preferences for redistribution: a European comparative analysis," PSE - Labex "OSE-Ouvrir la Science Economique" halshs-00586260, HAL.
    7. Kuhn, Andreas, 2009. "In the Eye of the Beholder: Subjective Inequality Measures and the Demand for Redistribution," IZA Discussion Papers 4360, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. Neher, Frank, 2012. "Preferences for redistribution around the world," Discussion Papers 2012/2, Free University Berlin, School of Business & Economics.
    9. Roland Iwan Luttens & Marie-Anne Valfort, 2012. "Voting for Redistribution under Desert-Sensitive Altruism," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 114(3), pages 881-907, September.
    10. Bernasconi, Michele, 2006. "Redistributive taxation in democracies: Evidence on people's satisfaction," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 809-837, December.
    11. 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.
    12. Sophie Harnay & Élisabeth Tovar, 2017. "Obeying vs. resisting unfair laws. A structural analysis of the internalization of collective preferences on redistribution using classification trees and random forests," Working Papers hal-04141635, HAL.
    13. Harms, Philipp & Zink, Stefan, 2003. "Limits to redistribution in a democracy: a survey," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 651-668, November.
    14. Lionel Page & Daniel G. Goldstein, 2016. "Subjective beliefs about the income distribution and preferences for redistribution," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 47(1), pages 25-61, June.
    15. Pfarr, Christian, 2012. "Meltzer-Richard and social mobility hypothesis: revisiting the income-redistribution nexus using German choice data," MPRA Paper 43325, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Kuhn, Andreas, 2009. "Demand for Redistribution, Support for the Welfare State, and Party Identification in Austria," IZA Discussion Papers 4449, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Holger Stichnoth, 2012. "Does immigration weaken natives’ support for the unemployed? Evidence from Germany," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 151(3), pages 631-654, June.
    18. Cojocaru, Alexandru, 2014. "Prospects of upward mobility and preferences for redistribution: Evidence from the Life in Transition Survey," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 300-314.
    19. Stichnoth, Holger & van der Straeten, Karine, 2009. "Ethnic diversity and attitudes towards redistribution: a review of the literature," ZEW Discussion Papers 09-036, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    20. Andreas Kuhn, 2010. "Demand for redistribution, support for the welfare state, and party identification in Austria," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 37(2), pages 215-236, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Voting; Employment; Taxes; Expenditures;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • H0 - Public Economics - - General

    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:uct:uconnp:2008-18. 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: Mark McConnel (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deuctus.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.