THE EQUALITY MULTIPLIER: HOW WAGE COMPRESSION AND WELFARE EMPOWERMENT INTERACT

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Barth, Erling; Moene, Karl Ove
• 署名单位: University of Oslo
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC ASSOCIATION
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1542-4766
• DOI: 10.1111/jeea.12163
• 发表日期: 2016
• 页码: 1011-1037
• 关键词: international differences; income-distribution; relative wages; INEQUALITY; institutions; demand; skill

摘要

We explore how more wage equality fuels the generosity of the welfare state via political competition in elections, and how a more generous welfare state fuels wage equality via empowerment of weak groups in the labor market. Together the two mechanisms may generate a cumulative process that explains how equality multiplies, and why countries with more equal distributions of market outcomes also have stronger welfare states. The complementarity between wage setting and welfare spending can explain why almost equally rich countries differ so much in economic and social equality among their citizens.