For political upheaval individual well-being matters more than inequality
In this paper Danny Quah provides an explicit account of what happens at the bottom 50% of income distributions, expanding the analysis beyond just inequality. He finds that of the 47 economies that have experienced a rise in inequality since 2000:
- Thirty eight countries (i.e., 81%) have seen upward mobility;
- Nine countries have experienced both downward mobility and a rise in inequality. Two such countries are the US and the Netherlands;
- China has experienced rising inequality and, at the same time, strong upward mobility: average income of China’s bottom 50% has risen faster than average income of the US’s top 10%;
- France has had upward mobility while inequality remained roughly at the same level since 2000.
This paper has argued that while there is an emerging grand narrative that draws insight from the US experience to suggest a significant weight on inequality as signal for the well-being of society, that generalisation is inappropriate. This is so for two reasons: First, in the historical reality, outside of the US, inequality is typically uninformative for the well-being of citizens and for subjective assessment of the life chances ahead for the young. Second, recent research suggests that in the cross-section of nations [either outside the US altogether or otherwise in global cross-sections for which the US is but a single entry], either cultural factors or individual circumstances are the causes of populism and protest.
Mobility and Political Upheaval in an Age of Inequality
Author: Danny Quah
From: Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, NUS
Downward mobility and community cohesion: the case of UKIP
Altomonte and al. develop a behavioral theory of protest vote: in their model an individual develops a feeling of resentment if his/her financial situation deteriorates in comparisons to others. This feeling leads to political upheaval only if the individual identifies with a community experiencing the same financial deprivation.
They test their model by analyzing the factors that lead to the unprecedented increase in the UK Independence Party (UKIP) vote shares ( from 3.1% to 12.6%) between the 2010 and 2015 national elections. UKIP is largely acknowledged to be a protest or populist party whose policy platform is essentially anti-European. The authors use detailed longitudinal survey data (Understanding Society) within each British district, and test the interaction between relative deprivation and community cohesion on the UKIP vote share at the local level during the 2010 and 2015 national elections, across the 380 Local Authority Districts (LADs). They find the vote share for the UKIP to be significantly larger in districts where both relative deprivation has worsened and identification with the community is higher.
Collective Emotions and Protest Vote
Authors: Carlo Altomonte, Gloria Gennaro, Francesco Passarelli
From: Bocconi University, University of Turin
