17:45 - 20:00
Friday-Panel
Chair/s:
Andrew Philips
Discussant/s:
Shared by Panellists
Meeting Room M

Mallory Compton, Andrew Philips
Support for What? Economic Insecurity and Multidimensional Social Policy Preferences

Tine Paulsen
Does Proportional Representation Increase Redistribution? Evidence from Early 20th Century Norwegian Municipalities

Jan Auerbach
Office-Holding Premia and Representative Democracy
Office-Holding Premia and Representative Democracy
Jan Auerbach
University of Exeter

I show that in a representative democracy, the predominance of high-income citizens in the legislature may imply that no legislator supports the redistribution policy low-income citizens prefer. Provided redistribution is a salient policy issue, the predominance of high-income citizens cannot arise if low-income citizens still support more redistribution once in office—they have to join high-income citizens in opposing it. I formalize the underlying logic using office-holding premia. High-income citizens can only predominate the legislature if high premia induce low-income citizens to oppose more redistribution once in office. The office-holding premium the predominance of high-income citizens requires increases with income inequality.