This article tests whether latent class conflict exists in Russia. It does so by theorizing that if class conflict exists, it should be reflected in the tax policy. The article constructs an original formal model of the authoritarian tax policy choice, finding equilibria in which the local government takes into account public sentiment even in the absence of elections, in an effect that resembles a market. This public sentiment is operationalized by performing a large-n latent Dirichlet allocation topic analysis of Russian regional newspaper articles dealing with the middle and working classes. In empirically testing its formal model, this article finds evidence that certain tax policy is driven by class conflict.

中文翻译：

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俄罗斯地区阶级冲突的建模和测量

本文测试俄罗斯是否存在潜在的阶级冲突。它通过理论化，如果存在阶级冲突，它应该反映在税收政策中。本文构建了威权税收政策选择的原始形式模型，找到了即使在没有选举的情况下地方政府也会考虑公众情绪的均衡，其效果类似于市场。这种公众情绪通过对涉及中产阶级和工人阶级的俄罗斯地区报纸文章进行大 n 潜在狄利克雷分配主题分析来实现。在对其形式模型进行实证检验时，本文发现了某些税收政策是由阶级冲突驱动的证据。