Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/181530 
Year of Publication: 
2018
Series/Report no.: 
Beiträge zur Jahrestagung des Vereins für Socialpolitik 2018: Digitale Wirtschaft - Session: Development Economics III No. G14-V3
Publisher: 
ZBW - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft, Kiel, Hamburg
Abstract: 
We develop a framework for analyzing how the distribution of income-earning ability among citizens affects an autocrat’s extractive policies and her intended risk of war. Relying on a general equilibrium model, we show that (i) autocrats can utilize the military for redistribution and (ii) are most powerful for extreme un-/equal distributions. Consequently, ordinary citizens benefit from not-too-low inequality. Our model also implies that disastrous economic policies, characteristic for many kleptocratic autocracies, are not necessarily unintended side effects of rent-seeking but rationally chosen governance. Depending on the level of inequality, autocrats can deter foreign threats by choking the economy. This policy may prevent hostilities but also causes ordinary citizens to favor war since the autocrat would then loose her grip at home. Our results help to explain why some autocrats maintain far-too-great armies, while others suffocate their economies, and yet others were drawn into wars.
Subjects: 
Inequality
autocracies
corruption
conflict
JEL: 
D74
H56
D74
D31
Document Type: 
Conference Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.