How does Party Fractionalization Convey Preferences for Redistribution in Parliamentary Democracies?

Abstract

Running regressions on a sample of 18 OECD countries over 23 years, we consider the link between the demand for redistribution and social policy outcomes accounting for the party system. We investigate how the heterogeneity of the demand (distribution of preferences within countries) is translated into policy outcomes, according to the rules of the political game (number of parties). Our results show that a higher degree of party fractionalization enables the demand for redistribution to have a greater impact on the social policy actually implemented.

Keywords: political demand, party fractionalization, redistribution

JEL Classification: D78, H10, H53