IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/idb/brikps/1905.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Inequality, Democracy, and Persistence: Is There a Political Kuznets Curve?

Author

Listed:
  • Chong, Alberto E.

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to provide comprehensive empirical evidence on recent theories that link democracy and income inequality for the period 1960-1995. In simple cross-country regressions I find a non-monotonic link between these two variables when using ordinary least squares, instrumental variables, and Eusufzai tests. Since these results cannot be taken as "true" time series findings, even though recent theories that explain such a link are, I also employ recent methods applied to dynamic models on panel data. These techniques allow accounting for potential simultaneity and heterogeneity problems. Using the preferred econometric methodology, I also find support for the existence of a political Kuznets curve. Moreover, it appears that income inequality is unconditionally persistent. Results hold for two different democracy proxies and when sensitivity analysis is applied.

Suggested Citation

  • Chong, Alberto E., 2001. "Inequality, Democracy, and Persistence: Is There a Political Kuznets Curve?," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 1905, Inter-American Development Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:idb:brikps:1905
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://publications.iadb.org/publications/english/document/Inequality-Democracy-and-Persistence-Is-There-a-Political-Kuznets-Curve.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hansen, Lars Peter, 1982. "Large Sample Properties of Generalized Method of Moments Estimators," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(4), pages 1029-1054, July.
    2. Barro, Robert J, 1996. "Democracy and Growth," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 1-27, March.
    3. Barro, Robert J. & Lee, Jong-Wha, 1993. "International comparisons of educational attainment," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 363-394, December.
    4. Alberto Alesina & Dani Rodrik, 1994. "Distributive Politics and Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(2), pages 465-490.
    5. Daron Acemoglu & James A. Robinson, 2000. "Why Did the West Extend the Franchise? Democracy, Inequality, and Growth in Historical Perspective," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(4), pages 1167-1199.
    6. Robert J. Barro, 1991. "Economic Growth in a Cross Section of Countries," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(2), pages 407-443.
    7. Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes & Andrei Shleifer & Robert W. Vishny, 1998. "Law and Finance," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(6), pages 1113-1155, December.
    8. Bourguignon, Francois & Verdier, Thierry, 2000. "Oligarchy, democracy, inequality and growth," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(2), pages 285-313, August.
    9. Levine, Ross & Renelt, David, 1992. "A Sensitivity Analysis of Cross-Country Growth Regressions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(4), pages 942-963, September.
    10. Oded Galor & Joseph Zeira, 1993. "Income Distribution and Macroeconomics," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 60(1), pages 35-52.
    11. Daron Acemoglu & James A. Robinson, 2002. "The Political Economy of the Kuznets Curve," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 6(2), pages 183-203, June.
    12. Norman Loayza & Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel & Luis Servén, 2000. "What Drives Private Saving Across the World?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 82(2), pages 165-181, May.
    13. Alberto Chong & Luisa Zanforlin, 2001. "Technological adaptation, trade, and growth," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 137(4), pages 565-592, December.
    14. Li, Hongyi & Squire, Lyn & Zou, Heng-fu, 1998. "Explaining International and Intertemporal Variations in Income Inequality," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 108(446), pages 26-43, January.
    15. Gurr, Ted Robert, 1974. "Persistence and Change in Political Systems, 1800–1971," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 68(4), pages 1482-1504, December.
    16. V. V. Chari & Patrick J. Kehoe & Ellen R. McGrattan, 1996. "The Poverty of Nations: A Quantitative Exploration," NBER Working Papers 5414, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Chong, Alberto & Calderon, Cesar, 2000. "Institutional Quality and Income Distribution," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 48(4), pages 761-786, July.
    18. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 1994. "Is Inequality Harmful for Growth?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(3), pages 600-621, June.
    19. Mark Gradstein & Branko Milanovic, 2000. "Does Liberté = Egalité? A Survey of the Empirical Evidence on the Links between Political Democracy and Income Inequality," CESifo Working Paper Series 261, CESifo.
    20. Atkinson, A.B. & Brandolini, A., 2000. "Promise and Pitfalls in the Use of 'Secondary' Data -Sets: Income Inequality in OECD Countries," Papers 379, Banca Italia - Servizio di Studi.
    21. Wood, Adrian, 1991. "Global trends in real exchange rates 1960-1984," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 317-332, April.
    22. Eusufzai, Zaki, 1997. "The Kuznets hypothesis: An indirect test," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 54(1), pages 81-85, January.
    23. Arellano, Manuel & Bover, Olympia, 1995. "Another look at the instrumental variable estimation of error-components models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 29-51, July.
    24. Justman, Moshe & Gradstein, Mark, 1999. "The Industrial Revolution, Political Transition, and the Subsequent Decline in Inequality in 19th-Century Britain," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 109-127, April.
    25. Feinstein, Charles, 1988. "The Rise and Fall of the Williamson Curve," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 48(3), pages 699-729, September.
    26. Keith Jaggers & Ted Robert Gurr, 1995. "Tracking Democracy's Third Wave with the Polity III Data," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 32(4), pages 469-482, November.
    27. Lindert, Peter H. & Williamson, Jeffrey G., 1985. "Growth, equality, and history," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 341-377, October.
    28. Adam Przeworski & Fernando Limongi, 1993. "Political Regimes and Economic Growth," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 7(3), pages 51-69, Summer.
    29. Blundell, Richard & Bond, Stephen, 1998. "Initial conditions and moment restrictions in dynamic panel data models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 115-143, August.
    30. Saint-Paul, Gilles & Verdier, Thierry, 1992. "Historical accidents and the persistence of distributional conflicts," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 6(4), pages 406-422, December.
    31. Lipset, Seymour Martin, 1959. "Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy1," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 53(1), pages 69-105, March.
    32. Anand, Sudhir & Kanbur, S. M. R., 1993. "The Kuznets process and the inequality--development relationship," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 25-52, February.
    33. Robert Summers & Alan Heston, 1991. "The Penn World Table (Mark 5): An Expanded Set of International Comparisons, 1950–1988," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(2), pages 327-368.
    34. Manuel Arellano & Stephen Bond, 1991. "Some Tests of Specification for Panel Data: Monte Carlo Evidence and an Application to Employment Equations," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 58(2), pages 277-297.
    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. Alberto Chong, 2001. "Desigualdad, democracia y persistencia: ¿existe una curva Kuznets política?," Research Department Publications 4254, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    2. Amir-ud-Din, Rafi & Rashid, Abdul & Ahmad, Shabbir, 2008. "Democracy, Inequality and Economic Development: The Case of Pakistan," MPRA Paper 26935, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Jorge Braga Macedo & Joaquim Oliveira Martins & João Tovar Jalles, 2021. "Globalization, Freedoms and Economic convergence: an empirical exploration of a trivariate relationship using a large panel," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 18(3), pages 605-629, July.
    4. Fabrizio Carmignani, 2001. "Theory and Evidence on the Political Economy of Growth," Working Papers 33, University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics, revised Jan 2001.
    5. Castelló-Climent, Amparo, 2008. "On the distribution of education and democracy," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(2), pages 179-190, October.
    6. Martin Baur, 2010. "Politics and Income Distribution," Chapters, in: Neri Salvadori (ed.), Institutional and Social Dynamics of Growth and Distribution, chapter 3, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    7. Alberto Chong & Mauricio Olivera, 2005. "On Compulsory Voting and Income Inequality in a Cross-Section of Countries," Research Department Publications 4413, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    8. Salma Hadj Fraj & Mekki Hamdaoui & Samir Maktouf, 2018. "Governance and economic growth: The role of the exchange rate regime," International Economics, CEPII research center, issue 156, pages 326-364.
    9. Dollar, David & Kraay, Aart, 2002. "Growth Is Good for the Poor," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 7(3), pages 195-225, September.
    10. Wafa Ghardallou & Abdelkader Boudriga, 2014. "Financial Development and Democracy: is the Relationship Non-Linear?," Working Papers 886, Economic Research Forum, revised Dec 2014.
    11. Alberto Chong & Mauricio Olivera, 2005. "Votación obligatoria y desigualdad del ingreso en una muestra representativa de países," Research Department Publications 4414, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    12. Fedderke, Johannes & Klitgaard, Robert, 2013. "How Much Do Rights Matter?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 187-206.
    13. Gründler, Klaus & Krieger, Tommy, 2016. "Democracy and growth: Evidence from a machine learning indicator," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 45(S), pages 85-107.
    14. Kunieda, Takuma & Okada, Keisuke & Shibata, Akihisa, 2014. "Finance And Inequality: How Does Globalization Change Their Relationship?," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 18(5), pages 1091-1128, July.
    15. Seher Gülşah Topuz, 2022. "The Relationship Between Income Inequality and Economic Growth: Are Transmission Channels Effective?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 162(3), pages 1177-1231, August.
    16. César Calderón & Alberto Chong, 2009. "Labor market institutions and income inequality: an empirical exploration," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 138(1), pages 65-81, January.
    17. Rougier, Eric, 2016. "“Fire in Cairo”: Authoritarian–Redistributive Social Contracts, Structural Change, and the Arab Spring," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 148-171.
    18. Mark Gradstein & Branko Milanovic, 2004. "Does Libertè = Egalité? A Survey of the Empirical Links between Democracy and Inequality with Some Evidence on the Transition Economies," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(4), pages 515-537, September.
    19. Durlauf, Steven N. & Quah, Danny T., 1999. "The new empirics of economic growth," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 4, pages 235-308, Elsevier.
    20. Capolupo, Rosa, 2009. "The New Growth Theories and Their Empirics after Twenty Years," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 3, pages 1-72.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    WP-445;

    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:idb:brikps:1905. 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: Felipe Herrera Library (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iadbbus.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.