Replication data for: Political Participation, Income Distribution, and Public Transfers in Developed Democracies

In the postwar era until recently, public-transfer shares of GDP have risen dramatically in every developed democracy. Much positive theory purports to explain this development as a direct consequence of differing distributions of political (votes) and economic (money) resources. This literature concludes, inter alia, that tax-and-transfer-system (T &T) sizes increase in the skew of the income distribution. This paper builds from that basis, suggesting theoretical additions and amendments deriving from further consideration of the democratic processes that transform resources into influence. It especially emphasizes that not everyone participates politically and that who participates is non-randomly selected. This implies that aggregate participation rates will mediate T&T responses to income inequality, and, conversely, that income inequal ity will mediate T&T responses to aggregate participation rates. Specifically, since the relatively wealthy have higher propensity to participate politically, higher aggregate participation rates will generally coincide with increased democratic representation of the relatively less well-off, suggesting that democratic governments will respond to greater inequality with larger T&T increases the higher the participation rate and, vice versa, higher participation induces larger T&T responses the m ore skewed the underlying income distribution. Regression analysis of the postwar T &T experiences of developed democracies support that hypothesis empirically.