Does inequality harm democracy? An empirical investigation on the UK

Soci, Anna ; Maccagnan, Anna ; Mantovani, Daniela (2014) Does inequality harm democracy? An empirical investigation on the UK. Bologna: Dipartimento di Scienze economiche DSE, p. 55. DOI 10.6092/unibo/amsacta/3996. In: Quaderni - Working Paper DSE (935). ISSN 2282-6483.
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Abstract

This paper presents an empirical investigation about the effect of an increase in economic inequality on some aspects of the quality of a democracy. The main novelty of the paper lies in its methodology: it applies to a single country (instead of a pool of countries) - the UK - in a long run perspective. Using survey data, we select three questions and check whether an increase in inequality alters the answers to these questions, subject to other control variables. Another novelty is the use of several measures of inequality (rather than the usual GINI only) both for disentangling what happens in the different parts of the income distribution and for avoiding the dependence of the results on the choice of the indicator. The main finding is that a higher level of income inequality impacts negatively on citizens’ satisfaction with democracy and positively on their political participation.

Abstract
Document type
Monograph (Working Paper)
Creators
CreatorsAffiliationORCID
Soci, Anna
Maccagnan, Anna
Mantovani, Daniela
Keywords
income distribution, economic inequality, inequality indices, factor analysis, United Kingdom, quality of democracy, democracy-satisfaction, political discussion, participation into election
Subjects
ISSN
2282-6483
DOI
Deposit date
04 Apr 2014 14:51
Last modified
24 Feb 2016 09:01
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