Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/63086 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2006
Series/Report no.: 
Memorandum No. 2006,02
Publisher: 
University of Oslo, Department of Economics, Oslo
Abstract: 
Political economy models predict that the rich oppose redistribution, and hence vote for conservative parties. Although this seems to fit the data well, I show that this is not true when we control for unobservable characteristics. Using Norwegian survey data, I study to what extent voting is caused by income. Unobserved characteristics correlated with income are handled by using fixed effects panel data discrete choice models. Although a positive association between income and conservative voting persists when controlling for unobservables, the magnitude of the effect is reduced by a factor of five. To correct for measurement error, I instrument income with average income by profession. The magnitude of the coefficients is increased, but the main conclusions remain.
Subjects: 
Political economy
redistribution
voting
multinomial logit
panel data
JEL: 
C23
C25
D31
D72
H11
H53
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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