The cost of winning: Why majoritarian electoral systems redistribute less

Abstract: Majoritarian electoral systems are associated with lower levels of redistribution, but there is no consensus on the working mechanisms behind this. This thesis aims to provide a new explanation. We connect research on elections and individual policy preferences and develop a theory in which low levels of redistribution is explained by large shares of high income groups in the legislature in majoritarian states. We test our theory by looking at the share of highly educated people in the legislatures of seven countries. We find that majoritarian states have more highly educated members of parliament. However, we also see a reversed relationship when comparing winning and losing candidates in two of the countries. These inconclusive results lead us to believe that what might matter is the representation of the poor rather than the rich.