A intervenção do Estado aumenta a desigualdade económica?

Há quem diga que sim:

Less Economic Freedom Equals More Income Inequality, por Ronald Bailey (Reason)
 
Economic freedom and income inequality revisited: Evidence from a panel error correction model, por Nicholas Aspergis, Oguhzan Dincer e James Payne:

We investigate the causal relationship between income inequality and economic freedom using data from U.S. states over the period 1981 to 2004 within a panel error correction model framework. The results indicate bidirectional causality between income inequality and economic freedom in both the short and the long run. These results suggest that high income inequality may cause states to implement redistributive policies causing economic freedom to decline. As economic freedom declines, income inequality rises even more. In other words, it is quite possible for a state to get caught in a vicious circle of high income inequality and heavy redistribution.

O que eu suspeito - que a relação entre estatismo e desigualdade depende do tipo de intervenção: desconfio que altos impostos reduzem a desigualdade e que muita regulamentação aumenta a desigualdade.

Já agora, a respeito dessa diferença entre "impostos" e "regulação" como formas de intervenção estatal, o post Economic freedom and the size of government, or does paying taxes boost freedom?, por Tyler Cowen, e o paper Economic Freedom and the Size of Government, por James Mahon, argumentado que altos impostos estarão associados com maior liberdade económic (a esse respeito, um comentador do post de Cowen escreve "High taxes may indicate the government has used the tax system to achieve certain policy ends, rather than keeping taxes low but achieving those ends through extensive regulation. For instance, a pollution tax versus detailed emissions and building regulations for your factory" e outro "Lets say that some law of electoral dynamics means that the government every rich democracy must do roughly the same amount of stuff. Then raising taxes as buying your desired outcome requires only one form compulsion. Whereas regulating it into existence involves myriads".)