Public Support for Redistribution Revisited

Session Submission Type: In-Person Full Paper Panel

Session Description

The four papers included in this proposal explore the formation of public attitudes towards redistributive policies in advanced industrial states. More preciselty, the papers explore how economic inequality as well as fairness and efficiency considerations affect public support for different kinds of redistributive policy. While the Cavaillé paper focuses on how fairness considerations favor some redistributive policies over others, the Rosset-Pontusson documents significant changes in preferences for types of welfare benefits in response to rising inequality in Western Europe. Focusing on the US, the Lynch-Rigby paper compares attitudes towards redistributive policies and the moderating role of efficiency considerations in the domains healthcare, education and tax-transfer systems. Finally, the Becker paper explores the effects of gender inequality on attitudes towards redistribution of income. In its own way, each of the four papers challenges conventional wisdoms in the literature on preferences for redistribution and/or addresses empirical puzzles that this literature has not yet resolved.

Sub Unit

• Division 14: Comparative Politics of Advanced Industrial Democracies

Individual Presentations

• What We Get Wrong About Demand for Redistribution and How to Get It Right - Charlotte Cavaille, University of Michigan, Ford School of Public Policy

• Inequality and Changes in Redistributive Policy Preferences Since 2008 - Jonas Pontusson, University of Geneva; Jan Rosset

• More Than Self-Interest? Fairness Beliefs and Intergenerational Mobility - Verena Rebecca Fetscher, University of Hamburg; David Rueda, University of Oxford

Chair

• Noam Lupu Vanderbilt University

Discussant

• David Rueda University of Oxford