貧富差距與投票率-台灣人民在生活困境與民主價值間的抉擇

The Gap between the Rich and the Poor and Turnout Rate - Choices for Taiwanese between Living Predicament and Democracy Value.

楊智孝(Chih-hsiao Yang)

指導教授 ： 張文俊

國立臺北大學/公共事務學院/財政學系/碩士(2012年)

摘要

台灣是個言論自由、開放的民主國家，人民有多種管道可以表達對於公共事務的看法，透過報章雜誌、電視媒體、公民論壇、集會遊行及投票參與等方式，都能夠反映出社會大眾的需求及觀點。近年來，所得分配不均成為國際間矚目的議題，台灣的所得分配長期來看也呈現愈來愈不公平的趨勢，人民在面對貧富差距惡化下，對於相關的社會福利政策有更迫切的需要，而政策的推行使某些人受益亦會使得某些人的賦稅成本提高，因而雙方會經由民主的過程角力，來決定政策的推行與否，表達自身需求的直接方式就是投票給合乎自身理念的政黨及候選人，因此在投票行為上，會是高所得者經由他們較多的政治資源獲益，壓抑了低所得者的投票行為，或是在高、所得者雙方積極參與，促使投票率的增加，為本研究要探討的議題。

本文使用家庭收支調查及財政部財稅資料中心的所得資料來衡量所得分配公平與否，對投票率的影響，根據迴歸分析之結果顯示，在最小平方法下，以可支配所得衡量的所得分配不均度對投票率的影響為負向顯著，符合過去學者提出的相對力量理論，即所得分配愈不均，投票率愈低；在固定效果下，兩者則不具有統計上的顯著性。

根據實證結果可以發現，台灣人在政治參與上，面對貧富差距擴大時，的確會減少投票，在民眾的意見無法充分反映至投票行為上時，政府應當積極主動傾聽人民的聲音，替百姓制定更加合乎公眾利益的法案及政策，避免當政治資源受到財團及富人壟斷時，會左右國會及政府的決策。

關鍵字

投票率 ； 貧富差距 ； 所得分配不均

並列摘要

Taiwan is a democratic society. People have the right for free speech to show their opinions toward public affairs. Public views and people’s needs are usually reflected by the media, social movements and electoral results. Income inequality has become one of the most significant issues across countries in recent years. While the income inequality has become more severe in Taiwan over the past decades, government welfare policies are often essential. To provide more welfare benefits for the poor and needed, an increase in tax burden for wealthy people may be necessary. This may lead to a political competition on the welfare policies between the poor and the rich through electoral participation to express their preferences over government’s redistributive policies. It has been argued that the high-income people with more political resources have an advantage over the low-income people in competing for redistributive policies through voting. However, this argument has not extensively examined for the case in Taiwan. This research attempts to investigate people’s electoral participation in competing for redistributive policies in Taiwan, while the society’s income inequality has continued to increase drastically over the past decades.

This research utilizes the data from the Survey of Family Income and Expenditure and the Financial Statics of the Ministry of Finance in Taiwan. The empirical results using the OLS model from this study show that, the level of income inequality measured by the disposable income has a significantly negative effect on voting turnout, which is consistent with the relative power theory addressed in previous literature. That is, the more unequal the distribution of income is, the lower turnout rate will be. However, this negative effect becomes less statistically significant with the fixed effect estimations. Based on the results from this study, it is found that the turnout rates decrease with the larger poverty gap in Taiwan. Public opinions for redistributive policies might not be fully reflected in the electoral results and the high-income people often have an advantage in expressing their preferences through voting.

並列關鍵字

turnout rate ； the gap between the rich and the poor ； income inequality

參考文獻

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