The Timing and Strength of Inequality Concerns in the UK Public Debate: Google Trends, Elections and the Macroeconomy

IF 2.1 Q2 ECONOMICS Economies Pub Date : 2024-05-30 DOI:10.3390/economies12060135
Knut Lehre Seip, Frode Eika Sandnes
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Abstract

Inequality among people has several unwanted effects, in humanistic, social and economic contexts. Several studies address distributional preferences among groups, but little is known about when inequality issues are focused and when and why inequality abatement measures are brought on the political agenda. We show that during the period 2004 to 2023, inequality issues were focused during elections to the EU and UK parliament and with greatest strength during the elections to the EU parliament in May 2004 and to the UK parliament in May 2015. Periods with high unemployment and inflation cause the discussion on inequality to be followed by discussions on inequality measures. However, when the discussion of inequality is followed very closely by the discussions of abatement measures, inequality aversion becomes more strongly associated with the macroeconomic variables inflation and GDP (recessions) than with unemployment and more strongly associated with the concerns for fairness than concerns with war and crime. The results were obtained examining Google Trends and scholarly studies.
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英国公众辩论中对不平等问题关注的时间和力度:谷歌趋势、选举和宏观经济
在人文、社会和经济方面,人与人之间的不平等会产生一些不必要的影响。有几项研究涉及群体间的分配偏好,但对于不平等问题何时受到关注,以及减少不平等的措施何时和为何被提上政治议程,却知之甚少。我们的研究表明,在 2004 年至 2023 年期间,不平等问题在欧盟和英国议会选举中受到关注,并在 2004 年 5 月的欧盟议会选举和 2015 年 5 月的英国议会选举中表现得最为突出。高失业率和高通胀时期导致对不平等问题的讨论紧随不平等措施的讨论之后。然而,当对不平等问题的讨论紧跟着对减少不平等措施的讨论时,不平等厌恶与宏观经济变量通货膨胀和国内生产总值(衰退)的关联度要比与失业率的关联度高,与对公平的担忧的关联度要比对战争和犯罪的担忧高。这些结果是通过研究谷歌趋势和学术研究得出的。
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来源期刊
Economies
Economies Economics, Econometrics and Finance-Economics, Econometrics and Finance (miscellaneous)
CiteScore
4.00
自引率
11.50%
发文量
271
审稿时长
11 weeks
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