Political Polarization and the Size of Government
- 27 August 2010
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Cambridge University Press (CUP) in American Political Science Review
- Vol. 104 (3), 543-565
- https://doi.org/10.1017/s0003055410000262
Abstract
In this article, we study the relationship between political polarization and public spending using the dispersion of self-reported political preferences as our measure of polarization. Political polarization is strongly associated with smaller government in democratic countries, but there is no relationship between polarization and the size of government in undemocratic countries. The results are robust to a large set of control variables, including gross domestic product per capita and income inequality.Keywords
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