TY - JOUR
T1 - Does democracy reduce economic inequality?
AU - Timmons, Jeffrey F.
PY - 2010/10
Y1 - 2010/10
N2 - Democracy is frequently framed as a distributional game. Much of the evidence supporting this possibility rests on the World Bank's 1996 'high-quality' inequality dataset. Using the updated and revised 'high-quality' dataset of 2007, this article revisits those results. Using the same country sample, more years and similar specifications to previous studies, as well as a larger country sample with more appropriate statistical models, we find no relationship between democracy/civil liberties and aggregate measures of economic inequality. Whether, and how, democracy decreases economic inequality remains an open question.
AB - Democracy is frequently framed as a distributional game. Much of the evidence supporting this possibility rests on the World Bank's 1996 'high-quality' inequality dataset. Using the updated and revised 'high-quality' dataset of 2007, this article revisits those results. Using the same country sample, more years and similar specifications to previous studies, as well as a larger country sample with more appropriate statistical models, we find no relationship between democracy/civil liberties and aggregate measures of economic inequality. Whether, and how, democracy decreases economic inequality remains an open question.
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U2 - 10.1017/S0007123410000165
DO - 10.1017/S0007123410000165
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:78650071422
VL - 40
SP - 741
EP - 757
JO - British Journal of Political Science
JF - British Journal of Political Science
SN - 0007-1234
IS - 4
ER -