left parties poor voters and electoral participation in advanced industrial societies although income inequality is an important normative issue for students of democratic politics little is known about its effects on citizens electoral participation the authors develop a formal

redistribution income and voting a model that reconciles the positive association between income and voting found in cross sectional studies with the negative correlation between income and turnout over time is developed voting is modeled as a group rational activity voter turnout rates in the united states for the 1948 1960 1968 and 1980 elections are used to test the model voter turnout is found first to fall and then to rise as families move up the income distribution voter turnout also rises as real wages fall as educational attainment increases as elections become closer and as poll taxes and literacy tests are removed

the economic effects of democratic participation abstract considerable concern has been expressed in recent years about declines in voter participation rates in the united states and in several other major democratic countries some feel low participation rates introduce a class bias into the political process and thereby worsen the outcomes from it little empirical work exists however that measures the effects of lower participation on the welfare of a country this paper begins to fill this void it presents cross national evidence that high levels of democratic participation are associated with more equal distributions of income the paper s results also imply however that this reduction in income inequality comes at a cost high participation rates are related to larger government sectors which in turn lead to slower economic growth we also present evidence of the capture of government by upper income groups in latin and central american countries

environmentalism democracy and pollution control this paper makes two empirical contributions to the literature based on predictions generated by a lobby group model first we investigate how environmental lobby groups affect the determination of environmental policy in rich and developing countries second we explore the interaction between democratic participation and political electoral competition the empirical findings suggest that environmental lobby groups tend to positively affect the stringency of environmental policy moreover political competition tends to raise policy stringency in particular where citizens participation in the democratic process is widespread

dependence distorted development and fertility trends in noncore nations a structural analysis of cross national data to evaluate the hypothesis that dependence on developed nations distorts demographic development in less developed countries ldcs a researcher used panel regression analysis to study variables from 62 nations multinational corporate penetration an estimate of the shares of both a nations capital and its labor that are controlled by developed country based transnational corporations was used as a measure of the level of dependence the analysis demonstrated that school enrollment was highly correlated with level of development social insurance program history and both family planning effort fpe measures in addition countries that underwent the most economic growth the most concerted fpes etc had the most rapid decline in fertility rates conversely those with high levels of multinational corporate penetration dependency experienced either an increase in fertility or a slow decline for example south koreas 1965 cbr was 36 below the population mean of 45 in 1984 the cbr dropped to 20 even further below the population mean of 39 a dramatic absolute and relative fertility decline south korea also had the highest rate of economic growth and its increase in family planning program effort was dramatic from no measurable effect in 1972 to the nation with the highest fpe score in 1982 in addition the level of multinational penetration was modest in conclusion this research supports the view that intranational economic phenomena such as rate of economic growth and concerted fpes contribute significantly to fertility decline on the other hand multinational corporate penetration distorts development and impedes fertility reduction

did women s suffrage change the size and scope of government this paper examines the growth of government during this century as a result of giving women the right to vote using cross sectional time series data for 1870 1940 we examine state government expenditures and revenue as well as voting by u s house and senate state delegations and the passage of a wide range of different state laws suffrage coincided with immediate increases in state government expenditures and revenue and more liberal voting patterns for federal representatives and these effects continued growing over time as more women took advantage of the franchise contrary to many recent suggestions the gender gap is not something that has arisen since the 1970s and it helps explain why american government started growing when it did

the effect of the expansion of the voting franchise on the size of government this paper examines the claim that expansion of the voting franchise has been an important factor in the growth of government state government spending and state and local spending are explained using a panel of 46 states for 1950 88 elimination of poll taxes and literacy tests led to higher turnout particularly among the poor and a poorer pivotal voter as predicted we find that these changes a fall in the income of voters relative to state income and the ouster of republicans from state government led to a sharp rise in welfare spending but no change in other spending

optimal policy intervention and the social value of public information svensson 2006 argues that morris and shin s 2002 analysis is contrary to what is claimed actually pro transparency this paper re examines the issue but with an important modification to the original morris and shin framework recognizing that central banks impact on the economy not only indirectly via their public announcements but also directly through their policy actions we consider the social value of public information in the presence of active policy intervention our results strengthen morris and shin s conclusions considerably in particular we find that public disclosure of the central bank s information is always undesirable

an evaluation of does economic inequality breed political conflict studies contradictory findings that economic inequality may have a positive negative or no impact on political conflict are a puzzle for conflict studies three approaches have been used t o explain the inconsistent findings of the ei pc economic inequality political conflict nexus statistical modeling formal modeling and theory building because analysts have tended to possess different research skills these three approaches have been employed in isolation from one another singly however all three approaches have proved deficient and are unlikely to solve the ei pc puzzle the most fruitful approach is to combine the assumptions of the theory builders and the deductive approach of the formal modelers with the various empirical tests of the statistical modelers such an approach to the ei pc puzzle produces a crucial test of the deprived actor and rational actor theories of conflict the approach is also our best hope for solving the other long standing puzzles in conflict studies

explaining international and intertemporal variations in income inequality this paper explores the propositions that income inequality is relatively stable within countries and that it varies significantly among countries a new and expanded data set provides broad support for both propositions drawing on a political economy and capital market imperfection arguments to explain the intertemporal and international variation in inequality the empirical analysis shows that the predicted variables associated with the first argument a measure of civil liberties and the initial level of secondary schooling and the second argument a measure of financial depth and the initial distribution of land are indeed important determinants of inequality this paper explores two propositions regarding income inequality they are first income inequality is relatively stable within countries and second it varies significantly across countries to illustrate note that the gini coefficient in india remained almost constant for forty years 1951 92 with mean 32 6 and standard deviation 2 0 2 in contrast the variation in gini coefficients across countries is large 61 9 in honduras in 1968 compared with 17 8 in bulgaria in 1976 if substantiated these propositions have potentially significant implications for poverty the significance of the first is obvious barring any fundamental socio political change poverty reduction will depend crucially on the rate of economic growth given this the significance of the second is that in inegalitarian economies the poor will enjoy a smaller share of any national increment in income than in more egalitarian ones drawing on a new and expanded data set on inequality deininger and squire 1996a the first of the paper s three sections conducts standard statistical tests of the two propositions the sample comprises 573 observations on the most common measure of inequality the gini coefficient for 49 developed and developing countries covering the period 1947 94 the results broadly confirm our two propositions specifically analysis of variance anova shows that about 90 of the total variance in the gini coefficients

a new data set measuring income inequality this article presents a new data set on inequality in the distribution of income the authors explain the criteria they applied in selecting data on gini coefficients and on individual quintile groups income shares comparison of the new data set with existing compilations reveals that the data assembled here represent an improvement in quality and a significant expansion in coverage although differences in the definition of the underlying data might still affect inter temporal and international comparability based on this new data set the authors do not find a systematic link between growth and changes in aggregate inequality they do find a strong positive relationship between growth and reduction of poverty

can budget institutions counteract political indiscipline the budget is an expression of political rather than economic priorities we confirm this proposition for a group of new and potential members of the european union finding that politics dominates the contemporary practice of democracy can increase budget deficits through not only ideological preferences but also more fragmented government coalitions and higher voter participation long term structural forces triggered by societal divisions and representative electoral rules have more ambiguous implications but also appear to increase budget pressures as others have also found however our most robust and hopeful finding is that budget institutions mechanisms and rules of the budget process that create checks and balances have significant value in curbing fiscal pressures even when the politics is representative but undisciplined and when long term structural forces are unfavourable stefania fabrizio and ashoka mody

income distribution in the united states political action has affected postwar income distribution in the united states mainly through policy induced variations in macroeconomic activity and government transfer benefits in proportion to total income we present a small dynamic model of the connections among the partisan balance of power macroeconomic fluctuations transfer spending trends and income distribution outcomes the model is based on the premise that the parties have different distributional goals and it is designed to identify how shifts in party control of the presidency and the strength of the parties in congress have affected the distribution of after tax after transfer income by influencing cyclical economic performance and the flow of resources to transfer programs we therefore extend the partisan theory of macroeconomic policy to the domain of income distribution outcomes

democracy and environmental quality we develop and estimate an econometric model of the relationship between several local and global air pollutants and economic development while allowing for critical aspects of the socio political economic regime of a state we obtain empirical support for our hypothesis that democracy and its associated freedoms provide the conduit through which agents can exercise their preferences for environmental quality more effectively than under an autocratic regime thus leading to decreased concentrations or emissions of pollution however additional factors such as income inequality age distribution education and urbanization may mitigate or exacerbate the net effect of the type of political regime on pollution depending on the underlying societal preferences and the weights assigned to those preferences by the state

the effect of international dependence on income inequality and political violence recent studies of collective political violence have overlooked international causal factors this cross national study of 46 51 nations including analyses of influential cases expends on earlier analyses by simultaneously examining both the external international and the internal intranational determinants of collective political violence regression analysis suggests that transnational corporate penetration an international factor contributes to increased political violence both directly and indirectly through its effect on income inequality we conclude that theoretical and empirical integration of intraand international factors yields the most comprehensive explanation of the causes of collective political violence

urban bias dependence and economic stagnation in noncore nations this paper contributes to the growing body of research that assesses the effects of patterns of urbanization on economic growth in less developed countries ldcs regression analysis of data for 65 80 nations including analyses of influential cases suggests that both urban bias and dependency have independent simultaneous and negative effects on economic growth further analyses reveal a strong positive relationship between dependency and urban bias these findings show that understanding urbanization and development in the third world requires the consideration of both external international and internal intranational factors and a combination of the insights gained from dependency world system human ecology and modernization theories

the origins of democracy a model with application to ancient greece abstract this paper seeks to provide an improved understanding of the origins of democracy it begins by developing a theoretical model to demonstrate how exogenous economic conditions can influence the incentives to establish democratic institutions the model predicts that democratic institutions will expand where they mitigate important time inconsistency problems and therefore encourage investment exogenous conditions determine the magnitude of those time inconsistency problems and hence the likelihood of democracy a comparison of ancient greek city states suggests that the conditions under which democracy first emerged support the model other potential applications are discussed

inequality and insurgency maldistribution of land in agrarian societies is commonly thought to be an important precondition of mass political violence and revolution others argue that because of the difficulty of mobilizing rural populations for political protest land maldistribution is irrelevant except as part of an inegalitarian distribution of income nationwide these rival inequality hypotheses have significant implications with respect to the kinds of reforms likely to reduce the potential for insurgency in a society they are tested using the most comprehensive cross national compilation of data currently available on land inequality landlessness and income inequality support is found for the argument that attributes the greater causal import to income inequality moreover the effect of income inequality on political violence is found to hold in the context of a causal model that takes into account the repressiveness of the regime governmental acts of coercion intensity of separatism and level of economic development

public sector efficiency the roles of political and budgetary institutions fiscal capacity and democratic participation the purpose of this paper is to investigate whether efficiency in public service provision is affected by political and budgetary institutions fiscal capacity and democratic participation in order to address this issue we take advantage of a new global efficiency measure for norwegian local governments we find that high fiscal capacity and a high degree of party fragmentation contribute to low efficiency in addition there is some evidence that democratic participation increases efficiency while a centralized top down budgetary procedure is associated with low efficiency

unequal participation democracy s unresolved dilemma presidential address american political science association 1996 low voter turnout is a serious democratic problem for five reasons 1 it means unequal turnout that is systematically biased against less well to do citizens 2 unequal turnout spells unequal political influence 3 u s voter turnout is especially low but measured as percent of voting age population it is also relatively low in most other countries 4 turnout in midterm regional local and supranational elections less salient but by no means unimportant elections tends to be especially poor 5 turnout appears to be declining everywhere the problem of inequality can be solved by institutional mechanisms that maximize turnout one option is the combination of voter friendly registration rules proportional representation infrequent elections weekend voting and holding less salient elections concurrently with the most important national elections the other option which can maximize turnout by itself is compulsory voting its advantages far outweigh the normative and practical objections to it

electoral turnout in rational voting and consumption perspectives a single equation econometric model of voting participation behavior is developed within the context of rational voter and household investment consumption theories the model is tested using aggregate electoral district level data from 10 canadian provincial elections and the 1970 canadian census the regression estimates show substantial consistency across the various elections which comprise this study s data base despite considerable collinearity education and income appear to be strongly related to voting turnout in a manner which is consistent with the predictions of economic theory

voting inequality and redistribution this paper surveys models of voting on redistribution under reason able assumptions the baseline model produces an equilibrium with the extent of redistributive taxation chosen by the median income earner if the median is poorer than average redistribution is from rich to poor and increasing inequality increases redistribution however under different assumptions about the economic environment redistribution may not be simply rich to poor and inequality need not increase redistribution several lines of argument are presented in particular political participation public provision of private goods public pensions and tax avoidance or evasion