In this paper we revisit the relationship between democracy, redistribution and inequality. We first explain the … theoretical reasons why democracy is expected to increase redistribution and reduce inequality, and why this expectation may fail …: democracy does not lead to a uniform decline in post-tax inequality, but can result in changes in fiscal redistribution and …

wealth tends to undermine democracy. Given high oil prices, some observers see the country as virtually condemned to … around the world suggests that for countries like Russia with an established oil industry, even large increases in the scale …

An influential thesis often associated with De Tocqueville views social mobility as a bulwark of democracy: when … force making democracy less stable in societies with high social mobility: when the median voter expects to move up … conflicting preferences of her "future selves," and that the evolution of institutions is determined through the implicit …

. However, the introduction of elections and other early trappings of democracy often has the perverse effect of exacerbating … democracy and capitalism--is to move to a governance structure based on impersonal rules that apply in the same way to everyone …

redistribution among citizens from different socioeconomic backgrounds and the actual extent of government redistribution. Our focus … on redistribution arises from the inherent class conflicts it engenders in policy choices, allowing us to examine whose … realized redistribution. This finding contradicts the expectations of both leading experts and regular citizens …

-led redistribution and greater acceptance of wage inequality (e.g., United States versus Western Europe). If individual nations evolve …-led redistribution to the poor. These patterns suggest that short-run inequality shocks can be reinforced in the labor market but do not … result in weaker political preferences for redistribution …

A key tenet of representative democracy is that politicians' discourse and policies should follow voters' preferences …