Lilly Fischer - Revealed Redistributive Preferences of German Political Parties for the elections 1990-2021

• Presenting author: Lilly Fischer (ifo Institut – Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung)

• Authors: Lilly Fischer

• Session: C04B - Public Choice [2] - Wednesday 16:00-17:00 - Marietta-Blau Hall

This paper studies redistributive preferences of German political parties in the period 1990 to 2021. The inverse-optimum method serves as a theoretical framework to infer weights along the income distribution that reflect these redistributive preferences. Empirically, we estimate a sufficient statistics approach that leverages the parties’ proposals on income taxes and transfers for the federal elections as stated in their election manifestos. We calculate the sufficient statistics of these hypothetical reforms via microsimulation. The results reveil a persistent status quo bias in the parties’ redistributive preferences over the studied period. Rather right-wing parties persistently attach higher weights to high income earners than rather left-wing parties. This research contributes valuable insights into the enduring patterns of redistributive preferences within the German political landscape.