Mind the Gap: What the Rich - and the Mass Public - Want from Government

• In Event: Economics, Public Opinion, and Elections

Abstract

What tax and redistributive policies do the economic elites support, and how do their policy preferences differ from those of the mass public? Understanding the degree, and the nature, of the gap in economic policy preferences between economic elites and the mass public is essential to the study of unequal representation in democracies. Indeed, economic elites and the general public may not disagree on all types of taxes and spending, just as different subgroups of the economic elite need not agree on all dimensions of taxes and spending. In this paper, we examine how different types of policies on taxation and government spending affect support for redistributive policy programs. To this end, we have collected original survey and experimental data from four different samples (n=9605) based on administrative register data from Denmark. The samples are representative of (a) the top 1 percent of the income distribution, (b) top 1 percent of the wealth distribution, (c) the joint top 1 percent on both the income and wealth distribution, and (d) and the general population. We provide all four samples with the same conjoint experiment, allowing us to compare how multiple dimensions of policies on taxes and spending affect support for redistributive programs among different subgroups of economic elites, and how this compares to the general population. Our study contributes to the debates on what economics elites want from government; how that diverges from the preferences of the general public; and thus provides insights into the discussion of unequal political representation in established democracies.

Authors

• Mogens K. Justesen, Copenhagen Business School

• Robert Klemmensen, University of Southern Denmark

• Sara Hobolt, London School of Economics

• Marko Klasnja, Georgetown University