We show that a transfer targeting a minority of the population is sustained by majority voting, however small the minority targeted, when the probability to receive the transfer is decreasing and concave in income. We apply our framework to the French social housing program and obtain that...

When based on perceived rather than o n objective income distributions, the Meltzer- Richards hypothesis and the POUM hypothesis work quite well empirically: there exists a positive link between perceived inequality or perceived upward mobility and the extent of redistribution in democratic...

Although voter turnout in the 2013 general election to the German Bundestag differed considerably across income brackets, the income distribution of voters did not differ, in a statistically significant way, from that of the entire population. The non-uniform turnout, thus, is unlikely to affect...

When based on perceived rather than on objective income distributions, the Meltzer-Richards hypothesis and the POUM hypothesis work quite well empirically: there exists a positive link between perceived inequality or perceived upward mobility and the extent of redistribution in democratic...

Many welfare schemes discourage low skilled individuals from working. In the same time, there is widespread support for the welfare state among the highly educated. We suggest a model which explains these seemingly contrasting observations. In our approach, intergenerational social mobility is...

A number of developing country governments have introduced ambitious anti-poverty programs in recent years, but the dynamic effects of these initiatives on governments' election performance remain poorly understood. Especially in contexts with low program implementation quality, public support...

This paper uses variation in the timing of the Mexican antipoverty program's introduction across municipalities to identify its impact on the share of votes for the local incumbent party. Evidence is found that voters reward the mayor's party for the central benefit to their constituencies,...

The global movement against corruption has long assumed its demise lay in transparency and accountability. We test this assumption by measuring whether highly accountable Indian village council presidents favor their own households while making observable allocations of public works jobs. We...

Short-term re-election strategies are widely used by governments around the world. This is problematic if governments can maximize their re-election chances by prioritizing short-term spending before an election over long-term reforms. This paper tests whether longer program exposure has a...

From 2014 onwards, Europe has witnessed an unprecedented influx of refugees. We conducted a survey experiment with almost 5,000 university students in Germany in which we randomly shifted the perception of refugees’ education level through information provision. We find that the perceived...