The public provision of goods in democracies: Do age and inequality matter?
构建了一个包含内生政党的多维政治决策模型，分析收入不平等和人口年龄结构如何影响公共支出中税收、再分配与两类公共物品（资本品与中性品）的配置，发现年龄和不平等的影响方向取决于对方水平，调和了公共经济学中看似矛盾的实证发现。
Abstract We build a multi-dimensional model of political decision-making with endogenous political parties to analyse the effect of inequality and demography on public spending. Voters differ in terms of income and age. Political competition determines in equilibrium the tax rate and the allocation of revenue between income redistribution and two forms of public spending—a capital good and a neutral good. All agents value the neutral good equally but the young like capital spending more than the old do. We show that the effect of age (resp., inequality) on equilibrium public spending can go in any direction based on the underlying level of inequality (resp., age). Our findings reconcile a large body of seemingly contradictory stylised empirical findings in public economics.