The Timing and Strength of Inequality Concerns in the UK Public Debate: Google Trends, Elections and the Macroeconomy

Abstract

Inequality among people has several unwanted effects, in humanistic, social and economic contexts. Several studies address distributional preferences among groups, but little is known about when inequality issues are focused and when and why inequality abatement measures are brought on the political agenda. We show that during the period 2004 to 2023, inequality issues were focused during elections to the EU and UK parliament and with greatest strength during the elections to the EU parliament in May 2004 and to the UK parliament in May 2015. Periods with high unemployment and inflation cause the discussion on inequality to be followed by discussions on inequality measures. However, when the discussion of inequality is followed very closely by the discussions of abatement measures, inequality aversion becomes more strongly associated with the macroeconomic variables inflation and GDP (recessions) than with unemployment and more strongly associated with the concerns for fairness than concerns with war and crime. The results were obtained examining Google Trends and scholarly studies.