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COMMUNITY MEMBERSHIP ASPIRATIONS: THE LINK BETWEEN INEQUALITY AND REDISTRIBUTION REVISITED*
Author(s) -
Desdoigts Alain,
Moizeau Fabien
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
international economic review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.658
H-Index - 86
eISSN - 1468-2354
pISSN - 0020-6598
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-2354.2005.00354.x
Subject(s) - redistribution (election) , inequality , economics , voting , social mobility , majority rule , sorting , demographic economics , population , redistribution of income and wealth , socioeconomic status , public economics , economic inequality , microeconomics , sociology , public good , political science , law , demography , mathematical analysis , mathematics , politics , computer science , programming language
This article studies how distributional tensions can act in many different ways depending on the social affinity between the different economic classes and their prospect of upward or downward mobility. We consider that socioeconomic group membership through its implied social interactions and peer effects is an important determinant of an individual's outcome. Agents, while voting on a social contract, take into account the consequences of their choice over their ex post belonging to a particular community. Thus, the endogenous sorting of the population into clusters may lead to a nonmonotonic relationship between inequality and the pressure for redistributive policies.