Working Paper: NBER ID: w19498
Authors: John Morrow; Michael Carter
Abstract: The political left turn in Latin America, which lagged its transition to liberalized market economies by a decade or more, challenges conventional economic explanations of voting behavior. This paper generalizes the forward-looking voter model to a broad range of dynamic, non-concave income processes. The model implies support for redistributive policies materializes rapidly if few prospects of upward mobility are present. In contrast, modeling voters' ideologically charged beliefs about income dynamics shows a slow and polarizing shift toward redistributive preferences occurs. Simulation using fitted income dynamics suggests that imperfect information better accounts for the shift back to the left, and offers additional insights about political dynamics.
Keywords: Income dynamics; Political preferences; Redistribution; Latin America; Voter behavior
JEL Codes: D31; D72; D83; P16
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| limited upward mobility (J62) | rapid emergence of support for redistributive policies (P35) |
| lack of upward mobility (J62) | increasing support for redistribution (D39) |
| concave income dynamics (D31) | decreasing support for redistribution (D39) |
| voters' beliefs about costs of redistribution (D72) | influence on political choices (D72) |
| income dynamics (D31) | political preferences (D72) |
| learning about income dynamics (E25) | shaping political preferences (D72) |