Wealth and Distributive Policies

About

The central question of our work package is: Is the policy process biased towards the wealthy when it comes to tax policy? In particular: Do tax policies become more pro-wealthy over the policy process relative to what voters can see in party programs? Together with other work packages, we ask: Do politicians with more elite characteristics and connections push for lower taxes? If so, is it because of their personal financial interests or because of their worldview? What have been the distributional implications of recent tax policies in Brazil, Germany, South Africa and the UK, particularly for those at the top of the distribution?

Work Package 3 focuses on tax policies, particularly in Brazil, Germany, South Africa and the UK. We collect information on what politicians promise regarding taxation during election time and contrast it with the tax policies they actually pass. We collect information on the actions and statements of members of parliament regarding taxation and study whether their personal characteristics and interests can explain them over and above their partisanship. We also assemble tax data from the last decades for a larger sample of 50 democracies to study whether finance minister characteristics and trajectories affect the taxes they set. We combine qualitative methods such as process tracing and quantitative methods such as differences in differences.