Empirics of the median voter : democracy, redistribution and the role of the middle class

The present paper improves the empirical investigation on the effectiveness of the median voter theorem. Using high quality data, it is possible to directly observe net cash transfers for every individual and to investigate the effects of taxes and transfers on different classes. Results suggest to reject - or at least question - the hypothesis that the middle class plays a special role in the policy determination. Not only its gains from redistribution are negligible, but the link between income and redistribution is lower than for any other class of income. Moreover, the strength of the median voter seems to reduce over time. Finally, more asymmetric societies decrease the amount of redistribution targeted to the middle class, a result in strong contrast to the median voter theorem, since - according to it - the middle class should have incentives to expropriate richest individuals