An unconsidered leave? Inequality aversion and the brexit referendum

IF 2.4 3区 经济学 Q2 ECONOMICS
Joan Costa-Font , Frank Cowell
{"title":"An unconsidered leave? Inequality aversion and the brexit referendum","authors":"Joan Costa-Font ,&nbsp;Frank Cowell","doi":"10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2025.102648","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper examines a behavioural explanation for the Brexit referendum result, namely the role of an individual’s inequality aversion (IA). We study whether the referendum result was an “unconsidered Leave” out of people’s low aversion to inequality. We use a representative sample of the UK population fielded in 2017, and analyse the extent to which lottery-based individual IA estimates predict their Brexit vote. We consider alternative potential drivers of IA in both income and health domains; these include risk aversion, alongside socio-economic and demographic characteristics. A greater aversion to income inequality predicts a lower probability of voting for Leave, even when controlling for risk aversion and other drivers of the Brexit vote. However, this effect is only true among men, for whom an increase in income IA by one standard deviation decreases their likelihood of voting for leaving the EU by 5 percentage points which would have reduced the probability of a leave vote, resulting in an overall remain majority in our sample. However, the effect of health inequality aversion is not significantly different from zero.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51439,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Political Economy","volume":"86 ","pages":"Article 102648"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4000,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"European Journal of Political Economy","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0176268025000084","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"ECONOMICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0

Abstract

This paper examines a behavioural explanation for the Brexit referendum result, namely the role of an individual’s inequality aversion (IA). We study whether the referendum result was an “unconsidered Leave” out of people’s low aversion to inequality. We use a representative sample of the UK population fielded in 2017, and analyse the extent to which lottery-based individual IA estimates predict their Brexit vote. We consider alternative potential drivers of IA in both income and health domains; these include risk aversion, alongside socio-economic and demographic characteristics. A greater aversion to income inequality predicts a lower probability of voting for Leave, even when controlling for risk aversion and other drivers of the Brexit vote. However, this effect is only true among men, for whom an increase in income IA by one standard deviation decreases their likelihood of voting for leaving the EU by 5 percentage points which would have reduced the probability of a leave vote, resulting in an overall remain majority in our sample. However, the effect of health inequality aversion is not significantly different from zero.
不加考虑的休假?不平等厌恶和英国脱欧公投
本文考察了英国脱欧公投结果的行为解释,即个人不平等厌恶(IA)的作用。我们研究公投结果是否是出于人们对不平等的低厌恶而“未经考虑的脱欧”。我们使用了2017年英国人口的代表性样本,并分析了基于彩票的个人IA估计在多大程度上预测了他们的脱欧投票。我们考虑了收入和健康领域的其他潜在驱动因素;这些因素包括风险规避,以及社会经济和人口特征。对收入不平等的更强烈厌恶预示着投票脱欧的可能性更低,即使在控制了风险厌恶和英国脱欧投票的其他驱动因素的情况下也是如此。然而,这种效应只在男性中成立,对于他们来说,收入增加一个标准差会使他们投票支持脱欧的可能性降低5个百分点,这将降低投票支持脱欧的可能性,从而导致我们样本中的总体留欧派占多数。然而,健康不平等厌恶的影响与零没有显著差异。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
求助全文
约1分钟内获得全文 求助全文
来源期刊
CiteScore
3.40
自引率
10.00%
发文量
106
期刊介绍: The aim of the European Journal of Political Economy is to disseminate original theoretical and empirical research on economic phenomena within a scope that encompasses collective decision making, political behavior, and the role of institutions. Contributions are invited from the international community of researchers. Manuscripts must be published in English. Starting 2008, the European Journal of Political Economy is indexed in the Social Sciences Citation Index published by Thomson Scientific (formerly ISI).
×
引用
GB/T 7714-2015
复制
MLA
复制
APA
复制
导出至
BibTeX EndNote RefMan NoteFirst NoteExpress
×
提示
您的信息不完整,为了账户安全,请先补充。
现在去补充
×
提示
您因"违规操作"
具体请查看互助需知
我知道了
×
提示
确定
请完成安全验证×
copy
已复制链接
快去分享给好友吧!
我知道了
右上角分享
点击右上角分享
0
联系我们:info@booksci.cn Book学术提供免费学术资源搜索服务,方便国内外学者检索中英文文献。致力于提供最便捷和优质的服务体验。 Copyright © 2023 布克学术 All rights reserved.
京ICP备2023020795号-1
ghs 京公网安备 11010802042870号
Book学术文献互助
Book学术文献互助群
群 号:604180095
Book学术官方微信