No. 505 - Social mobility and endogenous cycles in redistribution

By allowing median voter’s location and preferred policy to change over time, a variety of redistributive policies results in the long-run with no unique relationship to inequality. Single outcome depends on the interaction between the pure economic structure and policy action in determining wealth distribution over time. The standard positive correlation between redistribution and inequality is confirmed when the pattern of social mobility, potentially prevailing in a free market, proves robust to public action. Otherwise the non-linear relationship found in recent literature is confirmed. With balanced intensity of backward and upward mobility in free market, policy cycles endogenously arise, with inequality shrinking and enlarging periodically and counter-cyclically.