Welfare

Question 1

what affects attitudes towards redistribution? (factors only)

Answer 1

econ factors 
political institutions 
policies 
ethnic diversity 
class

Question 2

what econ factors affect attitudes towards redistribution?

Answer 2

tax policies 
econ security 
econ inequality 
econ stability 
altruism 
do not unless large - socialisation

Question 3

how do tax policies affect attitudes towards redistribution?

Answer 3

Tax collection efficiency - Alesina & Glaeser (2004)

• if tax collection is more efficient in Europe, it would involve fewer social losses and so the cost of the welfare state would be lower
• BUT - Alesina & Glaeser (2004) find that tax evasion is higher in Europe and variation in tax systems in Europe but everywhere redistributive policies are larger than US
  
  • they use data from sources such as the OECD & Luxembourg Income Study

Tax progressivity policy - Beramendi & Rehm (2016)

• when progressivity is high, politics is perceived by income groups as a zero sum game and conflicts over who gets what intensify
• when progressivity is low and tax contributors & benefit recipients overlap, redistributive struggles become less pol salient
• use RoG module IV from ISSP 2006 - look at 21 countries
• lim - the analysis falls short of causally identifying the impact of progressivity on preferences - situations in which a clearly exogenous change in progressivity precedes public opinion formation are rare, which poses significant challenges to ruling out potential confounding effects

Question 4

how does econ security affect attitudes towards redistribution?

Answer 4

Overlap of econ disadvantaged & econ insecure - Rehm, Hacker & Schlesinger (2012)

• variations in support reflect in part the degree to which econ disadvantage (low income) and econ insecurity (high risk) are correlated
• when they are the same group - narrow base of popular support for the welfare state
• when the disadvantaged & insecure are two distinct groups, broader popular support and opinion is less polarised
• test cross-nationally using 13 countries & 1 policy dimension (unemployment insurance) - use the Role of Government IV modules of the ISSP from 2006
• test across policy domains in 1 country (US) using new survey incorporated in the ANES 2008-9 survey on econ security

Job security - Gingrich (2012)

• hypothesis - individuals w riskier jobs demand more social spending - where high numbers of them, larger welfare states exist
• find that individual risk matters for social policy preferences only where employment protection is low and welfare benefits are dependent on employment
• use multilevel analysis of 19 advanced industrial countries in 2006

Question 5

how does economic inequality affect attitudes towards redistribution?

Answer 5

Pre-tax distribution - Alesina & Glaeser (2004)

• Europe may redistribute more than US if pre-tax income inequality is higher
  
  • BUT - A&G find pre-tax income inequality is higher in the US - using both aggregate indices of inequality (Gini coefficient) and more specific measures of wage dispersion
• data on US inequality may be overstated - does not consider higher social mobility
  
  • BUT - A&G find that the tendency of middle-income individuals to move up is higher in US but mobility of poor (bottom 1/5) is lower in US than Europe - so poor more trapped
• observed measures of mobility may reflect initiative taken not opportunity
  
  • BUT - A&G argue US poor work as hard if not harder than European counterparts

Structure of inequality - Lupu & Pontusson (2011)

• structure not level of inequality is what matters
• middle-income voters will be inclined to ally with low-income voters & support redistributive policies when distance between middle & poor is small relative to distance between middle & rich
• data from 15-18 advanced democracies
• find consistent survey evidence amongst middle-income voters
• find redistribution & non-elderly social spending increases as dispersion skews to middle-poor closer
• regression results indicate left parties more likely to participate in gov when structure of inequality is characterised by skew

Rich concern w neg externality of crime - Rueda & Stegmuller (2016)

• variation in redistribution preferences between rich and poor, more to do with rich than poor
• preferences of rich are highly dependent on macrolevel of inequality due to the negative externality of crime
• rich in more unequal countries/regions of W Europe are more supportive of redistribution due to concerns with crime
• use 4 ESS surveys 2002-9 - covers 129 regions and 14 countries
• find direct effect of macro inequality becomes stat insignificant when explicitly estimate the effect of fear of crime

Increase inequality, selective solidarity - Magni (2020)

• look at interaction effect between inequality & immigration
• argue inequality triggers selective solidarity - exposure to inequality increases support for redistribution if it benefits native-born citizens - inequality reinforces the already popular opinion that native citizens deserve welfare priority
• findings suggest econ inequality can increase support for populist radical right parties that advocate discrimination in access to welfare services based on native citizenship
• look at cross-national evidence w survey data
• to establish causality - results of a survey experiment administered to a nationally representative sample of Italian citizens