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Political Attitudes of the Middle Class: The Case of Fiscal Policy

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Latin America’s Emerging Middle Classes

Abstract

Fiscal policy — the way taxes and expenditures are allocated across society — reflects the political equilibrium within a given society.1 This equilibrium is determined by multiple factors, such as the preferences of citizens for redistribution (that is, taxes and public spending that disproportionately benefit the least well off) and other socioeconomic and political dimensions, the distribution of power within society, the degree of influence of interest groups on the policymaking process and the political institutions that condition this process, just to mention some of the most commonly analyzed political variables.2

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© 2015 Christian Daude, Hamlet Gutiérrez and Ángel Melguizo

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Daude, C., Gutiérrez, H., Melguizo, Á. (2015). Political Attitudes of the Middle Class: The Case of Fiscal Policy. In: Dayton-Johnson, J. (eds) Latin America’s Emerging Middle Classes. International Political Economy Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137320797_9

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