Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: What Determines Attitudes towards Income Inequality during Economic Development?

收入不平等被用来解释世界各地的再分配政策和政府形式。根据关于再分配政治经济学的经典文献，人们会认为，收入不平等越大，再分配越大，再分配需求得不到满足，就会导致社会动荡甚至政权更迭。然而，经验证据表明，更平等的社会有更大的再分配，并且在非民主政权中，不平等的影响存在显著的无法解释的差异。对这些混合证据的一种可能解释是，不同社会、不同时代和不同个人对待不平等的态度存在差异。为了进一步加深我们对不平等的理解，本研究提出了一个不平等厌恶程度变化的理论框架，并在当代中国对这一问题进行了实证检验。作为这项工作的结果，社会科学家将能够对不平等与个人偏好及其随之而来的政治行为之间的关系得出更精确的因果推论。为了扩展现有理论，本项目试图回答以下问题：在经济发展过程中，如何解释个人对收入不平等的情绪变化？对这种变化的理论解释强调两个因素。首先，向上流动的前景导致了对不平等的积极看法，这在很大程度上与之前的文献一致。其次，个人将机会平等作为一种公平原则，从而形成对收入不平等的态度。也就是说，个人的意见取决于他们是否认为穷人应该为自己的贫困负责。这种方法结合了理性选择理论和行为研究的最新理论。特别是，本文分析了以往研究中经常被忽视的一个因素，即政府在个人之间分配不平等经济机会方面的作用。从经验上看，之所以选择中国作为研究案例，是因为机会不平等是中国收入不平等的主要来源。一项全国调查被用来探索国家以下地区的差异。通过使用个人向上流动和机会不平等的客观指标作为我的主要解释变量，克服了以往研究的局限性。这个项目不仅对社会科学做出了贡献，而且对中国社会的发展轨迹也有一定的启示。经济发展是中国社会在过去三十年中最显著的变化。随着经济的发展，不平等的加剧已经引起了中国社会越来越多的关注。这个项目的结果有助于我们理解它对中国社会、经济和政策稳定的影响。因此，本项目为关注中国和其他发展中国家社会、经济和政治发展的社会科学家和政策制定者提供了一些有价值的见解。

Income inequality has been hypothesized to explain redistributive policies and the form of government around the world. According to the classic literature on the political economy of redistribution, one would expect that greater income inequality leads to greater redistribution, and the failure to meet the redistribution demand leads to social turmoil and even regime changes. The empirical evidence, however, shows that more equal societies have greater redistribution, and there is a significant unexplained variation in the effects of inequality within non-democratic regimes. One potential explanation of the mixed evidence is that there is variation in attitude toward inequality across societies, time and individuals. To further our understanding of inequality, this study proposes a theoretical framework for the variation in inequality aversion and examines the question empirically in contemporary China. As a result of this work, social scientists will be able to draw more precise causal inferences about the relationships between inequality and individual prferences and their consequent political behaviors.To extend current theories, this project seeks to answer the following question: what explains the variation in individuals' sentiments toward income inequality during economic development? The theoretical explanation for this variation emphasizes two factors. First, the prospect of upward mobility leads to a positive view on inequality, which is largely in line with previous literature. Second, individuals use equality of opportunity as a principle of fairness to form their attitudes toward income inequality. That is, individuals' opinions rely of whether they think the poor should be responsible for their own deprivation. This approach combines both the rational choice account and recent theories from behavioral studies. In particular, this argument analyzes an often overlooked factor in previous studies, that is, the role government in distributing unequal economic opportunities across individuals. Empirically, China was chosen as the case to be examined because inequality of opportunity is the key source of income inequality there. A national survey is used to explore the subnational variation. Limitations of previous studies are overcome by using objective meaures of both individual upward mobility and inequality of opportunity as my key explanatory variables. This project not only makes a contribution to the social sciences in general, but it also can shed some light on the trajectory of Chinese society. Economic development is the most salient change in Chinese society in the last three decades. Rising inequality, accompanied by economic development, has been drawing greater attention within Chinese society. The results of this project helps us understand it consequences for social, economic, and policy stability in China. Hence, this project generates some valuable insights for social scientists and policymakers with an interest in social, economic, and political development in China as well as other developing countries.