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Most cross-national tests of inverse association between democracy and inequality have operationalized the concept of democracy by measuring its level at a single point in time. More compelling theoretical arguments can be made for causal relationships that operate over time between (1) a country's years of democratic experience and income inequality; and (2) income inequality and the stability of democracy. Continuous and qualitative measures of years of democratic experience are estimated to have a significant negative impact on income inequality independent of economic development and other control variables for a sample of 55 countries. A very strong inverse correlation is also observed between income inequality and regime stability for a sample of 33 democracies. This association holds independent of economic development, which is found to have no direct effect on democratic stability after controlling for income inequality.
Edward N. Muller (Mon,) studied this question.