Too Many and Too Much? Special-Interest Groups and Inequality at the Turn of the Century

Name: Too Many and Too Much? Special-Interest Groups and Inequality at the Turn of the Century
Brand: Vita e Pensiero
Price: 6.00 EUR
Availability: OnlineOnly

digital

Article

Magazine

RIVISTA INTERNAZIONALE DI SCIENZE SOCIALI

Issue

RIVISTA INTERNAZIONALE DI SCIENZE SOCIALI - 2015 - 3

Title

Too Many and Too Much? Special-Interest Groups and Inequality at the Turn of the Century

Author

Domenico Rossignoli

Publisher

Vita e Pensiero

Format

Article |

Pdf

Pages

Online from

02-2016

Issn

0035-676X (print) | 1827-7918 (digital)

€ 6.00

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Description

An increasing number of scholars argue that income inequality is related to institutional and cultural factors, as well as economic ones. I rely on Mancur Olson (1965)’s theories on the effect of group activities on economic performance to explore the possible link between the number of special-interest groups (SIGs) and the level of income inequality in a country, including SIGs among the long-run determinants of income inequality. Thus, assuming incomplete group formation, the paper investigates whether the number of SIGs in a country is related with the value of income inequality as expressed by the Gini index. The analysis is carried on through panel fixed-effects regressions on a sample of observationson on 48 countries in the period 1985-2005. The results identify a non-linear relationship between the number of SIGs and income inequality, suggesting that SIGs tend to lower inequality at lower levels of income, but increase it in high income countries.