Compare methods

	Redistribution Preference Analysis	Meltzer-Richard Model
Field	Political Economy	Political Economy
Family	Regression model	MCDM
Year of origin	1981	1981
Originator	Allan Meltzer & Scott Richard (self-interest); Roland Benabou & Efe Ok (mobility/POUM)	Allan Meltzer & Scott Richard
Type	Individual-level survey regression of redistribution attitudes	Formal model of redistribution and government size
Seminal source	Meltzer, A. H., & Richard, S. F. (1981). A Rational Theory of the Size of Government. Journal of Political Economy, 89(5), 914-927.	Meltzer, A. H., & Richard, S. F. (1981). A Rational Theory of the Size of Government. Journal of Political Economy, 89(5), 914-927.
Aliases	Demand for Redistribution Analysis, Redistribution Attitudes Regression, Preferences for Redistribution Model, Support for Redistribution Analysis	Meltzer-Richard Hypothesis, Rational Theory of Government Size, Median Voter Theory of Redistribution, MR Model
Related	3	4
Summary	Redistribution preference analysis examines why individuals support or oppose government efforts to reduce inequality. The self-interest baseline comes from Meltzer and Richard's 1981 model, in which the demand for redistribution falls with one's own income because the rich pay more and receive less from transfers. Benabou and Ok's 2001 POUM (prospect of upward mobility) hypothesis adds a forward-looking twist: people who expect to climb the income ladder may oppose redistribution even when currently poor, because they anticipate being net payers tomorrow. A third strand emphasizes beliefs about fairness — whether success reflects effort or luck. The empirical method is an individual-level survey regression, typically ordered logit or multilevel, of redistribution attitudes on income, mobility expectations, beliefs, and contextual factors.	The Meltzer-Richard model is the canonical political-economy theory of the size of government, developed by Allan Meltzer and Scott Richard in 1981. It embeds the median voter theorem in a fiscal setting: the decisive median voter chooses a single linear (proportional) income tax rate whose revenue funds a uniform lump-sum transfer to everyone. Because income distributions are right-skewed, the median income falls below the mean, so the median voter is a net beneficiary of redistribution and votes for a positive tax. The model's central prediction is that the size of government rises with the ratio of mean to median income — and therefore with inequality — and with any extension of the franchise that lowers the decisive voter's relative income.