ABSTRACT

The competing arguments of “unequal democracy” and “dynamic democracy” highlight the puzzle of why there has been unabated economic inequality in the U.S. over the past few decades. This study addresses the question by investigating the causal directions and dynamic relations of inequality, redistributive policy specific moods (social welfare and tax), and government redistribution. Unlike current approaches of emphasizing mass preferences or government responsiveness across income groups, this work puts forward that the sustained increase in inequality is due to a lack of evidence of the “dialogue” between inequality and redistribution. It is the policy specific moods that lead to this disconnection. The Granger causality test based on time series data in the U.S. indicates that inequality causes tax but not social welfare policy moods, whereas redistribution simply responds to the latter. Also, the ECM results show that a long-run relationship presents between inequality and tax policy moods as well as between social welfare policy moods and redistribution. This study suggests that the disconnection is a consequence of the mismatch between the redistributive policy demand and supply. Distinguishing between policy preferences for welfare benefits and taxes improves our ability to explain the self-reinforcing inequality.

摘要

“不平等民主”和“动态民主”的相互竞争凸显了过去几十年来美国经济不平等为何有增无减的谜团。本研究通过调查不平等的因果方向和动态关系、再分配政策的具体情绪（社会福利和税收）以及政府再分配来解决这个问题。与当前强调大众偏好或政府对不同收入群体的反应的方法不同，这项工作提出，不平等的持续加剧是由于缺乏不平等与再分配之间“对话”的证据。正是政策特定情绪导致了这种脱节。基于美国时间序列数据的格兰杰因果关系检验表明，不平等会导致税收而非社会福利政策情绪，而再分配只是对后者的回应。此外，ECM 结果表明，不平等与税收政策情绪之间以及社会福利政策情绪与再分配之间存在长期关系。这项研究表明，脱节是再分配政策需求与供给之间不匹配的结果。区分福利和税收的政策偏好可以提高我们解释自我强化不平等的能力。