IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/ectrin/v29y2021i1p151-172.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Redistributive preferences in Europe and Central Asia, 2006–2016

Author

Listed:
  • Alexandru Cojocaru
  • Mame Fatou Diagne

Abstract

This paper analyses support for reducing inequality and for redistribution to specific groups in Europe and Central Asia. Using the Life in Transition Surveys, it examines differences in redistributive preferences across countries and time, as well as determinants of individual preferences, testing for motivations such as self‐interest, past and expected future social mobility, beliefs about fairness, as well as ideology and risk preferences. The extent to which different groups are perceived as deserving of government support is found to vary considerably, with the disabled, the elderly and families with children being the most favoured groups. The motives for redistribution towards different groups are also not uniform – self‐interest appears to be a basis for assistance to the elderly and families with children, whereas values and beliefs are associated with support for the working poor and the unemployed.

Suggested Citation

  • Alexandru Cojocaru & Mame Fatou Diagne, 2021. "Redistributive preferences in Europe and Central Asia, 2006–2016," Economics of Transition and Institutional Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 29(1), pages 151-172, January.
  • Handle: RePEc:wly:ectrin:v:29:y:2021:i:1:p:151-172
    DOI: 10.1111/ecot.12267
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/ecot.12267
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/ecot.12267?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Margalit, Yotam, 2013. "Explaining Social Policy Preferences: Evidence from the Great Recession," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 107(1), pages 80-103, February.
    2. Thomas Piketty, 1995. "Social Mobility and Redistributive Politics," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(3), pages 551-584.
    3. 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.
    4. Corneo, Giacomo & Gruner, Hans Peter, 2002. "Individual preferences for political redistribution," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(1), pages 83-107, January.
    5. Alberto Alesina & George-Marios Angeletos, 2005. "Fairness and Redistribution," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(4), pages 960-980, September.
    6. Senik, Claudia, 2009. "Direct evidence on income comparisons and their welfare effects," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 72(1), pages 408-424, October.
    7. Maurizio Bussolo & Ada Ferrer‐i‐Carbonell & Anna Giolbas & Iván Torre, 2021. "I Perceive Therefore I Demand: The Formation of Inequality Perceptions and Demand for Redistribution," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 67(4), pages 835-871, December.
    8. 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.
    9. Alexandru Cojocaru & Mame Fatou Diagne, 2015. "How reliable and consistent are subjective measures of welfare in Europe and Central Asia?," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 23(1), pages 75-103, January.
    10. Vladimir Gimpelson & Daniel Treisman, 2018. "Misperceiving inequality," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(1), pages 27-54, March.
    11. Ilyana Kuziemko & Michael I. Norton & Emmanuel Saez & Stefanie Stantcheva, 2015. "How Elastic Are Preferences for Redistribution? Evidence from Randomized Survey Experiments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(4), pages 1478-1508, April.
    12. Erzo F. P. Luttmer, 2001. "Group Loyalty and the Taste for Redistribution," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 109(3), pages 500-528, June.
    13. Fisman, Raymond & Jakiela, Pamela & Kariv, Shachar, 2015. "How did distributional preferences change during the Great Recession?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 84-95.
    14. Alberto F. Alesina & Paola Giuliano, 2009. "Preferences for Redistribution," NBER Working Papers 14825, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. 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.
    16. Cojocaru, Alexandru, 2014. "Fairness and inequality tolerance: Evidence from the Life in Transition Survey," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(3), pages 590-608.
    17. Hernan Winkler, 2019. "The effect of income inequality on political polarization: Evidence from European regions, 2002–2014," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(2), pages 137-162, July.
    18. Alejandro Gaviria, 2007. "Social Mobility and Preferences for Redistribution in Latin America," Economía Journal, The Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association - LACEA, vol. 0(Fall 2007), pages 55-96, August.
    19. Mamta Murthi & Erwin R Tiongson, 2009. "Attitudes to Income Equality: The ‘Socialist Legacy’ Revisited," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 51(3), pages 344-366, September.
    20. 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.
    21. Klor, Esteban F. & Shayo, Moses, 2010. "Social identity and preferences over redistribution," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(3-4), pages 269-278, April.
    22. 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.
    23. Cojocaru, Alexandru & Diagne, Mame Fatou, 2013. "How reliable and consistent are subjective measures of welfare in Europe and Central Asia ? evidence from the second life in transition survey," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6359, The World Bank.
    24. 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.
    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. Cojocaru, Alexandru & Diagne, Mame Fatou, 2014. "Should income inequality be reduced and who should benefit ? redistributive preferences in Europe and Central Asia," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7097, The World Bank.
    2. Corneo, Giacomo & Neher, Frank, 2015. "Democratic redistribution and rule of the majority," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 40(PA), pages 96-109.
    3. Andreoli, Francesco & Olivera, Javier, 2020. "Preferences for redistribution and exposure to tax-benefit schemes in Europe," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    4. Vladimir Gimpelson & Daniel Treisman, 2018. "Misperceiving inequality," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(1), pages 27-54, March.
    5. Neher, Frank, 2012. "Preferences for redistribution around the world," Discussion Papers 2012/2, Free University Berlin, School of Business & Economics.
    6. Yamamura, Eiji, 2012. "Social capital, household income, and preferences for income redistribution," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 498-511.
    7. Ilyana Kuziemko & Michael I. Norton & Emmanuel Saez & Stefanie Stantcheva, 2015. "How Elastic Are Preferences for Redistribution? Evidence from Randomized Survey Experiments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(4), pages 1478-1508, April.
    8. 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.
    9. Neher, Frank, 2012. "Preferences for Redistribution around the World," Working Papers 26/2012, Universidade Portucalense, Centro de Investigação em Gestão e Economia (CIGE).
    10. de Bresser, Jochem & Knoef, Marike, 2021. "Preferences for Income Redistribution : A New Survey Item and Experimental Evidence," Discussion Paper 2021-035, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    11. Javier Olivera, 2014. "Preferences for redistribution after the economic crisis," Economics and Business Letters, Oviedo University Press, vol. 3(3), pages 137-145.
    12. Pfarr Christian & Ulrich Volker, 2011. "Discrete-Choice-Experimente zur Ermittlung der Präferenzen für Umverteilung," Review of Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 62(3), pages 232-262, December.
    13. Joan Costa-Font & Frank Cowell, 2015. "Social Identity And Redistributive Preferences: A Survey," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(2), pages 357-374, April.
    14. Javier Olivera, 2015. "Preferences for redistribution in Europe," IZA Journal of European Labor Studies, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 4(1), pages 1-18, December.
    15. Eiji Yamamura, 2021. "Information of income position and its impact on perceived tax burden and preference for redistribution: An Internet Survey Experiment," Papers 2106.11537, arXiv.org.
    16. Yamamura, Eiji, 2011. "Effect of social capital on income distribution preferences: comparison of neighborhood externality between high- and low-income households," MPRA Paper 32557, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. de Bresser, Jochem & Knoef, Marike, 2021. "Preferences for Income Redistribution : A New Survey Item and Experimental Evidence," Other publications TiSEM 246972d6-0fdb-4243-9e34-2, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    18. de Bresser, Jochem & Knoef, Marike, 2022. "Eliciting preferences for income redistribution: A new survey item," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 214(C).
    19. Ilpo Kauppinen & Panu Poutvaara, 2012. "Preferences for Redistribution among Emigrants from a Welfare State," ifo Working Paper Series 120, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich.
    20. Kuhn, Andreas, 2011. "In the eye of the beholder: Subjective inequality measures and individuals' assessment of market justice," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 27(4), pages 625-641.

    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:wly:ectrin:v:29:y:2021:i:1:p:151-172. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1111/(ISSN)2577-6983 .

    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.