This research exploits novel evidence on current and historical inequality dynamics, as well as an instrumental variable (IV) strategy (founded on historical settler mortality à la Acemoglu et al.), to document the fundamental role of income redistribution through taxes and transfers in...

In this paper the political economy of revolutions is revisited, as it has been developed and applied in a number of publications by Acemoglu and Robinson. We criticize the fact that these authors abstract from collective-action problems and focus on inequality of income or wealth instead. In...

Does economic inequality diminish the capacity of democracies to extract voluntary sacrifice? And does inequality undermine citizen's willingness to do their civic duty when the state is under threat? We address these questions by linking income inequality with people's willingness to fight for...

We develop a quantitative theory of repeated political transitions driven by revolts and reforms. In the model, the beliefs of disenfranchised citizens play a key role in determining revolutionary pressure, which in interaction with preemptive reforms determine regime dynamics. We study the...

We develop a theory of political transitions inspired in part by the experiences of Western Europe and Latin America. Nondemocratic societies are controlled by a rich elite. The initially disenfranchised poor can contest power by threatening social unrest or revolution and this may force the...

This paper studies how heterogeneity in income dynamics affects the POUM hypothesis (the idea that poor people do not support high level of redistribution because they hope to be rich in the future). We consider a setting where individuals evaluate their expected future income using both their...

In this paper, we assume that redistribution modifies the community structure of an economy and generates both intra and intergenerational mobility. In a world in which neighbourhood attributes and family backgrounds are important to determine the investment effort and the productivity of...

This paper generalizes the analysis of distributive con?ict, politics, and growth developed by by Alesina-Rodrik (1994). We construct a heterogenous-agent framework in which both growth and the distribution of wealth are endogenous. Due to adjustments in the distribution of wealth, the...

This paper studies how heterogeneity in income dynamics affects the POUM hypothesis (the idea that poor people do not support high level of redistribution because they hope to be rich in the future). We consider a setting where individuals evaluate their expected future income using both their...