ABSTRACT
The reasons why certain individuals or societies support redistribution more than others have been broadly studied for many advanced countries, and it has been documented that both the actual programmes and the social coalitions behind them diverge considerably among comparable countries. Traditional economics literature mainly explains these reasons and their divergence by self-interest related motives such as the individual position on income and risk distribution (Meltzer and Richard 1981; Moene and Wallerstein 2001). However, empirical evidence does not seem to verify the theoretical claims raised by self-interest approaches. In countries with high levels of income and risk inequalities, low demand for public policies is detected, whereas more equal countries tend to also have higher public support for redistribution. As a result, a number of other factors have been offered ranging from social mobility to ethnic fragmentation to existing welfare and political institutions (Cusack et al. 2005; Benabou 2000; Glaeser 2005).
