Recessions and social classes: Economic impacts and political opinions

Abstract

Economic classes represent groupings of individuals in terms of some long-run distribution of economic advantages. Recessions and inflations impose unequal short-run costs which may or may not be congruent with class inequalities. This paper begins with the hypothesis that the class structure channels the personal impacts of macroeconomic fluctuations and helps to explain the opinion formation process which underlies any observed political response. The empirical puzzle involves properly specifying and implementing a test of this hypothesis.