IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolet/v220y2022ics0165176522003196.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Intergenerational mobility and voting in the presidential election: Evidence from U.S. counties

Author

Listed:
  • Choi, Sungmun

Abstract

According to conventional knowledge, higher intergenerational mobility is related to lower preferences for redistribution and, thus, lower support for liberal (i.e. left-wing) political parties. While most of previous studies use survey responses to elicit political preferences, I use county-level statistics of intergenerational mobility and voting patterns to analyze the link between the two. I find that, even after controlling for average income, income inequality, and other characteristics of counties, the vote share for the Democratic candidate in the 2008 presidential election is significantly lower in counties with higher intergenerational mobility.

Suggested Citation

  • Choi, Sungmun, 2022. "Intergenerational mobility and voting in the presidential election: Evidence from U.S. counties," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 220(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:220:y:2022:i:c:s0165176522003196
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2022.110845
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176522003196
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econlet.2022.110845?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Raj Chetty & Nathaniel Hendren, 2018. "The Impacts of Neighborhoods on Intergenerational Mobility II: County-Level Estimates," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 133(3), pages 1163-1228.
    2. Alberto Alesina & Guido Cozzi & Noemi Mantovan, 2012. "The Evolution of Ideology, Fairness and Redistribution," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 122(565), pages 1244-1261, December.
    3. 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.
    4. 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.
    5. Roland Bénabou & Jean Tirole, 2006. "Belief in a Just World and Redistributive Politics," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(2), pages 699-746.
    6. Alberto Alesina & George-Marios Angeletos, 2005. "Fairness and Redistribution," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(4), pages 960-980, September.
    7. Alberto Alesina & Stefanie Stantcheva & Edoardo Teso, 2018. "Intergenerational Mobility and Preferences for Redistribution," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(2), pages 521-554, February.
    8. Raj Chetty & Nathaniel Hendren & Patrick Kline & Emmanuel Saez, 2014. "Where is the land of Opportunity? The Geography of Intergenerational Mobility in the United States," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 129(4), pages 1553-1623.
    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. Andrea Fazio & Tommaso Reggiani, 2022. "Minimum wage and tolerance for inequality," MUNI ECON Working Papers 2022-07, Masaryk University, revised Feb 2023.
    2. Windsteiger, Lisa, 2022. "The redistributive consequences of segregation and misperceptions," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    3. Christina Fong & Panu Poutvaara, 2019. "Redistributive politics with target-specific beliefs," ifo Working Paper Series 297, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich.
    4. 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).
    5. Vladimir Gimpelson & Daniel Treisman, 2018. "Misperceiving inequality," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(1), pages 27-54, March.
    6. Gualtieri, Giovanni & Nicolini, Marcella & Sabatini, Fabio, 2019. "Repeated shocks and preferences for redistribution," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 53-71.
    7. Matías Strehl Pessina, 2022. "Sectores de altos ingresos y preferencias por redistribución," Documentos de Trabajo (working papers) 22-15, Instituto de Economía - IECON.
    8. Roth, Christopher & Wohlfart, Johannes, 2018. "Experienced inequality and preferences for redistribution," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 251-262.
    9. Lin Yang, 2018. "The relationship between poverty and inequality: Resource constraint mechanisms," CASE Papers /212, Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, LSE.
    10. Erik Schokkaert & Tom Truyts, 2017. "Preferences for redistribution and social structure," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 49(3), pages 545-576, December.
    11. Hwang, Soo Kyeong, 2020. "Korea's preference for redistribution and the policy decisions," KDI Policy Studies 2019-01, Korea Development Institute (KDI).
    12. Fehr, Dietmar & Müller, Daniel & Preuss, Marcel, 2024. "Social mobility perceptions and inequality acceptance," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 221(C), pages 366-384.
    13. Gangadharan, Lata & Grossman, Philip J. & Vecci, Joe, 2021. "Moving on up: The impact of income mobility on antisocial behaviour," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    14. Nina Weber, 2023. "Experience of Social Mobility and Support for Redistribution: Accepting or Blaming the System?," ifo Working Paper Series 397, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich.
    15. Rafael Di Tella & Juan Dubra, 2016. "Meet the Oligarchs: Business Legitimacy, State Capacity and Taxation," Documentos de Trabajo/Working Papers 1607, Facultad de Ciencias Empresariales y Economia. Universidad de Montevideo..
    16. Lin Yang, 2018. "The net effect of housing-related costs and advantages on the relationship between inequality and poverty," CASE Papers /211, Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, LSE.
    17. Andrea Fazio, 2021. "Beautiful inequality: Are beautiful people more willing to redistribute?," Working Papers in Public Economics 194, University of Rome La Sapienza, Department of Economics and Law.
    18. Kourtellos, Andros & Petrou, Kyriakos, 2022. "The role of social interactions in preferences for redistribution," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 200(C), pages 716-737.
    19. Yang, Lin, 2018. "The relationship between poverty and inequality: resource constraint mechanisms," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 103463, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    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

    Keywords

    Intergenerational mobility; Preferences for redistribution; Election;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • H11 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Structure and Scope of Government
    • J62 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Job, Occupational and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion

    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:eee:ecolet:v:220:y:2022:i:c:s0165176522003196. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolet .

    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.