PREFERENCES THAT MATTER: INEQUALITY, REDISTRIBUTION AND VOTING

While a significant literature in political economy has recently focused on the relationship between inequality and redistribution preferences, it is unclear that these preferences have any influence over political behavior. In this paper we argue that redistribution preferences are indeed a most significant determinant of voting. We will show that voting for the Democratic Party by the rich is highly dependent on state inequality levels. The rich in more unequal states are more supportive of redistribution than the rich in more equal states. We contend that it is precisely these redistribution preferences that make them more likely to vote for the Democratic Party. Our analysis goes beyond previous research by explicitly studying this preference mechanism in a potential-outcomes framework. We disentangle the direct and indirect effects of inequality to obtain estimates of inequality’s effect on voting through preferences