Redistribution in a Divided Society

分裂社会中的再分配

• 批准号: 0240186
• 负责人: David Austen-Smith
• 金额: $ 12.7万
• 依托单位: Northwestern University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2002
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2002-09-01 至 2004-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0240186&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Redistribution; Divided; Society

Although there is a rich literature exploring the logic of political competition over redistributive policies, there are few theoretical studies that include the existence of social cleavages other than the division by income level. Few observers, however, think that the politics of redistribution in the U.S. can be understood without consideration of the complications introduced by racial divisions. Moreover, the U.S. is not unique in being divided according to ascriptive characteristics. While salient cleavages differ from country to country, the existence of politically significant racial ethnic, religious, or linguistic divisions is widespread. The goal of this research is to study political conflict over redistributive policies in a society that is divided by race, religion, language, or other ascriptive characteristics. In the past, consideration of non-economic cleavages in theoretical work has been inhibited by the difficulty of modeling policy choices along two or more dimensions. Recent developments in formal theory now make it possible to develop a rigorous model of redistributive conflicts in a society divided by ascriptive traits as well as income. The research will build an integrated political economy model in which individuals are distinguished by earning ability and an ascriptive characteristic (here, race); the policy space is a proportional redistributive tax rate and an affirmative action constraint on firms in the labor market. The distribution of income and the policy are endogenous, with the latter being the outcome of a legislative bargaining game between three parties. This study will explore conditions under which the claim that social divisions reduce the support for redistributive policies is correct and study more generally the relationship between policy outcomes and the distribution of income in heterogeneous societies. Preliminary results suggest that the relative political weights given to different economic subgroups within the minority play an important role; in particular, the more weight accorded to low income members of the minority, the more emphasis there is on direct redistribution through the tax system relative to indirect redistribution through affirmative action in the labor market.

虽然有丰富的文献探讨政治竞争对再分配政策的逻辑，但除了按收入水平划分之外，很少有理论研究包括社会分裂的存在。然而，很少有观察人士认为，如果不考虑种族分裂带来的复杂性，就能理解美国的再分配政治。此外，美国并不是唯一一个根据归属特征进行划分的国家。虽然突出的分裂因国家而异，但政治上重要的种族、民族、宗教或语言分歧的存在是普遍存在的。本研究的目的是研究在一个因种族、宗教、语言或其他归属特征而分裂的社会中，围绕再分配政策的政治冲突。过去，由于很难沿着两个或多个维度对政策选择进行建模，理论工作中对非经济分裂的考虑受到了抑制。现在，形式理论的最新发展，使我们有可能建立一个严谨的模型，来描述一个按归属特征和收入划分的社会中的再分配冲突。这项研究将建立一个综合的政治经济模型，在这个模型中，个人通过赚钱能力和归属特征（这里是种族）来区分；政策空间是比例再分配税率和对劳动力市场企业的平权行动约束。收入分配和政策是内生的，后者是三方立法博弈的结果。本研究将探讨社会分化减少对再分配政策支持的说法是正确的条件，并更广泛地研究异质性社会中政策结果与收入分配之间的关系。初步结果表明，少数民族内部不同经济亚群体的相对政治权重起着重要作用；特别是，越是重视少数群体的低收入成员，就越是强调通过税收制度进行直接再分配，而不是通过劳动力市场上的平权行动进行间接再分配。