inequality and corruption - bo rothstein, speaking at the launch of the world social science report...
TRANSCRIPT
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Bo RothsteinBlavatnik School of Government
andNuffield College
University of Oxford
Inequality and Corruption
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Regional difference in QoG in Europe Blue/black = high QoG – Yellow/green=low QoG
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Level of Democracy and Human Development Index
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Quality of Government and Human Development
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What works against inequality
• Answer: Public provision of basic resources through universal social policies
• Health care, education, public transportation, support to families, etc.
• Universal social policies create more redistribution than selective ones
• However, such policies will only be supported if quality of institutions is high
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Trust in institutions and social solidarity: A huge leap of faith?
• Can your trust that the state be able to fairly collect enough fees/taxes?
• Can you trust that the state will handle the money in a responsible way or will policies be drowned in corruption etc.
• Can you trust that the state will be able to deliver?
• Can you trust that the state will deliver in an acceptable way?
• Can you trust that the state will be able to handle abuse or overuse?
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Trust and institutions• Selective social policies often create
suspicion regarding fairness in implementation
• Means testing leads to negative stereotyping
• Universal social policies are based on equal treatment and thus less bureaucratic discretion and intrusion
• Produces a sense of equality of opportunity and institutional fairness
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Empirical results: Country level
• The effect of left cabinets on the level of welfare state effort is dependent on the level of quality in government
• A country with the best possible level of QoG will spend 21 percentage more of its GDP on the welfare state compared to a country with the lowest possible level of QoG
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Empirical results: Individual level
• A person who is in favour of more socio-economic equality, but who lives in a country where (s)he perceives there is low quality of government, prefers lower taxes and less social spending
• The similar type of person who lives in a country where s(he) perceives the quality of government institutions to be OK, is willing to pay higher taxes for more social spending
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Corruption and Inequality: The take home lessons
• Corruption does not only work as an extra tax for poor people
• Corruption will also make it much harder to get broad support for universal social policies
• Corruption and low quality of government is thus probably ”the enemy number one” for alleviating poverty and inequality