We review the literature on the public choice approach to explaining redistribution policies. The focus is on policies … that are pursued with the sole reason to redistribute initial endowments. Moreover, we restrict ourselves to redistribution … in democracies. In democratic settings, generic redistribution games lack equilibria. Structure-inducing rules that give …

The goal of this paper is to study the effects of introducing income redistribution at the municipal level, with the … decentralizing income redistribution as it may lead to consistent tax manipulation and large distortions in fiscal policy. …

fractionalization and group antagonism reduce the support for redistribution. Whereas within group inequality increases support for … redistribution, inequality between groups have the opposite effect. All these results hold even if a poor group is in majority. Using … increases and between group inequality decreases redistribution. …

to reduced support for redistribution among natives. This paper exploits a nationwide program placing refugees in … increased immigrant shares on preferences for redistribution. The results show that a larger immigrant population leads to less … support for redistribution in the form of preferred social benefit levels. This reduction in support is especially pronounced …

We distinguish between ideational and interest-based appeals to voters on the supply side of politics, and integrate … about voters’ identities or their views of how the world works. We identify a complementarity between worldview politics and … identity politics and illustrate how they may reinforce each other.Furthermore, we show how adverse economic shocks may result …

even larger were it not for the mitigating dynamics of state politics (by about 0.3-0.6 percentage points). These results …