Macroeconomic and Social Change and Popular Demand for Redistribution

This paper tests the self-interest hypothesis arguing that changes in macroeconomic and social conditions affect popular demand for redistribution. I analyze data from four waves of the European Social Survey and use a synthetic cohort design to generate pseudo panel data for socio-demographic groups that are matched over time. I estimate fixed effect models and find that (1) changes in macroeconomic and social conditions affect the demand for redistribution; (2) results are mostly consistent with the self-interest hypothesis claiming that agents demand more redistribution in economically hard times (and vice versa in good times); and (3) the effect of macroeconomic and social conditions on the demand for redistribution are highly non-linear