Does Liberté = Egalité? A Survey of the Empirical Links between Democracy and Inequality with Some Evidence on the Transition Economies
The effect of the distribution of political rights on income inequality has been studied both theoretically and empirically. The authors review the existing literature and, in particular, the available empirical evidence. The literature suggests th...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Policy Research Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2014
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2002/08/1997763/liberte-egalite-survey-empirical-links-between-democracy-inequality-some-evidence-transition-economies http://hdl.handle.net/10986/19266 |
| Summary: | The effect of the distribution of
political rights on income inequality has been studied both
theoretically and empirically. The authors review the
existing literature and, in particular, the available
empirical evidence. The literature suggests that formal
exclusion from the political process through restrictions on
the voting franchise appears to have caused a high degree of
economic inequality. And democratization in the form of
franchise expansion has typically led to an expansion in
redistribution, at least in the small sample of episodes
studied. In a less pronounced way, albeit more emphatically
compared with the ambiguous results of earlier research,
recent evidence indicates an inverse relationship between
other measures of democracy, based on civil liberties and
political rights, and inequality. The transition experience
of Eastern European countries, however, seems to some extent
go against these conclusions. This opens possible new vistas
for research, namely the need to incorporate the length of
democratic experience and the role played by ideology and
social values |
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