Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: Who Gets What? The Politics of Income Inequality in the United States

政治学博士论文研究：谁得到什么？

• 批准号: 0318044
• 负责人: James Stimson
• 金额: $ 0.81万
• 依托单位: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2003
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2003-08-01 至 2004-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0318044&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Political; Science

Who gets what?. is a central question of political contestation in the United States and around the world. Answers to this question can come in a variety of forms. For example, the Civil Rights movement in the United States was about what rights would be given to African Americans, and the abortion debate concerns the values government will authoritatively enforce. But at its heart, .Who gets what?. is a question of material well-being. Essentially, the question is .Who gets the money?. An empirical answer to this question is available in the distribution of income, or income inequality. Income inequality, then, is a key outcome of any political-economic system, and a great deal of research in economics, sociology, and political science has focused on explaining this outcome. Previous research has shown that changes in labor markets, the demographic composition of populations, and wage-setting institutions help to determine income inequality. This project examines these factors, but goes beyond by focusing on how government acts to influence inequality in the United States. Research in political science has suggested that the primary mechanism through which governments influence distributional outcomes is direct redistribution . taxing the wealthy to provide benefits for the middle and lower classes (Bradley et al. 2003; Hibbs and Dennis 1988; Page and Simmons 2000). The first component of the analysis in this project builds on the current state of knowledge by using aggregate time series data to test the connection between the ideological tone of policy and government.s redistributive effect. Previous studies have used partisan control of government as a proxy for policy. In the context of a country like the United States, where party discipline is comparatively weak, partisan control is a noisy indicator of the ideological content of policy. This project provides for more robust analysis by explicitly examining the policies considered and enacted by government. The findings obtained thus far suggest that liberal shifts in policy cause increases in redistribution. The second component of this project considers a relatively unexplored mechanism through which government can influence distributional outcomes . manipulation of economic opportunity. Almost every type of government activity, from environmental or corporate regulation to defense spending, enhances economic opportunities for some groups to the exclusion of others. Inequality is influenced to the extent that the rich or poor are disproportionately advantaged by these activities. This project assesses the distributional influence of government manipulation of economic opportunity by analyzing the connection between government policy and inequality before taxes and transfers. Initial analysis suggests that policy influences inequality as much through manipulation of economic opportunity as through redistribution. The final component of this project consists of interviewing policy elites and requires additional funding for its successful completion. More specifically, funding of this project would provide the ability to reside in Washington, D.C. for approximately four months to conduct interviews of political appointees, high-level civil servants, and interest group leaders whose activities influence distributional policy making and implementation. Given that the question .Who gets what?. is so politically central, distributional considerations are likely central to the thinking of policy elites, and many may have sophisticated conceptions of how government activity influences distributional outcomes. This part of the project would aid in understanding the degree to which policy elites consider distributional outcomes when defining policy options and crafting national policy, as well as inform the empirical aspects of the project.

谁得到什么？是美国和全世界政治辩论的中心问题。 这个问题的答案可以有多种形式。 例如，美国的民权运动是关于给予非裔美国人什么权利的，堕胎辩论则涉及政府将授权执行的价值观。 但本质上，谁得到了什么？是一个物质幸福的问题。 基本上，问题是。谁得到钱？ 这个问题的实证答案可以在收入分配或收入不平等中找到。 因此，收入不平等是任何政治经济制度的关键结果，经济学、社会学和政治学的大量研究都集中在解释这一结果上。 以前的研究表明，劳动力市场的变化，人口的人口构成和工资制定机构有助于确定收入不平等。 本项目研究这些因素，但超越了政府如何影响美国的不平等。 政治学研究表明，政府影响分配结果的主要机制是直接再分配。对富人征税，为中下层阶级提供福利（布拉德利等人，2003; Hibbs和Dennis，1988; Page和Simmons，2000）。 本项目分析的第一个组成部分建立在现有知识的基础上，使用汇总的时间序列数据来测试政策的意识形态基调与政府的再分配效应之间的联系。 以前的研究使用党派对政府的控制作为政策的代理。 在像美国这样的国家，党的纪律相对薄弱，党派控制是政策意识形态内容的一个嘈杂指标。 该项目通过明确审查政府考虑和颁布的政策，提供了更有力的分析。 到目前为止所获得的研究结果表明，政策的自由转变导致再分配的增加。本项目的第二个组成部分考虑了一个相对未探索的机制，通过它政府可以影响分配的结果。操纵经济机会。 几乎每一种政府活动，从环境或公司监管到国防开支，都增加了一些群体的经济机会，而排斥了其他群体。 不平等的影响程度是，富人或穷人不成比例地受到这些活动的影响。 本研究通过分析政府政策与税前和转移支付前不平等之间的关系，评估政府对经济机会的操纵对分配的影响。 初步分析表明，政策通过操纵经济机会和通过再分配来影响不平等。 该项目的最后一个组成部分是采访政策精英，需要额外资金才能圆满完成。 更具体地说，该项目的资金将提供在华盛顿，华盛顿特区居住大约四个月的能力，以采访政治任命者、高级公务员和利益集团领导人，他们的活动影响分配政策的制定和执行。 既然问题是。谁得到什么？在政治上如此重要，分配考虑可能是政策精英思想的核心，许多人可能对政府活动如何影响分配结果有复杂的概念。 项目的这一部分将有助于了解政策精英在确定政策选择和制定国家政策时考虑分配结果的程度，并为项目的经验方面提供信息。