Prof. Larry Bartels on Unequal Democracy

Larry Bartels of Princeton delivered a talk on his new book Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age on Monday. The talk was interesting in that a respected academic came to a data driven but very partisan conclusion: if you're concerned about income inequality, elect Democrats.

You can see his most startling graph on the right. It clearly states that income growth is higher for all groups under Democratic presidencies than under Republican presidencies and that this growth is much more equal. A number of objections immediately jump to mind but from what I've seen so far this conclusion is robust, Prof. Bartels provides a response to some of the criticisms at Dani Rodrik's blog.

Why would voter's continue to vote for Republican presidents against their own economic interests? Prof. Bartels believes that they do vote with their economic interests, but only for the last year. The structure of Republican policies Bartels finds is that they lead to lower growth in earlier years of the presidency as spending and programs are cut. But this leads to higher growth towards the end of the term (and the upcoming election) as the economy rebounds from its bitter medicine. Democrats, however, unleash spending and new programs at the beginning of their term. By the time the end of their term has rolled around, the economy has begun to slow as the effects of the stimulus wear out and inflation kicks in.

Unfortunately for Democrats, according to Bartels (with support from Brookings' William Galston and Thomas Mann and over the objections of someone from Pew) voters only really remember the last year when assessing their economic fortunes. Thus, Democrats lose and Republicans win.

A couple of other interesting facts and figures:

1. Low income voters are more likely to support Democrats. It's high income voters in "red" states that swing them to Republicans.

2. Information matters: the more information self-identified liberal voters consume the more likely they are to correctly identify that it has increased in the United States.

3. Information distorts: the more information self-identified conservative voters consume the more likely they are to incorrectly deny that income inequality has increase in the United States.

4. Information doesn't matter: No matter ideological preference and amount of information consumed and preferences regarding income inequality, about 2/3rds of Americans oppose the inheritance tax.