Labor market institutions and the cohesion of the middle class

We develop a simple model to study how relative wage rigidity affects equilibrium taxation. It is argued that relative wage rigidity, by compressing incomes within the middle class, leads to a lower degree of redistributive conflict within the politically important core of society, even though income inequality may increase for society as a whole. In the model, people vote first on wage rigidity and second on redistributive taxation. The rigid society has a ower tax rate than the flexible one. it is supported by the “middle-class” in the first stage, while the poor, the rich and the unemployed suffer from it.