Distributive Politics and the Poor
This dissertation analyzes the relation between new democratic political regimes in developing countries and its effect on the public provision of primary health care and elementary education for the poor. It develops a theoretical formal model and provides empirical evidence to suggest that the distribution of social expenditures, in the form of primary health care and elementary education, is mostly determined by the interests of the economic elite.
The main argument states that the wealthy population -and not the relatively poor as is suggested by the Median Voter Theorem- is located at the median of the distribution of preferences over redistributive taxation. In this sense, the wealthy population and their representatives are Condorcet winners in the collective decision making process of how to redistribute public resources for health care and education. The argument and its empirical implications are tested through statistical analysis on the public provision of education and health care in Latin America.
