This talk argues that income growth conditions citizens’ responses to changes in inequality. Poor and rich alike respond to rising inequality by demanding more redistribution when their incomes stagnate or decline. Income growth renders the poor less concerned about inequality and makes the rich think that the poor ought to be able to manage on their own. This talk tests these claims by matching data from the European Social Survey with objective measures of income inequality and income growth over the period 1999-2018, and also mobilizes original 2019 survey data on perceptions of inequality changes and the state of the macroeconomy.

Speaker
Jonas Pontusson, University of Geneva

Prior to moving to Geneva in 2010, he taught at Cornell University (1984-2005) and Princeton University (2005-10). He has been a visiting scholar at Nuffield College (Oxford), the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study in Social Sciences (Uppsala), the Russell Sage Foundation (New York), Sciences Po (Paris) and the Hertie School of Governance (Berlin).

Presented by the Department of Government and the Institute for European Studies