Neighbourhood Inequality Drives Support for Redistribution

• In Event: Poster Session: Democracy and Autocracy (II) & Class and Inequality
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Inequality and Attitudes toward Redistribution

Abstract

Much scholarly attention has been paid to the question of inequality and redistributive preferences. Theory suggests that as inequality rises, so should demand for redistribution, however empirical findings are largely inconclusive, with many studies finding opposing results. The US and UK, among other countries, have seen redistributive preferences weaken in recent decades while income and wealth inequality has markedly increased.

This paper proposes a new theoretical lens with which to answer the question based on social psychological research on relative deprivation and neighbourhood effects, supposing that spatially granular manifestations of economic inequality - i.e. at the neighbourhood-level - drive assessments of inequality and social network formation, thereby affecting redistributive attitudes.

The paper takes two avenues to explore this: first, using agent based modelling, I examine how different patterns of neighbourhood can affect aggregate redistributive preferences for fixed global inequality levels. Second, using granular data on inequality, redistributive attitudes, and voting behaviour for the UK and US, I find empirical support for the hypothesis that local inequality leads to greater support for redistribution. This finding holds for poor and rich alike, and there is some evidence confirming that social network formation (i.e. economically heterogeneous friendships) and perceptions of aggregate inequality levels are driving this effect.

Author

• Joel Suss, London School of Economics