Resumen de Endogenous social contracts: on the role of inequality for endogenous political outcomes, institutions and development
La tesis se compone de cuatro articulos. El primero "The social contract with endogenous sentiments" estudia la formacion de preferencias politicas y el nivel de equilibrio de redistribucion fiscal como processos endogenos.
El segundo "Democratization and Endogenous Constitutions" estudia la eleccion endogena del sistema politico (constitucion) en el contexto del processo de democratizacion. El tercero "Consensual and Conflictual Democratization" estudia el processo de transition democratica con y sin conflictos y investiga el tipo de democracia emergente en equilibrio. El cuarto "Resistance to Reforms, Inequality and Development" estudia el processo de oposiciones a reformas economicas en un sistema con disegualdad economica. The thesis is composed of four chapters dealing with different but complementary problems. In the first chapter titled "The social contract with endogenous sentiments" we investigate the determinance of political sentiments and the extent of redistribution as jointly interacting processes. The multidirectional feedbacks between political view and the extent of taxation may lead to different equilibria. After having characterized them we study the role of a change in inequality. In the second chapter titled "Democratization and endogenous constitutions" we study the endogenous emergence of political institutions as resulting from the conflicting interests at the moment of the transition from oligarchic to democratic systems. We focus attention in particular on the role of form of government and of electoral rules.
The novel theoretical predictions are empirically tested using available cross country data. The third chapter "Consensual and conflictual democratization" consider the possibility the democratic transition may be happen in a peaceful environment where all the parties agree on the change of political syst
