ON THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF AUTOCRATIC LAND REFORM - Rob Davies

The distribution of the support for democracy can be found by calculating, for each relevant land holding, the fraction of tillers and the fraction of the members of the elite who support democratic change, and the 14 fractions that support the autocratic rule – and sum up the support for each. [...] How does the autocratic land reform affect the inequality of landholdings within groups? One basic result is this: If the ruler allocates land to both groups he would allocate the land in such a way that the inequality of landholdings within the elite is reduced, while the inequality of landholdings within the group of tillers is increased. [...] Now, is the land confiscation likely to follow a progressive scheme in the sense that land is taken from the land rich and allocated to the land-poor? In other words: does the land reform that benefits the ruler the most satisfy the Pigou Dalton principle of inequality reducing transfers? The autocratic land reform can often violate the Pigou Dalton principle – in an interesting manner. [...] When this is the case, the land confiscated from members of the elite is taken from the elite members with the largest landholdings, while the land confiscated from the tillers is taken from the tillers with the smallest plots of land. [...] The beneficiaries are economically placed at the bottom of the land distribution of the elite and at the top of the land distribution of the tillers.